, and God gave me my desire; and now I give him again to God as long
as he shall live."

Then she pushed forward her beautiful boy; and as Eli looked at the
mother and child he was pleased, and drawing the little child to
himself, he blessed the waiting woman. With bowed head and falling
tears she went out at the tent door, leaving behind her the greatest
treasure of her life.

Before long the black tents were taken down by the women of the tribes,
the crowds of men and animals passed away through the openings in the
hills, and the festival was over. And Hannah rode up with her people
back to Ramah, but not before she had kissed her sweet boy once more,
weeping as she did so, and telling him in soft Hebrew words that she
would come again to see him.

The priests took the little child, and over his short blue tunic they
drew a white linen dress like their own. After that he lived with them
in one of the houses near the tabernacle on the hill of Shiloh, and
they taught him how to read from the old yellow rolls of the Bible; and
he served them, doing what he was told, as a little child should. And
there were other brown-eyed boys of Israel there, left by their
mothers, and all beautiful as little angels without wings.

Four times a year the Israelite tribes gathered round this hill of
Shiloh, to bring gifts, and offer worship to God, and hold councils of
war. Then little Samuel was glad, for his mother came to see him; and
he ran gaily about, now looking at the leaping fires on the brass
altar, now watching the clouds of sweet smoke rolling out from behind
the blue curtains of the holy place of the tabernacle.

Sometimes he was told to pour olive oil into a flickering lamp;
sometimes he would sing in the choir, or carry a golden bowl or a
priest's shoes; but he was never allowed to go in behind the thick veil
of purple, blue, crimson, gold, and white, which hid the sacred place
known as the Holy of Holies, where the gold-winged cherubs were.

Did his mother forget little Samuel? Other little children were born
to her, but still she remembered him, away among bearded men in that
large, dark tent; and this is how she showed her love for him. She
gathered of the finest of the lamb's wool, and having dyed it purple,
spun it into threads; and with her loom of strings hanging from the
roof she wove a little blue gown without a seam and without sleeves, to
reach from his chin to his knees; and she worked it round the