“Never trouble yourself about the repayment!  Talk to Gray, and then, when my mother has gone, send him up to talk to me,” said Herman.

To all this Nora said nothing.  She sat silently, with her head resting upon her hand, and a heavy weight at her heart, such as she always felt when their future was spoken of.  To her inner vision a heavy cloud that would not disperse always rested on that future.

Thus the matter rested for the present.

Herman continued his daily visits to the sisters, and longed impatiently for the time when he should feel free to acknowledge his beautiful young peasant-wife and place her at the head of his princely establishment.

These daily visits of the young heir to the poor sisters attracted no general attention.  The hut on the hill was so remote from any road or any dwelling-house that few persons passed near it, and fewer still entered its door.

It was near the middle of December, when Mrs. Brudenell was busy with her last preparations for her removal, that the first rumor of Herman’s visits to the hut reached her.

She was in the housekeeper’s room, superintending in person the selection of certain choice pots of domestic sweetmeats from the family stores to be taken to the town-house, when Mrs. Spicer, who was attending her, said: 

“If you please, ma’am, there’s Jem Morris been waiting in the kitchen all the morning to see you.”

“Ah!  What does he want?  A job, I suppose.  Well, tell him to come in here,” said the lady carelessly, as she scrutinized the label upon a jar of red currant jelly.

The housekeeper left the room to obey, and returned ushering in an individual who, as he performs an important part in this history, deserves some special notice.

He was a mulatto, between forty-five and fifty years of age, of medium size, and regular features, with a quantity of woolly hair and beard that hung down upon his breast.  He was neatly dressed in the gray homespun cloth of the country, and entered with a smiling countenance and respectful manner.  Upon the whole he was rather a good-looking and pleasing darky.  He was a character, too, in his way.  He possessed a fair amount of intellect, and a considerable fund of general information.  He had contrived, somehow or other, to read and write; and he would read everything he could lay his hands on, from the Bible to the almanac.  He had formed his own opinions upon most of the subjects that interest society, and he expressed them freely.  He kept himself well posted up in the politics of the day, and was ready to discuss them with anyone who would enter into the debate.