I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one,
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me.
The hind that would be mated by the lion,
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty though a plague
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brow, his hawking eyes, his curls
In our heart's table; heart too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favor.
--Shakspere.
Hannah Worth walked home, laden like a beast of burden, with an enormous
bag of hanked yarn on her back. She entered her hut, dropped the burden
on the floor, and stopped to take breath.
"I think they might have sent a negro man to bring that for you,
Hannah," said Nora, pausing in her spinning.
"As if they would do that!" panted Hannah.
Not a word was said upon the subject of Herman Brudenell's morning
visit. Hannah forebore to allude to it from pity; Nora from modesty.
Hannah sat down to rest, and Nora got up to prepare their simple
afternoon meal. For these sisters, like many poor women, took but two
meals a day.
The evening passed much as usual; but the next morning, as the sisters
were at work, Hannah putting the warp for Mrs. Brudenell's new web of
cloth in the loom, and Nora spinning, the elder noticed that the younger
often paused in her work and glanced uneasily from the window. Ah, too
well Hannah understood the meaning of those involuntary glances. Nora
was "watching for the steps that came not back again!"
Hannah felt sorry for her sister; but she said to herself: "Never mind, she will be all right in a few days. She will forget him."
This did not happen so, however. As day followed day, and Herman
Brudenell failed to appear, Nora Worth grew more uneasy, expectant, and
anxious. Ah! who can estimate the real heart-sickness of "hope
deferred!" Every morning she said to herself: "He will surely come
to-day !" Every day each sense of hearing and of seeing was on the qui
vive to catch the first sound or the first sight of his approach. Every
night she went to bed to weep in silent sorrow.
All other sorrows may be shared and lightened by sympathy except that of
a young girl's disappointment in love. With that no one intermeddles
with impunity. To notice it is to distress her; to speak of it is to
insult her; even her sister must in silence respect it; as the expiring
dove folds her wing over her mortal wound, so does the maiden jealously
conceal her grief and die. Days grew into weeks, and Herman did not
come. And still Nora watched and listened as she spun--every nerve
strained to its utmost tension in vigilance and expectancy. Human
nature--especially a girl's nature--cannot bear such a trial for any
long time together. Nora's health began to fail; first she lost her
spirits, and then her appetite, and finally her sleep. She grew pale,
thin, and nervous.