In fact, the good humor of the young man was imperturbable.  He sat there, as Nora observed, smiling and spreading his hands out over the genial blaze and seeking to talk amicably with Hannah, and feeling compensated for all the rebuffs he received from the elder sister whenever he encountered a compassionate glance from the younger, although at the meeting of their eyes her glance was instantly withdrawn and succeeded by fiery blushes.  He stayed as long as he had the least excuse for doing so, and then arose to take his leave, half smiling at Hannah’s inhospitable surliness and his own perseverance under difficulties.  He went up to Nora to bid her good-by.  He took her hand, and as he gently pressed it he looked into her eyes; but hers fell beneath his gaze; and with a simple “Good-day, Nora,” he turned away.

Hannah stood holding the cottage door wide open for his exit.

“Good morning, Hannah,” he said smilingly, as he passed out.

She stepped after him, saying: 

“Mr. Brudenell, sir, I must beg you not to come so far out of your way again to bring us a fish.  We thank you; but we could not accept it.  This also I must request you to take away.”  And detaching the rock fish from the nail where it hung, she put it in his hands.

He laughed good-humoredly as he took it, and without further answer than a low bow walked swiftly down the hill.

Hannah re-entered the hut and found herself in the midst of a tempest in a tea-pot.

Nora had a fiery temper of her own, and now it blazed out upon her sister—­her beautiful face was stormy with grief and indignation as she exclaimed: 

“Oh, Hannah! how could you act so shamefully?  To think that yesterday you and I ate and drank and feasted and danced all day at his place, and received so much kindness and attention from him besides, and to-day you would scarcely let him sit down and warm his feet in ours!  You treated him worse than a dog, you did, Hannah.  And he felt it, too.  I saw he did, though he was too much of a gentleman to show it!  And as for me, I could have died from mortification!”

“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.