as they brought forth a white-haired father, blinking with bleared
eyes at the forgotten sun, and gazing with dazed terror at the crowd
of excited people. Now it was Perez Hamlin, leading out Reuben,
holding him up with his arm, and crying like a baby in spite of all
that he could do. Nor need he have been ashamed, for there were few
men who were not in like plight. Then came Abner, and Abe Konkapot,
stepping carefully, as they carried in their arms George Fennell,
Prudence walking by his side, and holding fast his hand.

Nor must I forget to speak of Mrs. Poor. The big, raw-boned woman's
hard-favored countenance was lit up with motherly solicitude, as she
lifted, rather than assisted, Zadkiel, down the steps of the tavern.

"Wy don' ye take him up in yer arms?" remarked Obadiah Weeks,
facetiously, but it was truly more touching than amusing, to see the
protecting tenderness of the woman, for the puny little fellow whom an
odd freak of Providence had given her for a husband, instead of a son.

Although Mrs. Poor movingly declared that "He warn't the shadder of
hisself," the fact was, that having been but a short time in jail,
Zadkiel showed few marks of confinement, far enough was he, from
comparing in this respect, with the others, many of whom had been shut
up for years. They looked, with the dead whiteness of their faces and
hands, rather like grewsome cellar plants, torn from their native
darkness, only to wither in the upper light and air, than like human
organisms just restored to their normal climate. As they moved among
the tanned and ruddy-faced people, their abnormal complexion made them
look like representatives of the strange race of Albinos.

But saddest perhaps of all the sights were the debtors who found no