considered them as parents, and their house as home. Before the
winter snows were melted, the persecuted infant, the little
wanderer from a remote and heathen country, seemed native in the
New England cottage, and inseparable from the warmth and security
of its hearth. Under the influence of kind treatment, and in the
consciousness that he was loved, Ilbrahim's demeanor lost a
premature manliness, which had resulted from his earlier
situation; he became more childlike, and his natural character
displayed itself with freedom. It was in many respects a
beautiful one, yet the disordered imaginations of both his father
and mother had perhaps propagated a certain unhealthiness in the
mind of the boy. In his general state, Ilbrahim would derive
enjoyment from the most trifling events, and from every object
about him; he seemed to discover rich treasures of happiness, by
a faculty analogous to that of the witch hazel, which points to
hidden gold where all is barren to the eye. His airy gayety,
coming to him from a thousand sources, communicated itself to the
family, and Ilbrahim was like a domesticated sunbeam, brightening
moody countenances, and chasing away the gloom from the dark
corners of the cottage.

On the other hand, as the susceptibility of pleasure is also that
of pain, the exuberant cheerfulness of the boy's prevailing
temper sometimes yielded to moments of deep depression. His
sorrows could not always be followed up to their original source,
but most frequently they appeared to flow, though Ilbrahim was
young to be sad for such a cause, from wounded love. The
flightiness of his mirth rendered him often guilty of offences
against the decorum of a Puritan household, and on these
occasions he did not invariably escape rebuke. But the slightest