e would go to George, and they would watch over the
child and wait for him until he came to them in Heaven.

She put on her bonnet, scarcely knowing what she did, and went out to
walk in the lanes by which George used to come back from school, and
where she was in the habit of going on his return to meet the boy. It
was May, a half-holiday. The leaves were all coming out, the weather
was brilliant; the boy came running to her flushed with health,
singing, his bundle of school-books hanging by a thong. There he was.
Both her arms were round him. No, it was impossible. They could not be
going to part. "What is the matter, Mother?" said he; "you look very
pale."

"Nothing, my child," she said and stooped down and kissed him.

That night Amelia made the boy read the story of Samuel to her, and how
Hannah, his mother, having weaned him, brought him to Eli the High
Priest to minister before the Lord. And he read the song of gratitude
which Hannah sang, and which says, who it is who maketh poor and maketh
rich, and bringeth low and exalteth--how the poor shall be raised up
out of the dust, and how, in his own might, no man shall be strong.
Then he read how Samuel's mother made him a little coat and brought it
to him from year to year when she came up to offer the yearly
sacrifice. And then, in her sweet simple way, George's mother made
commentaries to the boy upon this affecting story. How Hannah, though
she loved her son so much, yet gave him up because of her vow. And how
she must always have thought of him as she sat at home, far away,
making the little coat; and Samuel, she was sure, never forgot his
mother; and how happy she must have been as the time came (and the
years pass away very quick) when she should see her boy and how good
and wise he had grown. This little sermon she spoke with a gentle
solemn voice, and dry eyes, until she came to the account of their
meeting--then the discourse broke off suddenly, the tender heart
overflowed, and taking the boy to her breast, she rocked him in her
arms and wept silently over him in a sainted agony of tears.

Her mind being made up, the widow began to take such measures as seemed
right to her for advancing the end which she proposed. One day, Miss
Osborne, in Russell Square (Amelia had not written the name or number
of the house for ten years--her youth, her early story came back to her
as she wrote the superscription) one day Miss Osborne got a letter from
Ameli