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child.' He said no more, but roughly seizing the babe, behaved as though he would have slain it before its mother's face. Griselda, who was doomed to endure all, and to consent to all, sat still and meek as a lamb, and let the cruel sergeant pursue his course. At length, however, she gently entreated the man (as though he had been one of noble birth) that she might kiss her child before it died: and so, with woful face, she laid its little body in her lap; and lulling it, and kissing it, and with a mother's heart yearning for the blessing of its safety, she said with her soft and benign voice—'Farewell, my child! I shall behold you no more. To that Father, with whose cross I have marked you, do I commend your sinless soul.' Then, turning to the sergeant, she meekly said, 'Now take your infant charge, and follow my Lord's commands; but oh! if they be for death, one thing I entreat at your hands, that you would bury its little body beyond the violation of beasts and carrion fowl:' so constant was this mother in her adversity. The man returned no answer to her petition, but, taking up the child, went back to his Lord, and told