Hannah, as a rule, had a smooth and unruffled brow; she was a careful woman, but not a troubled one.

At the present moment, however it could scarcely be said of this good soul that she was without cares.

The neighbors who came in to buy their bacon, and fresh eggs, and candles, and tea, remarked that Hannah had no longer a cheery word and a pleasant smile to give them, and the children, when they tumbled out their halfpennies and asked for "a little piece of taffy, please, ma'am," noticed that Hannah's eyes had red rims round them, and they wondered if she was naughty, and that was why she cried.
Yes, poor Hannah had a troubled heart during those early summer days, for Daisy lay so weak and languid, and indifferent to all external things, on her tiny little bed, never giving Hannah any information as to why she had wandered alone to Rosebury, never saying anything about the weight of sorrow which rested on her little heart, only now and then moaning out that she must get up and go to Mrs.Ellsworthy, and now and then feebly saying that she wished so very much that the Prince was there.
Hannah knew all about Mrs.Ellsworthy, and how she had taken the girls up, and tried to help them, after their mother's death; but who was the Prince?
Finding that the child continued slightly feverish, and most unnaturally weak--finding that the dainties she prepared were only just tasted by the little sufferer--Hannah looked well into her little store of hardly-earned money, and finding that she had sufficient to pay him, called in the village doctor.
Of course, with his limited experience, this good man could little understand Daisy's case.

He ordered medicine for her, and plenty of cooling drinks, and said that he could not find anything very much the matter, only she was most unnaturally weak.
"It's my thinking, sir," said Hannah, "that this is the kind of weakness that ends in death.

My little lady is all on the pine for something or some one, and unless she gets what she wants soon she will die." Hannah's view of the case was rather puzzling to the doctor, who stared at her, and considered her from that day forward a very fanciful woman.