"Judith Cardenier."

"And your father's name?"

"Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but it's twenty years
since he went away from home with his gun, and never has been
heard of since,--his dog came home without him; but whether he
shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can
tell. I was then but a little girl."

Rip had but one more question to ask; but he put it with a
faltering voice:

"Where's your mother?"

Oh, she too had died but a short time since; she broke a
blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New-England pedler.

There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The
honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught his
daughter and her child in his arms. "I am your father!" cried
he-"Young Rip Van Winkle once-old Rip Van Winkle now--Does nobody
know poor Rip Van Winkle!"

All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from among
the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his
face for a moment exclaimed, "sure enough! it is Rip Van
Winkle--it is himself. Welcome home again, old neighbor. Why,
where have you been these twenty long years?"