A STRANGE VISITOR.


It was the day after the circus. Robert Burnham sat in his office on
Lackawanna Avenue, busy with his afternoon mail. As he laid the last
letter aside the incidents of the previous day recurred to him, and he
saw again, in imagination, the long line of breaker-boys, with happy,
dusty faces, filing slowly by him, grateful for his gifts, eager for
the joys to come. The pleasure he had found in his generous deed
stayed with him, as such pleasures always do, and was manifest even
now in the light of his kindly face.

He had pondered, too, upon the strange story of the boy Ralph. It had
awakened his interest and aroused his sympathy. He had spoken to his
wife about the lad when he went home at night; and he had taken his
little daughter on his knee and told to her the story of the boy who
worked all day in the breaker, who had no father and no mother, and
whose name was--Ralph! Both wife and daughter had listened eagerly
to the tale, and had made him promise to look carefully to the lad
and help him to some better occupation than the drudgery of the
screen-room.

But he had already resolved to do this, and more. The mystery
surrounding the child's life should be unravelled. Obscure and humble
though his origin might be, he should, at least, bear the name to
which his parentage entitled him. The more he thought on this subject,
the wider grew his intentions concerning the child. His fatherly
nature was aroused and eager for action.