“Say! aint you proud of me now?”

“No,” replied the elder sister, with assumed gravity; “I am proud of your dress because it is my own handiwork, and it does me credit; but as for you—­”

“I am Nature’s handiwork, and I do her credit!” interrupted Nora, with gay self-assertion.

“I am quite ashamed of you, you are so vain!” continued Hannah, completing her sentence.

“Oh, vain, am I?  Very well, then, another time I will keep my vanity to myself.  It is quite as easy to conceal as to confess, you know; though it may not be quite as good for the soul,” exclaimed Nora, with merry perversity, as she danced off in search of her bonnet.

She had not far to look; for the one poor room contained all of the sisters’ earthly goods.  And they were easily summed up—­a bed in one corner, a loom in another, a spinning-wheel in the third, and a corner-cupboard in the fourth; a chest of drawers sat against the wall between the bed and the loom, and a pine table against the opposite wall between the spinning-wheel and the cupboard; four wooden chairs sat just wherever they could be crowded.  There was no carpet on the floor, no paper on the walls.  There was but one door and one window to the hut, and they were in front.  Opposite them at the back of the room was a wide fire-place, with a rude mantle shelf above it, adorned with old brass candlesticks as bright as gold.  Poor as this hut was, the most fastidious fine lady need not have feared to sit down within it, it was so purely clean.

The sisters were soon ready, and after closing up their wee hut as cautiously as if it contained the wealth of India, they set forth, in their blue cotton gowns and white cotton bonnets, to attend the grand birthday festival of the young heir of Brudenell Hall.

Around them spread out a fine, rolling, well-wooded country; behind them stood their own little hut upon the top of its bare hill; below them lay a deep, thickly-wooded valley, beyond which rose another hill, crowned with an elegant mansion of white free-stone.  That was Brudenell Hall.

Thus the hut and the hall perched upon opposite hills, looked each other in the face across the wooded valley.  And both belonged to the same vast plantation—­the largest in the county.  The morning was indeed delicious, the earth everywhere springing with young grass and early flowers; the forest budding with tender leaves; the freed brooks singing as they ran; the birds darting about here and there seeking materials to build their nests; the heavens benignly smiling over all; the sun glorious; the air intoxicating; mere breath joy; mere life rapture!  All nature singing a Gloria in Excelsis!  And now while the sisters saunter leisurely on, pausing now and then to admire some exquisite bit of scenery, or to watch some bird, or to look at some flower, taking their own time for passing through the valley that lay between the hut and the hall, I must tell you who and what they were.