When he got to the last house in the hamlet, the labourer's young wife was standing at the door with a child in her arms, he went up to her, and said: "Stina, you nursed my poor wife faithfully in her last illness. Here Stina!" and he tried to slip a few shillings into her hand.--"Sir, Sir," cried the young woman. "Don't! you pain me. What have you not done for us when you were rich, and now that evil days have come to you, should we not do our part?--Ah, Sir, I have a favour to ask of you. Leave your little girl here with me. I will love and tend her as if she were my own. And is she not as good as mine? Did I not nurse her when her mother was too weak to do it herself? Let me have charge of the child!" Hawermann stood buried in thought. "Sir," continued the woman, "from what I hear you'll have to part with the child sooner or later, and--but see, here comes Joseph, he will tell you the same." The labourer came up, and as soon as he heard what they were talking about, said: "Yes, Sir, she shall be treated like a princess. We are strong, and well-to-do in the world, and the kindness you have shown to us, we will richly repay to her."--"Nay," said Hawermann, rousing himself, "that will never do, I can't consent to that. I may be wrong in taking the child with me when my future is so uncertain, but I've left so much behind me here, that I can't do without the last that remains to me. No, no, I can't," he exclaimed turning to go, "my child must remain with me. Goodbye, Stina--good-bye, Rassow."--"If you won't leave the child with us. Sir," said the labourer, "at least let me go with you, and carry her for you."--"No, no," replied Hawermann, "I don't find her at all too heavy." Then the young woman kissed and fondled his little daughter, and kissed her again and again, and after he had resumed his journey, both she and her husband stood for a long, long time looking after him. She, with tears in her eyes and thinking most of the child; he, gravely and thinking most of the man.--"Stina," he said, "we shall never have such another master."--"God knows that," said she, and then they both went away sorrowfully to their daily work. CHAPTER II.