“I asked mother, one day, to let me do so, but she said I must never think of such a thing.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“And so you never went to see him?”

“No, indeed; mother said I must not.”  This was said with great artlessness.

“What became of your mother’s things after she died?”

“The woman we rented from took them all.  Mother owed her, she said.”

“Indeed!  Where did you live?”

“In Commerce street, three or four doors from Mr. Maxwell’s.  Mother rented a room up-stairs.”

“Does the woman live there still?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you ever go to see her?”

“No, sir; she won’t let me come into the house.”

“Why not?”

“I cannot tell.  She was going to send me to the poorhouse, when Mr. Maxwell took me in.  I have often and often wanted to see the room where we lived in, and where mother died, but she wouldn’t let me go up.  One day I begged and cried for her to let me go up—­I wanted to, so bad; but she called me a dirty little brat, and told me to go about my business, or she would get Mr. Maxwell to give me a beating.  I never have tried to go there since.”

“What is the woman’s name?”

“Her name is Mrs. Claxon.”

“And she lives three or four doors from Mr. Maxwell’s?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I am going home with you in a little while, and will get you to show me the house.  Your mother had some furniture in her room?”

“Yes, sir.  We had a bureau, and a bedstead, and a good many things.”

“Do you know what was in the bureau?”

“Our clothes.”

“Nothing else?”

“Mother had a beautiful little box that was always locked.  It had letters in it, I think.”

“Did you ever see her reading them?”

“Oh yes, often, when she thought I was asleep; and she would cry, sometimes, dreadful hard.”

“This box Mrs. Claxon kept?”

“Yes, sir; she kept every thing.”

“Very well.  We will see if we can’t make her give up some of the things.”

“If she will give me that little box, she may have every thing else,” said the lad.

“Why are you so desirous to have that box?”

“I sometimes think if I could get that box, and all the letters and papers it had in it, that I would be able to know better who I am, and why I mustn’t go and see my uncle, who is rich, and could take me away from where I am now.”

“You don’t like to live with Mr. Maxwell, then?”

“Oh no, sir.”

I did not question him as to the reason; that was unnecessary.

After putting up one or two prescriptions, (we had not then fallen into the modern more comfortable mode of writing them,) I told the boy that I would walk home with him, and excuse him to his master for having stayed away so long.  I had no great difficulty in doing this, although the shoemaker seemed at first a little fretted at my having taken up the lad’s cause again.  In passing to his shop, the house where Mrs. Claxon lived was pointed out to me.  Before leaving, I made Maxwell promise to let the boy come up on the next evening to get his feet dressed, telling him, what was true, that this was necessary to be done, or very serious consequences might follow.