ce of God--Divine Hand--Farewell, Child--The
Fair--Massive Edifice--Battered Tars--Lost! Lost!--Good Day, Gentlemen.

Leaving the house of the Armenian, I strolled about for some time; almost
mechanically my feet conducted me to London Bridge, to the booth in which
stood the stall of the old apple-woman; the sound of her voice aroused
me, as I sat in a kind of stupor on the stone bench beside her; she was
inquiring what was the matter with me.

At first, I believe, I answered her very incoherently, for I observed
alarm beginning to depict itself upon her countenance. Rousing myself,
however, I in my turn put a few questions to her upon her present
condition and prospects. The old woman's countenance cleared up
instantly; she informed me that she had never been more comfortable in
her life; that her trade, her _honest_ trade--laying an emphasis on the
word honest--had increased of late wonderfully; that her health was
better, and, above all, that she felt no fear and horror "here," laying
her hand on her breast.

On my asking her whether she still heard voices in the night, she told me
that she frequently did; but that the present were mild voices, sweet
voices, encouraging voices, very different from the former ones; that a
voice, only the night previous, had cried out about "the peace of God,"
in particularly sweet accents; a sentence which she remembered to have
read in her early youth in the primer, but which she had clean forgotten
till the voice the night before brought it to her recollection.

After a pause, the old woman said to me, "I believe, dear, that it is the
blessed book you brought me which has wrought this goodly change. How
glad I am now that I can read; but oh what a difference between the book
you brought to me and the one you took away. I believe the one you
brought is written by the finger of God, and the other by--"

"Don't abuse the book," said I, "it is an excellent book for those who
can understand it; it was not exactly suited to you, and perhaps it had
been better that you had never read it--and yet, who knows? Peradventure,
if you had not read that book, you would not have been fitted for the
perusal of the one which you say is written by the finger of God;" and,
pressing my hand to my head, I fell into a deep fit of musing. "What,
after all," thought I, "if there should be more order and system in the
working of the moral world than I have thought? Does there not seem in
the prese