d reward you for all your kindness!"

Hastily folding and directing this, she went to a drawer and made up a
little package of clothing for her boy, which she tied firmly round her
waist; and so fond is a mother's remembrance, that even in the terrors
of that hour she did not forget to put up in the little package one or
two of his favourite toys.

On the bed lay her slumbering boy, his long curls falling negligently
around his unconscious face, his rosy mouth half open, his little fat
hands thrown out over the bed-clothes, and a smile spread like a sunbeam
over his whole face. "Poor boy! poor fellow!" said Eliza, "they have
sold you, but your mother will save you yet."

It was some trouble to arouse the little sleeper; but after some effort
he sat up, and began playing with his wooden bird, while his mother was
putting on her bonnet and shawl.

"Where are you going, mother?" said he, as she drew near the bed with
his little coat and cap.

His mother drew near, and looked so earnestly into his eyes, that he at
once divined that something unusual was the matter.

"Hush, Harry," she said; "mustn't speak loud, or they will hear us. A
wicked man was coming to take little Harry away from his mother, and
carry him 'way off in the dark; but mother won't let him--she's going to
put on her little boy's cap and coat, and run off with him, so the ugly
man can't catch him."

Saying these words, she had tied and buttoned on the child's simple
outfit, and taking him in her arms, she whispered to him to be very
still; and, opening the door, she glided noiselessly out.

It was a sparkling, frosty, starlight night, and the mother wrapped the
shawl close round her child, as, perfectly quiet with terror, he clung
round her neck.

At first the novelty and alarm kept him waking; but after they had gone
a considerable way, poor Harry said, as he found himself sinking to
sleep--

"Mother I don't need to keep awake, do I?"

"No, my darling; sleep now, if you want to."

"But, mother, if I do get asleep, you won't let him get me?"

"No! so may God help me!" said his mother with a paler cheek, and a
brighter light in her large dark eyes.

"You're _sure_, an't you, mother?"

"Yes, _sure_!" said the mother, in a voice that startled herself; for it
seemed to her to come from a spirit within, that was no part of her; and
the boy dropped his little weary head on her shoulder, and was soon
asleep.

When morning came, as poor Harry