kiss me again. It will be for the last time. I shall never see him more.
But hark, what's that? Don't you hear bells? And there is the stamping
of feet at the door. Go, child, quickly, and not let them in here."

Hannah, too, heard the sound and the opening of the kitchen door, and
hurrying from her father's bedside, she called out, sharply:

"Who is it? Who's there?"

"My name is Norval, on the Grampian hills," was replied, in the
well-remembered voice of Grey, who continued, merrily, as he approached
her: "And you, dear Aunt Hannah, you are the dame with the wonderful
name which forward and backward still reads the same."

He did not attempt to waltz with her, as he had done with Lucy; he had
tried it once, but she went the wrong way, and he told her there was no
more dance in her than in the kitchen tongs. So now he only wound his
arms around her and kissed her many times, and when she sat down in a
chair, he stood over her and smoothed her hair and thought how gray it
had grown within the year. He had no suspicion that there was any secret
sorrow weighing upon her, but he knew that her life was a hard one,
owing to the peculiarities of his grandfather, and now as he looked at
her, he felt a great pity for her, and there was a lump in his throat,
as he stooped to kiss her again and said:

"Poor auntie, you look so tired and pale. Is grandpa so very sick, and
more troublesome than usual?"

Hannah had not cried in years. Indeed it was the effort of her life to
keep her tears back, but now, at the sound of Grey's sympathetic voice