He had spoken thus! he, the poor unlettered man who had scarcely ever opened his mouth before without a grievous assault upon good English! he had breathed these words of eloquent warning, as if by direct inspiration, as though his lips, like those of the prophet of old, had been touched by the living coal from Heaven.  His solemn words awed Hannah, who understood them by sympathy, and frightened Nora, who did not understand them at all.  The last rays of the finale were dying out, and with their expiring light the party on the upper piazza were seen to bow to the rustic assembly on the lawn, and then to withdraw into the house.

And thus ended the fete day of the young heir of Brudenell Hall.

The guests began rapidly to disperse.

Reuben Gray escorted the sisters home, talking with Hannah all the way, not upon the splendors of the festival—­a topic he seemed willing to have forgotten, but upon crops, stock, wages, and the price of tea and sugar.  This did not prevent Nora from dreaming on the interdicted subject; on the contrary, it left her all the more opportunity to do so, until they all three reached the door of the hill hut, where Reuben Gray bade them good-night.

CHAPTER III.

Passion.

  If we are nature’s, this is ours—­this thorn
  Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;
  It is the show and seal of nature’s truth
  When love’s strong passion is impressed in youth.

  —­Shakspere.

What a contrast! the interior of that poor hut to all the splendors they had left!  The sisters both were tired, and quickly undressed and went to bed, but not at once to sleep.

Hannah had the bad habit of laying awake at night, studying how to make the two ends of her income and her outlay meet at the close of the year, just as if loss of rest ever helped on the solution to that problem!

Nora, for her part, lay awake in a disturbance of her whole nature, which she could neither understand nor subdue!  Nora had never read a poem, a novel, or a play in her life; she had no knowledge of the world; and no instructress but her old maiden sister.  Therefore Nora knew no more of love than does the novice who has never left her convent!  She could not comprehend the reason why after meeting with Herman Brudenell she had taken such a disgust at the rustic beaus who had hitherto pleased her; nor yet why her whole soul was so very strangely troubled; why at once she was so happy and so miserable; and, above all, why she could not speak of these things to her sister Hannah.  She tossed about in feverish excitement.

“What in the world is the matter with you, Nora?  You are as restless as a kitten; what ails you?” asked Hannah.

“Nothing,” was the answer.

Now everyone who has looked long upon life knows that of all the maladies, mental or physical, that afflict human nature, “nothing” is the most common, the most dangerous, and the most incurable!  When you see a person preoccupied, downcast, despondent, and ask him, “What is the matter?” and he answers, “Nothing,” be sure that it is something great, unutterable, or fatal!  Hannah Worth knew this by instinct, and so she answered: