“Upon no account, Reuben.”

“Just as you say, then.  Good-by, my poor dear.”

And after another dozen affectionate adieus Reuben reluctantly dragged himself from the hut.

CHAPTER XV.

NORA’S SON.

  Look on this babe; and let thy pride take heed,
    Thy pride of manhood, intellect or fame,
  That thou despise him not; for he indeed,
    And such as he in spirit and heart the same,
  Are God’s own children in that kingdom bright,
    Where purity is praise, and where before
  The Father’s throne, triumphant evermore,
    The ministering angels, sons of light,
  Stand unreproved because they offer there,
    Mixed with the Mediator’s hallowing prayer,
  The innocence of babes in Christ like this.

  —­M.F.  Tupper.

Hannah was left alone with her sorrows and her mortifications.

Never until now had she so intensely realized her bereavement and her solitude.  Nora was buried; and the few humble friends who had sympathized with her were gone; and so she was alone with her great troubles.  She threw herself into a chair, and for the third or fourth time that day broke into a storm of grief.  And the afternoon had faded nearly into night before she regained composure.  Even then she sat like one palsied by despair, until a cry of distress aroused her.  It was the wail of Nora’s infant.  She arose and took the child and laid it on her lap to feed it.  Even Hannah looked at it with a pity that was almost allied to contempt.

It was in fact the thinnest, palest, puniest little object that had ever come into this world prematurely, uncalled for, and unwelcome.  It did not look at all likely to live.  And as Hannah fed the ravenous little skeleton she could not help mentally calculating the number of its hours on earth, and wishing that she had thought to request Mr. Wynne, while he was in the house, to baptize the wretched baby, so little likely to live for another opportunity.  Nor could Hannah desire that it should live.  It had brought sorrow, death, and disgrace into the hut, and it had nothing but poverty, want, and shame for its portion in this world; and so the sooner it followed its mother the better, thought Hannah—­short-sighted mortal.

Had Hannah been a discerner of spirits to recognize the soul in that miserable little baby-body!

Or had she been a seeress to foresee the future of that child of sorrow!

Reader, this boy is our hero; a real hero, too, who actually lived and suffered and toiled and triumphed in this land!

“Out of the depths” he came indeed!  Out of the depths of poverty, sorrow, and degradation he rose, by God’s blessing on his aspirations, to the very zenith of fame, honor, and glory!

He made his name, the only name he was legally entitled to bear—­his poor wronged mother’s maiden-name—­illustrious in the annals of our nation!