or have tongues, and I
am getting such a coward, Hannah--such a coward, I am too old to confess
it now. God has forgiven me; I am sure of that, and the world need not
know what we have kept so long, you and I. How long is it, Hannah? My
memory fails me, and sometimes it seems a thousand years, I have
suffered so much, and then again it is but yesterday--last night. How
long did you say, Hannah!

"Thirty-one years next Thanksgiving, was Hannah's reply, spoken, oh, so
mournfully low.

"Thirty-one years, and you were a girl of fifteen, and your hair was so
brown and glossy, just like your mother's Hannah--just like hers, and
now it is so grey Poor child! I am so sorry for you, but God knows all
you have borne for me, and some day you will shine as a star in His
crown, while I, if I am permitted to enter the gates, must have the
lowest seat."

It was the last of October when this conversation took place, and the
next day but one the old man did not get up as usual, but staid in bed
all that day, and the next, and the next, until it came to be understood
between himself and Hannah that he would never get up again.

"Shall I send for Burton?" Hannah asked, and he replied:

"No, he does not care to come, and why trouble him sooner than
necessary? He is not like you. He is grand and high, and ashamed of his
old father, but he is my son, and I must see him once more. He will be
up on Thanksgiving Day, and I shall live till then. Don't send for him.
I cannot have him in this room--can't have anybody--don't let them in!
Can no one see under the bed?"

"No, father, no one can see: no one shall come in," Hannah answered.

Then for weeks she kept her lonely watch over the half-crazed old man,
who started at every sound and whispered piteously:

"Don't let them come here, Hannah. I am too old; and there is Grey--the
boy--for his sake, Hannah, we will not let them come for me now!"

"No, father, they shall not come. Grey need not know," Hannah always
replied, though she had secretly cherished a hope that some time in the
future, when the poor old father was dead, she would tell Grey and ask
his help to do what she fully meant to do when her hands, bound for
thirty years, should be loosened from the chain.

She could trust Grey, could tell him everything, and feel sure that his
earnest, truthful blue eyes would took just as lovingly at her as ever,
and that he would comfort and help her as no one else could do.

Such was th