Isabel started up. "I will be no expense, I can paint, and embroider and sew! I can do so many things. All I want is a home. Give me that, only that!"

She fell back again, shivering and distressed, looking up to aunt Hannah with a glance of touching appeal that disturbed even the composure of that stony face.

"You will let her stay with us!" pleaded Mary.

"What else should we do?" inquired aunt Hannah. "She wants a home, and we have got one to give her. Isn't that enough?"

Isabel, who had been looking up with a vivid hope in her eyes, broke into a hysterical laugh at this, and seizing aunt Hannah's hard hand, kissed it with pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude.

"One word," questioned aunt Hannah; "do you love that young man?"

"Love him, oh, yes, yes, a thousand times, yes!" cried the poor girl, and the sparkle of her eyes was painful to look upon "I think it must kill me to see him no more. I am sure it must!"

"And you are sure he loves you?"

"_Sure_?" she cried, flinging out her clasped hands, "sure, yes, as I am of my own life!"

"And you believe him to be a good man?"

"I know it, have we not grown up together? He is pa.s.sionate, proud, impulsive--but n.o.ble. I tell you his faults would be virtues in other men."

As aunt Hannah listened, there came a glow upon her sallow cheeks, and a soft smile to her lips, as if something in Isabel's wild enthusiasm had given her pleasure.

"She shall stay with us! Surely with all our debts paid, we can find room for the child!"

"Room--room for the pauper--room!"

Isabel had caught the word, and sent it back again with wild glee, half singing half shouting it through her burning lips. The fever was beginning to rage through her veins.

Three times that night aunt Hannah went to the front door, to answer the eager questions of young Farnham, who had been wandering for hours in sight of the house. At last, as if struck with sudden compa.s.sion, the old lady invited him into the kitchen, and these two seemingly uncongenial persons, sat and conversed together with strange confidence till the day dawned.

When young Farnham arose to go, he took the aged hand of his companion and pressed it to his lips, with a homage to years acquired from abroad. He did not see the blood flush up into that withered face, or the tears that gathered slowly into her eyes; and was therefore, surprised when she arose, and as if actuated by an unconquerable impulse, kissed his forehead.

"Good-bye," she said, in a broken voice, "the poor girl up stairs shall not die for want of nursing."

"How good you are!" said the young man; "how can I ever repay you?"

Aunt Hannah looked at him with strange fondness.

"You paid our debts last night," she said, "or we might have had no home to give this girl."

"That was nothing, never mention it again."

"Nothing, why, boy, it was an act that you shall never forget to your dying day."

"Save _her_, and that will be an act that I shall never forget."

"Do you love her so much, then?"

"Love! I worship her--I can hardly remember the time when I did not love her!"

"And what would you sacrifice for her?"

"What? Everything."

"Stop and answer me steadily. If you could choose between all the property left by your father and Isabel Chester, which would you take?"

"Which would I take? Labor, poverty, and my Isabel. The property! what has it of value in comparison to this n.o.ble girl? I answer again Isabel, Isabel!"

A singular expression stole into the old woman's face.

"Would you live here, and work the place, when Nathan and I are too old, if you were sure of her for a wife?"

"I would do anything with her and for her," cried the youth, ardently.

"And," continued aunt Hannah, in a broken voice, still eyeing him anxiously--"you would find a corner for two old people somewhere in the homestead!"

"This is wild talk," said the young man, with a troubled smile. "I am my father's heir, and have no right to throw away his wealth; so it is useless talking of what I might, or could, do, under other circ.u.mstances."

"Then you would not be content to live here with your wife, and support yourself from the place?"

"I did not say so--but that it was impossible. Heaven knows I count wealth as nothing compared to Isabel."

"Then you only think of her, you care nothing for, for "--

Aunt Hannah paused, and put a hand to her throat, as if the words she suppressed pained her.

"I care for her, and for all that have been kind to her, now or ever,"

he replied, impressively; "most of all I am grateful to yourself."

"Once again," said aunt Hannah, clinging tenaciously to the point which seemed to interest her so much, "if you could not marry Isabel Chester without becoming as poor, for instance, as Joseph Esmond is--would you give up all and marry her?"

"Once again, then, yes, I would."

"And be happy after it?"

"With _her_, yes!"

"But you have never worked?"

"I can learn!"

"You are learned and love to mingle with great men. You are proud, and this is a poor old house!" She argued so earnestly that he could not refrain from smiling.

"I fancy, if the need come, I would get along with all these difficulties, without much regret. But this is idle speculation. In another month I shall be of age; then no one can claim legal authority over me or mine. I know there is great wealth to be accounted for, but have never known how much, or what restrictions are upon it. If it leaves me at liberty to marry Isabel, and she will give up this cruel resolve to abandon me, for her sake independence shall be welcome, if not, then I will answer your questions more promptly than you perhaps expect."

"That girl will never marry your mother's son--she has taken an oath against it."