felt, believe me, I felt the worse of the three, to be obliged to take
the course I did."

"He will never come here again, never!" sobbed Nora, scarcely heeding
the reply of her sister.

"I hope to Heaven he never may!" said Hannah, as she resumed her seat at
her loom and drove the shuttle "fast and furious" from side to side of
her cloth.

But he did come again. Despite the predictions of Nora and the prayers
of Hannah and the inclemency of the weather.

The next day was a tempestuous one, with rain, snow, hail, and sleet all
driven before a keen northeast wind, and the sisters, with a great
roaring fire in the fireplace between them, were seated the one at her
loom and the other at her spinning-wheel, when there came a rap at the
door, and before anyone could possibly have had time to go to it, it was
pushed open, and Herman Brudenell, covered with snow and sleet, rushed
quickly in.

"For Heaven's sake, my dear Hannah, give me shelter from the storm! I
couldn't wait for ceremony, you see! I had to rush right in after
knocking! pardon me! Was ever such a climate as this of ours! What a day
for the seventeenth of April! It ought to be bottled up and sent abroad
as a curiosity!" he exclaimed, all in a breath, as he unceremoniously
took off his cloak and shook it and threw it over a chair.

"Mr. Brudenell! You here again! What could have brought you out on such
a day?" cried Hannah, starting up from her loom in extreme surprise.