“I’ll go some place else; he mustn’t see me agin! He mustn’t never know as I’m alivin’. He mustn’t never be disgraced by the likes o’ me.” He paused a moment, and the expression of his face changed. “It’s a lie!” he cried, fiercely; “I ain’t got no relatives, nor any body to look after! It’s all a _lie_!” Then, shivering suddenly, he said, lowering his voice, and speaking softly to himself: “It’s cold, but I’ll not have no fire. Work—I must work! He’s a gentleman. I said he should be a gentleman—and he’s got learnin’—lots o’ learnin’——No, no! I never seen you before—I never seen you before!” The wild, terrified voice died with a rattling sound in his throat. “Father, father, speak to me! It is I, George!” Safford, in his agony, fell upon his knees. During the moment that followed there was profound silence; then Simlin opened his eyes, and said, gently,— “George! the little George!” A radiant light rested upon his thin face. He raised his trembling hands, and passed them unsteadily over the man’s head. “Yer hair is soft an’ black as hern, George. Hist! Don’t ye hear her singin’?—Why, Hetty, I’m a-comin’, Hetty!—I’m a-comin’——” [Illustration] [Illustration] THE ANTHEM OF JUDEA. I. At the foot of the hill stood a low, old-fashioned frame house, with a picket-fence round the yard, which ran down to a small stream that sometimes flowed along slowly, and sometimes with a great rush, and sometimes slept tranquilly beneath a sheeting of ice. Nearly a mile off, smooth and level, with pleasant streets, and a church whose spire shone in the sunlight long after the evening shade had crept over the ground, was the village of Pickaway, the gem of Paint Valley. From there, two days in every week, to the quaint old-fashioned house at the foot of the hill, the children wended their way with music folios, coming loiteringly in Summer over the narrow foot-path where the wild columbine grew by the creek, but in Winter walking hurriedly over the frozen turnpike, swinging their arms, blowing their fingers, and sometimes doing battle bravely with the snow. Here Franz Erckman lived in the plainest manner, with only his piano and his cottage-organ for companions. Wife and children he had none, nor any relative, nor any domestic pet. There was never a dog, or cat, or even so much as a chicken, to be seen about the premises. One servant he kept, to be sure, but she, a cross old woman, never opened her mouth for the purpose of speech more than a dozen times in a year, and then it was only upon some unusual provocation, as when the scholars broke a pitcher, or muddied her floor, when she would give utterance to some incoherent but disagreeable ejaculation.