who, after ascertaining that his master was the applicant, undid the
door and held a flaring pine-knot torch to light him in. Farther back
in the passageway the red blaze discovered a matronly woman, but no
little crowd of children came bounding forth to greet their father's
return.

As the Puritan entered he thrust aside his cloak and displayed
Ilbrahim's face to the female.

"Dorothy, here is a little outcast whom Providence hath put into our
hands," observed he. "Be kind to him, even as if he were of those dear
ones who have departed from us."

"What pale and bright-eyed little boy is this, Tobias?" she inquired.
"Is he one whom the wilderness-folk have ravished from some Christian
mother?"

"No, Dorothy; this poor child is no captive from the wilderness," he
replied. "The heathen savage would have given him to eat of his scanty
morsel and to drink of his birchen cup, but Christian men, alas! had
cast him out to die." Then he told her how he had found him beneath
the gallows, upon his father's grave, and how his heart had prompted
him like the speaking of an inward voice to take the little outcast
home and be kind unto him. He acknowledged his resolution to feed and
clothe him as if he were his own child, and to afford him the
instruction which should counteract the pernicious errors hitherto
instilled into his infant mind.

Dorothy was gifted with even a quicker tenderness than her husband,
and she approved of all his doings and intentions.