done his son great wrong, these many years.

'Give us your hand, Deacon,' cried the delighted pleader; 'you are a
good man, if you _are_ a Deacon, and that's more'n I'd have said a week
ago! You _have_ hurt that boy, and no mistake! You've either beaten the
spirit all out of him, or you have shut up a devil in him that'll break
out one o' these days, worse'n them that went into the pigs that we read
about! But 'tain't too late to mend, an' if a stitch in time _does_ save
nine, it's better to take the _nine_ stitches than to wait till they are
ninety times nine. You've got to be a thousand times kinder to the boy
than you would if you hadn't been so hard on him all his life.'

It was agreed that while the fever held its course nothing should be
said to poor Hannah, and so the two men parted--warm friends for the
first time in their lives.

And poor Hannah Lee went droopingly and patiently about her duties,
asking quietly from day to day as to the health of Jason, and telling no
soul how her heart seemed breaking within her, and how all the future
looked to her like a dreary waste.

Mrs. Hopkins threw out gentle hints that the Deacon might relent, and
that if he did the wish that was ever in Hannah's heart might be
realized. But the poor child paid little heed to her suggestions, a
foreshadowing of some direful calamity constantly enfolding and
saddening her. Still she kept bravely and quietly about her duties, and
it was only when she was alone in her chamber at night that she gave way
to the terrible wofulness that oppressed her, and prayed, and wept, and
wrestled with her sorrow.

And this sweet and lovely creature was the same pious and patient soul
who was afterwards taunted by rude village boys, and pointed at as one
who had sold herself to Satan.

One night she had cried herself asleep, and lay in an unquiet and fitful
slumber. As she thought of him alway by day, so now in her dreams the
image of Jason Fletcher was fantastically and singularly busy. It seemed
to her that she stood upon an eminence overlooking a peaceful valley of
that charming sort only to be seen in dreams. Afar off, and still, in
some strange way, very near, she beheld the youth of her love, who
reclined upon a bank beside a quiet stream. Everything was at rest. The
soft moonbeams--for, in her dream, evening rested on the valley--bathed
all the prospect in a cool effulgence. There was no sound, save only
that sweet music of never-sleeping