ow!" said the
good fellow.

"As if you could, Reuben! But it is I myself who do wrong to cry for
anything when I am blessed with the love of such a heart as yours,
Reuben! There, I will not cry any more. Of course, Ishmael must go to
the city and make his fortune, and I ought to be glad, and I am glad,
only I am sich a fool. Ishmael, my dear, this is Wednesday night, and
you say you are going o' Monday morning; so there aint no time to make
you no new shirts and things before you go, but I'll make a lot of 'em,
my boy, and send 'em up to you," said Hannah, wiping her eyes.

Ishmael opened his mouth to reply; but Reuben was before him with:

"So do, Hannah, my dear; that will be one of the best ways of comforting
yourself, making up things for the lad; and you shan't want for money,
for the fine linen nyther, Hannah, my dear! And when you have got them
all done, you and I can take them up to him when we go to see him! So
think of that, and you won't be fretting after him. And now, childun, it
is bedtime!"

On Friday evening Ishmael, in breaking up his school for the Christmas
holidays, also took a final leave of his pupils. The young master had so
endeared himself to his rough pupils that they grieved sincerely at the
separation. The girls wept, and even rude boys sobbed. Our stupid
little friend, Eddy, who could not learn grammar, had learned to love
his kind young teacher, and at the prospect of parting with him and
having the minister for a master roared aloud, saying:

"Master Worth have allers been good to us, so he have; but the
minister--he'll lick us, ever so much!"

Ishmael distributed such parting gifts as his slender purse would
afford, and so dismissed his pupils.

On Sunday evening he took leave of his friends, the Middletons, who
promised to join him in Washington in the course of a week.

And on Monday morning he took leave of Hannah and Reuben, and walked to
Baymouth to meet the Washington steamboat.

CHAPTER L.

CLAUDIA'S CITY HOME.

How beautiful the mansion's throned
Behind its elm tree's screen,
With simple attic cornice crowned
All graceful and serene.

--_Anon_.

Just north of the Capitol park, upon a gentle eminence, within its own
well-shaded and well-cultivated grounds, stood a fine, old, family
mansion that had once been the temporary residence of George Washington.

The house was very large, with many spacious rooms and broad passages
within, and many gar