Mr. Davis could still bring back to his mind with perfect clearness the first night he had spent in the little wooden cottage which he had hired for his residence; how while busily unpacking his trunk and trying to bring the disordered place into shape, he had opened the door in answer to a knock and beheld a woman stagger in out of the storm.  She was a young girl, surely not yet out of her teens, her pale and sunken face showing marks of refinement and of former beauty.  She carried in her arms a child of about a year’s age, and she dropped it upon the sofa and sank down beside it, half fainting from exhaustion.  The young clergyman’s anxious inquiries having succeeded in eliciting but incoherent replies, he had left the room to procure some nourishment for the exhausted woman; it was upon his return that the discovery of the romance alluded to was made, for the woman had disappeared in the darkness and storm, and the baby was still lying upon the sofa.

It was not altogether a pleasant romance, as is probably the case with a good many romances in reality.  Mr. Davis was destined to retain for a long time a vivid recollection of the first night which he spent in alternately feeding that baby with a spoon, and in walking the floor with it; and also to remember the sly glances which his parishioners only half hid from him when his unpleasant plight was made known.

It happened that the poorhouse at Hilltown near by, to which the infant would have gone if he had left it to the care of the county, was at that time being “investigated,” with all that the name implies when referring to public matters; the clergy of the neighborhood being active in pushing the charges, Mr. Davis felt that at present it would look best for him to provide for the child himself.  As the investigation came to nothing, the inducement was made a permanent one; perhaps also the memory of the mother’s wan face had something to do with the matter.  At any rate the young clergyman, tho but scantily provided for himself, managed to spare enough to engage a woman in the town to take care of the young charge.  Subsequently when Mr. Davis’ wife died the woman became Helen’s nurse, and so it was that Arthur, as the baby boy had been christened, became permanently adopted into the clergyman’s little family.

It had not been possible to keep from Arthur the secret of his parentage, and the fact that it was known to all served to keep him aloof from the other children of the town, and to drive him still more to the confidence of Helen.  One of the phrases which Mr. Davis had caught from the mother’s lips had been that the boy was a “gentleman’s son;” and Helen was wont to solace him by that reminder.  Perhaps the phrase, constantly repeated, had much to do with the proud sensitiveness and the resolute independence which soon manifested itself in the lad’s character.  He had scarcely passed the age of twelve before, tho treated by Mr. Davis with the love and kindness of