8.  The traveler drew near the board, but when he saw the scanty fare, he raised his eyes toward heaven with astonishment:  “And is this all your store?” said he; “and a share of this do you offer to one you know not? then never saw I charity before!  But, madam,” said he, continuing, “do you not wrong your children by giving a part of your last mouthful to a stranger?”

9.  “Ah,” said the poor widow—­and the tear-drops gushed into her eyes as she said it—­“I have a boy, a darling son, somewhere on the face of the wide world, unless Heaven has taken him away, and I only act toward you as I would that others should act toward him.  God, who sent manna from heaven, can provide for us as he did for Israel; and how should I this night offend him, if my son should be a wanderer, destitute as you, and he should have provided for him a home, even poor as this, were I to turn you unrelieved away!”

10.  The widow ended, and the stranger, springing from his seat, clasped her in his arms.  “God indeed has provided your son a home, and has given him wealth to reward the goodness of his benefactress:  my mother! oh, my mother!” It was her long lost son, returned to her bosom from the Indies.  He had chosen that disguise that he might the more completely surprise his family; and never was surprise more perfect, or followed by a sweeter cup of joy.

Definitions.—­1.  Fag’ots. bundles of sticks used for fuel.  Prat’tle, trifling talk.  Dis’si-pate, to scatter. 2.  Pu’ny, small and weak. 4.  Pil’grim-age, a journey. 5.  Sus’te-nance, that which supports life.  For’ti-tude, resolute endurance. 7.  In-dif’fer-ent, neither very good nor very bad.  Com-pli-ca’tion, entanglement.  Sym’pa-thies, compassion.  Prof’fered, offered to give. 9.  Man’na, food miraculously provided by God for the Israelites.

XXVI.  ABOU BEN ADHEM.

James Henry Leigh Hunt (b. 1784, d. 1859) was the son of a West Indian, who married an American lady, and practiced law in Philadelphia until the Revolution; being a Tory, he then returned to England, where Leigh Hunt was born.  The latter wrote many verses while yet a boy, and in 1801 his father published a collection of them, entitled “Juvenilia.”  For many years he was connected with various newspapers, and, while editor of the “Examiner,” was imprisoned for two years for writing disrespectfully of the prince regent.  While in prison he was visited frequently by the poets Byron, Moore, Lamb, Shelley, and Keats; and there wrote “The Feast of the Poets,” “The Descent of Liberty, a Mask,” and “The Story of Rimini,” which immediately gave him a reputation as a poet.  His writings include various translations, dramas, novels, collections of essays, and poems.

1.  Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
   Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
   And saw within the moonlight in his room,
   Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,
   An angel writing in a book of gold.