"My child," answered Hannah gravely, "however badly you or he might have
felt, believe me, I felt the worse of the three, to be obliged to take
the course I did."
"He will never come here again, never!" sobbed Nora, scarcely heeding
the reply of her sister.
"I hope to Heaven he never may!" said Hannah, as she resumed her seat at
her loom and drove the shuttle "fast and furious" from side to side of
her cloth.
But he did come again. Despite the predictions of Nora and the prayers
of Hannah and the inclemency of the weather.
The next day was a tempestuous one, with rain, snow, hail, and sleet all
driven before a keen northeast wind, and the sisters, with a great
roaring fire in the fireplace between them, were seated the one at her
loom and the other at her spinning-wheel, when there came a rap at the
door, and before anyone could possibly have had time to go to it, it was
pushed open, and Herman Brudenell, covered with snow and sleet, rushed
quickly in.
"For Heaven's sake, my dear Hannah, give me shelter from the storm! I
couldn't wait for ceremony, you see! I had to rush right in after
knocking! pardon me! Was ever such a climate as this of ours! What a day
for the seventeenth of April! It ought to be bottled up and sent abroad
as a curiosity!" he exclaimed, all in a breath, as he unceremoniously
took off his cloak and shook it and threw it over a chair.
"Mr. Brudenell! You here again! What could have brought you out on such
a day?" cried Hannah, starting up from her loom in extreme surprise.
"The spirit of restlessness, Hannah! It is so dull up there, and
particularly on a dull day! How do you do, Nora? Blooming as a rose,
eh?" he said, suddenly breaking off and going to shake hands with the
blushing girl.
"Never mind Nora's roses, Mr. Brudenell; attend to me; I ask did you
expect to find it any livelier here in this poor hut than in your own
princely halls?" said Hannah, as she placed a chair before the fire for
his accommodation.
"A great deal livelier, Hannah," he replied, with boyish frankness, as
he took his seat and spread out his hands before the cheerful blaze. "No
end to the livelier. Why, Hannah, it is always lively where there's
nature, and always dull where there's not! Up yonder now there's too
much art; high art indeed--but still art! From my mother and sisters all
nature seems to have been educated, refined, and polished away. There
we all sat this morning in the parlor, the young ladies punching holes
in pieces of muslin, to sew them up again, and calling the work
embroidery; and there was my mother, actually working a blue lamb on red
grass, and calling her employment worsted work. There was no talk but of
patterns, no fire but what was shut up close in a horrid radiator.
Really, out of doors was more inviting than in. I thought I would just
throw on my cloak and walk over here to see how you were getting along
this cold weather, and what do I find here? A great open blazing
woodfire--warm, fragrant, and cheerful as only such a fire can be! and a
humming wheel and a dancing loom, two cheerful girls looking bright as
two chirping birds in their nest! This is like a nest! and it is worth
the walk to find it. You'll not turn me out for an hour or so, Hannah?"