“Go lang!” and he laid a long birch stick on the back of the patient beast before him, and left Hannah to conclude her devotions among the dead. An epidemic of smallpox spread over the towns between the coast and Narragansett Bay, and in a neighboring town there was no one to go into the pest-house and nurse the sick. Hannah was told of the situation, and it touched her heart. “I will go,” she said. “But you have never had the smallpox,” said the visitor. “It makes no difference. I have a promise in my heart. Pain is nothing when it is over, and it is a glorious thing to bear for the sake of others. I shall surely live until the Great Thanksgiving. I will go. They need me.” She gave herself, night and day, to the sufferers, and did not take the disease. But she was very old, and when she returned to her cottage, it was with exhausted strength. To the church steps she went feebly, with each returning Sabbath. Autumn came with bountiful harvests. The blue gentians bloomed in the cranberry meadows and by the roadside; the apples, red and russet, bent down the trees; the cornfields rustled, and the hunter’s moon rose in the nightfall. The farmers were very busy filling their bursting barns and cribs; but Hannah’s home was silent. No one remembered to have seen her enter it. The curtains were drawn, the door closed. The next Sunday morning she did not appear upon the church steps as usual, and some neighbors went to the door of the little red house to inquire if she were ill. They rapped, and waited for the sound of feet under the withered morning-glory vines, but none came. The house seemed tenantless. One of the farmers at length pushed open a shutter, and, looking into the room usually occupied by Hannah, turned and said: “She lies there on the bed,—she is dead.” “The dream is ended,” said the other. “Poor soul, she was a good woman. God has taken her to Himself.” The window was forced. The worn body was tenderly cared for, and preparations were made for the funeral. Her will was found. She had given her property to the poor of the town, and requested that she might be buried from the church. The will also contained this strange request: “Since I leave all I have to the town, I hope the Selectmen will ask Rev. John Leland to attend my funeral, and that the bell may be tolled when my body is taken into the church, and rung when it is borne to the grave. I have given my life, and all I have of property, to the people of this town. May I ask, as a return for this, that the people will, in kindness, grant my last request?” [Illustration: ELECTRICITY AND MANUFACTURES BUILDING.]