So the old man went on.

“’ It was just such a night as this,’ she began again—­’leastways it was snow and not rain that was coming down, as if the Almighty was a-going to spend all His winter-stock at oncet.’—­’What happened such a night, auntie?’ I said.  ‘Ah, my lad!’ said she, ’ye may well ask what happened.  None has a better right.  You happened.  That’s all.’—­’Oh, that’s all, is it, auntie?’ I said, and laughed.  ’Nay, nay, Samuel,’ said she, quite solemn, ’what is there to laugh at, then?  I assure you, you was anything but welcome.’—­ ’And why wasn’t I welcome?’ I said.  ’I couldn’t help it, you know.  I’m very sorry to hear I intruded,’ I said, still making game of it, you see; for I always did like a joke.  ‘Well,’ she said, ’you certainly wasn’t wanted.  But I don’t blame you, Samuel, and I hope you won’t blame me.’—­’ What do you mean, auntie ?’ I mean this, that it’s my fault, if so be that fault it is, that you’re sitting there now, and not lying, in less bulk by a good deal, at the bottom of the Bishop’s Basin.’  That’s what they call a deep pond at the foot of the old house, sir; though why or wherefore, I’m sure I don’t know.  ’Most extraordinary, auntie!’ I said, feeling very queer, and as if I really had no business to be there.  ‘Never you mind, my dear,’ says she; ’there you are, and you can take care of yourself now as well as anybody.’—­’But who wanted to drown me?’ ’Are you sure you can forgive him, if I tell you?’—­’Sure enough, suppose he was sitting where you be now,’ I answered.  ’It was, I make no doubt, though I can’t prove it,—­I am morally certain it was your own father.’  I felt the skin go creepin’ together upon my head, and I couldn’t speak.  ’Yes, it was, child; and it’s time you knew all about it.  Why, you don’t know who your own father was!’—­’No more I do,’ I said; ’and I never cared to ask, somehow.  I thought it was all right, I suppose.  But I wonder now that I never did.’—­’Indeed you did many a time, when you was a mere boy, like; but I suppose, as you never was answered, you give it up for a bad job, and forgot all about it, like a wise man.  You always was a wise child, Samuel.’  So the old lady always said, sir.  And I was willing to believe she was right, if I could.  ‘But now,’ said she, ’it’s time you knew all about it.—­Poor Miss Wallis!—­I’m no aunt of yours, my boy, though I love you nearly as well, I think, as if I was; for dearly did I love your mother.  She was a beauty, and better than she was beautiful, whatever folks may say.  The only wrong thing, I’m certain, that she ever did, was to trust your father too much.  But I must see and give you the story right through from beginning to end.—­Miss Wallis, as I came to know from her own lips, was the daughter of a country attorney, who had a good practice, and was likely to leave her well off.  Her mother died when she was a little girl.  It’s not easy getting on without a mother, my boy.  So she wasn’t taught much of the best sort, I reckon.  When