alth to the man
who believed that death had blotted out all the evidences of his
villainy--this was quite enough to excite his professional interest,
even had he been unacquainted with the man defrauded. But the position
of this uncomplaining, dependent man, who could not fight his own
battles, made an irresistible appeal to his sense of justice and his
manhood.

The moment, however, that the lawyer proposed to assist in righting the
wrong, Mr. Benedict became dangerously excited. He could tell his story,
but the thought of going out into the world again, and, particularly of
engaging in a conflict with Robert Belcher, was one that he could not
entertain. He was happier in the woods than he had been for many years.
The life was gradually strengthening him. He hoped the time would come
when he could get something for his boy, but, for the present, he could
engage in no struggle for reclaiming and maintaining his rights. He
believed that an attempt to do it would again drive him to distraction,
and that, somehow, Mr. Belcher would get the advantage of him. His fear
of the great proprietor had become morbidly acute, and Mr. Balfour could
make no headway against it. It was prudent to let the matter drop for a
while.

Then Mr. Balfour opened his heart in regard to the boy. He told Benedict
of the loss with which he had already acquainted Jim, of the loneliness
of his remaining son, of the help that Harry could afford him, the need
in which the lad stood of careful education, and the accomplishments he
could win among better opportunities and higher society. He would take
the boy, and treat him, up to the time of his majority, as his own. If
Mr. Benedict could ever return the money expended for him, he could have
the privilege of doing so, but it would never be regarded as a debt.
Once every year the lawyer would bring the lad to the woods, so that he
should not forget his father, and if the time should ever come when it
seemed practicable to do so, a suit would be instituted that would give
him the rights so cruelly withheld from his natural protector.

The proposition was one which taxed to its utmost Mr. Benedict's power
of self-control. He loved his boy better than he loved himself. He hoped
that, in some way, life would be pleasanter and more successful to the
lad than it had been to him. He did not wish him to grow up illiterate
and in the woods; but how he was to live without him he could not tell.
The plucking out