Bessie's Fortune - A Novel by Mary Jane Holmes
page 51 of 598 (08%)
page 51 of 598 (08%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
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 |
|