What could I do ?--Oh, yes, I recollect all now! I married her, that my old friend's child might have a roof to her head, and come to no harm.

You see I was forced to do her that injury; for, after all, poor young creature, it was a sad lot for her.

A dull bookworm like me,--cochlea vitam agens, Mr.
Squills,--leading the life of a snail! But my shell was all I could offer to my poor friend's orphan." "Mr.Caxton, I honor you," said Squills, emphatically, jumping up, and spilling half a tumblerful of scalding punch over my father's legs.

"You have a heart, sir; and I understand why your wife loves you.

You seem a cold man, but you have tears in your eyes at this moment." "I dare say I have," said my father, rubbing his shins; "it was boiling!" "And your son will be a comfort to you both," said Mr.Squills, reseating himself, and, in his friendly emotion, wholly abstracted from all consciousness of the suffering he had inflicted; "he will be a dove of peace to your ark." "I don't doubt it," said my father, ruefully; "only those doves, when they are small, are a very noisy sort of birds--non talium avium cantos somnum reducent.