"Get it healed," said she.

"The linen is good; it must be the child of no poor people. Who
knows?"--soliloquised the old man.

"My poor nose!" exclaimed the old woman.

"I must take it to the nurses, and the letter I will give to-morrow,"
said the old porter, winding up his portion of this double soliloquy,
and tottering away with the basket and your humble servant across the
courtyard.

"There, it will do now," said the old wife, wiping her face on a towel,
and regaining her bed, in which she was soon joined by her husband, and
they finished their nap without any further interruption during that
night.

The next morning I was reported and examined, and the letter addressed
to the governors was opened and read. It was laconic, but still, as most
things laconic are, very much to the point.

"This child was born in wedlock--he is to be named Japhet. When
circumstances permit, he will be reclaimed."

But there was a postscript by Abraham Newlands, Esq., promising to pay
the bearer, on demand, the sum of fifty pounds. In plainer terms, there
was a bank note to that amount inclosed in the letter. As in general,
the parties who suspend children in baskets, have long before suspended
cash payments, or, at all events, forget to suspend them with the
baskets, my arrival created no little noise, to which I added my share,