"Herr, Herr," cried the young wife, "don't do me that injury! What have you not done for us in good days? Why should we not in hard times make some little return? Ah, Herr, I have one favor to ask; leave the child here with me! I will cherish it as if it were my own. And is it not like my own? I have nursed it at my breast, when your poor wife was so weak. Leave me the child!" Habermann stood in deep thought. "Herr," said the woman, "you will have to separate from the poor little thing, sooner or later. See, here comes Jochen, he will speak for himself." The laborer came up, and, as he heard of what they were speaking, said, "Yes, Herr, she shall be cared for like a princess, and we are healthy, and well to do, and what you have done for us, we will richly repay to her." "No," said Habermann, lifting himself from his thoughts, "that won't go, I can't do it. I may be wrong to take the child with me upon an uncertainty; but I have left so much here, this last thing I cannot give up. No, no! I can't do it," cried he hastily and turned himself to go, "my child must be where I am. Adieu, Stina! Adieu, Rassow!" "If you will not leave us the child, Herr," said the laborer, "let me at least go with you a little way, and carry her for you." "No, No!" said Habermann, "she is no burden for me;" but he could not hinder the young woman from stroking and kissing his little daughter, and ever again kissing her, nor that both these honest souls, as he went on his way, should stand long looking after him. She, with tears in her eyes, thought more of the child, he, in serious reflection, more of the man. "Stina," said he, "we shall never again have such a master." "The Lord knows that," said she, and both went sadly back to their daily labor. CHAPTER II.