"My--good--gracious--me--alive! Twelve years! Why on earth don't you get

married, Hannah?"

"He cannot afford it, dear; it takes everything he can rake and scrape

to keep his mother and his little brothers and sisters, and even with

all that they often want."

"Well, then, why don't he let you off of your promise?"

"Nora!--what! why we would no sooner think of breaking with each other

than if we had been married, instead of being engaged all these twelve

years!"

"Well, then, when do you expect to be married?"

"I do not know, dear; when his sisters and brothers are all grown up and

off his hands, I suppose."

"And that won't be for the next ten years--even if then! Hannah, you

will be an elderly woman, and he an old man, before that!"

"Yes, dear, I know that; but we must be patient; for everyone in this

world has something to bear, and we must accept our share. And even if

it should be in our old age that Reuben and myself come together, what

of that? We shall have all eternity before us to live together; for,

Nora, dear, I look upon myself as his promised wife for time and

eternity. Therefore, you see there is no such thing possible as for me

to break with Reuben. We belong to each other forever, and the Lord

himself knows it. And now, dear, be quiet and try to sleep; for we must

rise early to-morrow to make up by industry for the time lost to-day;

so, once more, good-night, dear."

Nora responded to this good-night, and turned her head to the wall--not

to sleep, but to muse on those fiery, dark-brown eyes that had looked

such mysterious meanings into hers, and that thrilling deep-toned voice

that had breathed such sweet praise in her ears. And so musing, Nora

fell asleep, and her reverie passed into dreams.

Early the next morning the sisters were up. The weather had changed with

the usual abruptness of our capricious climate. The day before had been

like June. This day was like January. A dark-gray sky overhead, with

black clouds driven by an easterly wind scudding across it, and

threatening a rain storm.

The sisters hurried through their morning work, got their frugal

breakfast over, put their room in order, and sat down to their daily

occupation--Hannah before her loom, Nora beside her spinning-wheel. The

clatter of the loom, the whir of the wheel, admitted of no conversation

between the workers; so Hannah worked, as usual, in perfect silence, and

Nora, who ever before sung to the sound of her humming wheel, now mused

instead. The wind rose in occasional gusts, shaking the little hut in

its exposed position on the hill.




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