“Do you know who I am?” he asked, in a subdued voice, after he had recovered, to some extent, his feelings.

The child looked again into his face, but longer and more earnestly.  Then, without answering, he turned and looked at the portrait on the wall.

“Do you know who I am, dear?” repeated Mr. Crawford.

“No, sir,” replied the child; and then again turned to gaze upon the picture.

“Who is that?” and Mr. Crawford pointed to the object that so fixed the little boy’s attention.

“My mother.”  And as he said these words, he laid his head down upon the bosom of his unknown relative, and shrunk close to him, as if half afraid because of the mystery that, in his infantile mind, hung around the picture on the wall.

Moved by an impulse that he could not restrain, Mr. Crawford drew his arms around the child and hugged him to his bosom.  Pride gave way; the iron will was bent; the sternly uttered vow was forgotten.  There is power for good in the presence of a little child.  Its sphere of innocence subdues and renders impotent the evil spirits that rule in the hearts of selfish men.  It was so in this case.  Mr. Crawford might have withstood the moving appeal of even his daughter’s presence, changed by grief, labor, and suffering, as she was.  But his anger, upon which he had suffered the sun to go down, fled before her artless, confiding, innocent child.  He thought not of Fanny—­as the wilful woman, acting from the dictate of her own passions or feelings; but as a little child, lying upon his bosom—­as a little child, singing and dancing around him—­as a little child, with, to him, the face of a cherub; and the sainted mother of that innocent one by her side.

When the Friend came for the little boy; Mr. Crawford said to him, in a low voice—­made low to hide his emotion—­

“I will keep the child.”

“From its mother?”

“No.  Bring the mother, and the other child.  I have room for them all.”

A sunny smile passed over the benevolent countenance of the Friend as he hastily left the room.

Mrs. Logan, worn down by exhausting labor, had at last been forced to give up.  When she did give up, every long strained nerve of mind and body instantly relaxed; and she became almost as weak and helpless as an infant.  While in this state, she was accidentally discovered by the kind-hearted old Friend, who, without her being aware of what he was going to do, made his successful attack upon her father’s feelings.  He trusted to nature and a good cause, and did not trust in vain.

“Come, Mrs. Logan,” said the kind woman, with whom Fariny was still boarding, an hour or so after little Henry had been dressed up to take a walk—­where, (sic) the the mother did not know or think,—­“the good Friend, who was here this morning, says you must ride out.  He has brought a carriage for you, It will do you good, I know.  He is very kind.  Come, get yourself ready.”