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.

Hannah and Leonora Worth were orphans, living alone together in the hut
on the hill and supporting themselves by spinning and weaving.

Hannah, the eldest, was but twenty-eight years old, yet looked forty;
for, having been the eldest sister, the mother-sister, of a large
family of orphan children, all of whom had died except the youngest,
Leonora,--her face wore that anxious, haggard, care-worn and prematurely