"Villain!" said Miller, in a paroxysm of anger, turning toward him—"I will have you before the the court in less than twenty-four hours for inhuman treatment of this child—of my child."
As Miller said this, the trembling boy at his side started and looked eagerly in his face.
"Oh, sir! Are you indeed my father?" said he, in a voice that thrilled me to the finger ends.
"Yes, William; I am your father, and I have come to take you home."
Tears gushed like rain over the cheeks of the poor boy. He shrank close to his father's side, and clung to him with a strong grasp, still looking up into a face that he had never hoped to see, with a most tender, confiding, hopeful, expressive countenance.
The announcement of the fact subdued the angry shoemaker. He made a feeble effort at apology, but was cut short by our turning abruptly from him and carrying of the child he had so shamefully abused.
I parted from the father and son at the first carriage-stand that came in our way. When I next saw Bill, his appearance was very different indeed from what it was when I first encountered him. His father lived some ten years from this time during the most of which period William was at school or college. At his death he left him a large property, which remained with him until his own death, which took place a few years ago. He never I believe, had the most distant idea of the cause which had separated his mother from his father. That there had been a separation he knew too well but, he always shrank from inquiring the reason, and had always remained in ignorance of the main facts here recorded.
EUTHANASY.
"YOU remember Anna May, who sewed for you about a year ago?" said one fashionably-dressed lady to another.