"You cannot do so," said Mrs. Newton, wiping her eyes; "leave it
with me; I have no children of my own, my husband would like to have
one; this babe shall lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter. I
will nurse it for you until you are settled in America, and send or
come for it."

The young man wept with gratitude; he wanted to know how he was to
repay Mrs. Newton, but she said for the present she did not want
payment, that it would be a pleasure to her to have the baby; and it
would be time enough to talk about payment when the father was able
to claim it, and take it to a home.

So the next day they buried the poor young woman, and soon after the
young man went away and sailed off to America, and from that day to
this Mrs. Newton had never heard anything of him.

As she had said, that poor little motherless babe lay in her bosom,
and was unto her as a daughter; she loved it; she loved it when it
was a helpless little thing, weak and sickly; she loved it when it
grew a pretty lively baby, and would set its little feet on her
knees, and crow and caper before her face; she loved it when it began
to play around her as she sat at work, to lisp out the word "Ganny,"
for she taught it to call her grandmother; she loved it when it would
follow her into her nice garden, and pick a flower and carry it to
her, as she sat in the little arbor; and she, holding the flower,
would talk to it of God who made the flower, and made the bee that
drew honey from the flower, and made the sun that caused the flower
to grow, and the light that gave the flower its colors, and the rain
that watered it, and the earth that nourished it. And she loved that