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"Indeed!"

"Yes, we shall see the old manner of supporting the poor abandoned; and they will occupy a large house and live on a fine farm, and work at good trades in shops, and be again men and women. I shouldn't object to living among them myself if it should be found necessary."

"Are you sure it will be so?" inquired the poor girl, almost with an earnestness of wildness.

"We think there is little doubt of it," said both Mrs. Haddock and James

"Then," said she, "father can be comfortable if he should be left alone and friendless!"

"Don't grieve for your father, Hetty, we will see that he is taken good care of. He will not want for friends."

"Well, then, if that is so, Mag Davis' dream will come to pass, won't it? How strange!" said Hetty. And so, as they asked her about it, she had to tell them of Mag's dream. James said Mag had told it to him years ago, and predicted its fulfillment partly on his own good fortune.

"They might have been something, those paupers -- they were not all demented nor demoralized," said James -- "if their poverty had been made respectable. There was and is the error. It was put down so low, that it effectually crushed them. If they had any desire to rise, they could not; and they were shut out of the pale of Christian benevolence by a selfishness that denied them any true commiseration. They were neither respected nor pitied. Indeed, as paupers, they occupied little attention any way. Little was expected of them. They were viewed as past their usefulness, and a burden. So the paupers were an incumbrance in life, and in death were hardly worth the cost of the undertaker's bill. A bill introduced into one of our Legislatures to give the bodies of paupers to surgeons, was probably to get rid of the expense of burying them. (16) Oh! there is no boundary to human selfishness. Give it fair play, and it would strip the earth of every thing green, and the sky of every tiling bright. It has instituted this system of supporting poor folks. There is no Christian benevolence in it. The object is to save a greater expense by preparing for this. Paupers left to roam at large would demoralize the country, and be a heavy tax on individuals. So they are put into one common charge, as the town's worn-out property, like old wagons with rattling spokes and broken arms; carts with broken tire and axle; stoves rusted through, and valueless pails with broken handles, dresses too often patched to be longer worth the thread to mend them, brooms worn short up, an old horse without teeth to grind his food ."

"Why, James!" said Hetty.

"Quite a picture!" said Mrs. Haddock.

"I know it," said he, "but it's the truth. Do not the poor-house laws disfranchise men, sell them at auction, refuse them a vote, forbid them to serve on a jury, (but not to be judged) take away their children, refuse to sanction a freedom of marriage, or always to legalize it; and as we have seen, would not many be found willing to give their 'dead bodies to the surgeons?' (You may condemn the system of slavery, but remember your own glass house.) And to complete the picture, sell them on the block, in public town-meeting, to the lowest bidder! Here is our Christian institution. I have a right to speak of it, and to denounce it. I have seen and felt it. I have on my body now its seal. This is Northern Christianity and humanity! This is the compassion of enlightened free citizens --- But I will not go on. I will leave you and go after Captain Bunce."

So saying, James strolled out into a dense grove on the border of the old pond where he had formerly spent a good many days in fishing. Following a path that led through it to a large open field beyond, he was about to cross a ravine through which a small stream was passing, when the sound of voices arrested him; and looking attentively through the hemlock boughs that hung thickly around, he saw two men seated on a log at the edge of the stream, quite earnestly engaged in talking. One of these was the Captain -- the other, after a little scrutiny, he discovered to be none other than Dan Barnes.

Knowing very well the wandering, gipsy manner of life the paupers led, and Dan in particular, he was not surprised to see him. Hesitating whether to retire or to advance, he heard enough to satisfy him that their conversation was on the subject of religion. Curious to know what these two men would say on a theme they had not usually been accustomed to regard with much solemnity of feeling, he continued in the concealment of the boughs for some minutes. The men had evidently been sitting there and talking for a good while. The Captain had gathered a bundle of spruce boughs for his beer, and they lay beside him. In like manner, Dan had replenished his foraging bag, and it lay near on the ground. He was evidently listening attentively to the conversation of the other, with his head bent forward and his eyes on the ground. The other was sitting facing him; and as he talked, he frequently elevated his hand and reached it out, and pointed with his finger as men do when engaged in conversation -- especially when in argument one would convince or persuade another.