He therefore had left her and
his little son three months since, and they had only heard from him
once. Horace was now six years old, and was going to a day-school in
the city; and as Mr Jackson had left a sum of money with her which was
not yet exhausted, she was not in want as regarded herself or the child,
and was now anxiously looking for the father's return. But it had
pleased God to lay her low with sickness; and feeling that her time must
be short, she was deeply concerned as to what was to become of her
little charge, whom she loved as dearly as if he had been her own.

"I told her not to distress herself on this subject, but to cast this
burden on the Lord, and that I would see what could be done. Her poor
face lighted up when I said these words; and from the reply which she
made, I concluded that she was a pious woman and knew where to lay her
cares. So I went home, and after giving the necessary directions for
the poor nurse's comfort, I began seriously to consider what was to be
done for the poor child; and after putting the matter before the Lord, I
resolved to take him into my own house, and treat him as my own till his
father should turn up. And so a week later, when the faithful old nurse
was buried, I took the little Horace to live with me, and we have never
been long separated from that day to this.

"But what of William Jackson, his father? Months rolled on, and no
tidings--a year, and no tidings. Horace had learned to call me uncle,
and I to call him and speak of him as nephew: and though friends and
neighbours at first perfectly understood that this was only a loving
mode of address, not at all intended to deceive anybody, yet in process
of time it became so completely a matter of course with us, that we can
hardly either of us believe that this relationship does not really exist
between us, and so I shall be `Uncle Dawson' to him, and he will be
`Nephew Horace' to me till death parts us. Horace was now seven years
old, and I felt only too thankful to mark in him the evidences of a real
love to that Saviour whom his good old nurse had taught him to know and
serve in his childish way. And so the boy was twining himself tight
round my heart, and, to tell the honest truth, I began to dread the
father's return, and almost to hope he might never come back to claim
his child.

"It was one beautiful day in February. You must remember, dear friends,
that February is one of our hot months in th