light him in. Farther back in the passage-way, the red blaze discovered a matronly woman, but no little crowd of children came bounding forth to greet their father's return. As the Puritan entered, he thrust aside his cloak, and displayed Ilbrahim's face to the female.
'Dorothy, here is a little outcast whom Providence hath put into our hands,' observed he. 'Be kind to him, even as if he were of those dear ones who have departed from us.'
'What pale and bright-eyed little boy is this, Tobias?' she inquired. 'Is he one whom the wilderness folk have ravished from some christian mother?'
'No, Dorothy, this poor child is no captive from the wilderness,' he replied. 'The heathen savage would have given him to eat of his scanty morsel, and to drink of his birchen cup; but christian men, alas! had cast him out to die.'
Then he told her how he had found him beneath the gallows, upon his father's grave; and how his heart had prompted him, like the speaking of an inward voice, to take the little outcast home, and be kind unto him. He acknowledged his resolution to feed and clothe him, as if he were his own child, and to afford him the instruction which should counteract the pernicious errors hitherto instilled into his infant mind. Dorothy was gifted with even a quicker tenderness than her husband, and she approved of all his doings and intentions.
