But Mrs. Geraldine said "No," very decidedly, for though as yet she
cared but little for her child, she cared a great deal for the
proprieties, and her friends were beginning to wonder at the protracted
absence of the boy; so she must take him from poor Hannah, who tied on
his scarlet cloak and cap of costly lace, and carried him to the
carriage and put him into the arms of the red-haired German woman who
was hereafter to be his nurse and win his love from her.

Then the carriage drove off, but, as long as it was in sight, Hannah
stood just where it had left her, watching it with a feeling of such
utter desolation as she had never felt before.

"Oh, baby, baby! come back to me!" she moaned piteously. "What shall I
do without you?"

"God will comfort you, my daughter. He can be more to you than baby
was," the old father said to her, and she replied:

"I know that. Yes, but just now I cannot pray, and I am so desolate."

The burden was pressing more heavily than ever, and Hannah's face grew
whiter, and her eyes larger, and sadder, and brighter as the days went
by, and there was nothing left of baby but a rattle-box with which he
had played, and the cradle in which he had slept. This last she carried
to her room up stairs and made it the shrine over which her prayers were
said, not twice or thrice, but many times a day, for Hannah had early
learned to take every care, great and small, to God, knowing that peace
would come at last, though it might tarry long.

Geraldine sent her a black silk dress, and a white Paisley shawl in