"I does n't wonder you did not hear me when I came in," said the widow,
sighing. "I used to sit still for the hour together, when my poor Mark
read his poems to me. There was such a pretty one about the 'Peasant's
Fireside,' Lenny,--have you got hold of that?"

"Yes, dear mother; and I remarked the allusion to you: it brought tears
to my eyes. But these verses are not my father's; whose are they? They
seem in a woman's handwriting."

Mrs. Fairfield looked, changed colour, grew faint and seated herself.

"Poor, poor Nora!" said she, falteringly. "I did not know as they were
there; Mark kep' 'em; they got among his--"

LEONARD.--"Who was Nora?"

MRS. FAIRFIELD.--"Who?--child--who? Nora was--was my own--own sister."

LEONARD (in great amaze, contrasting his ideal of the writer of these
musical lines, in that graceful hand, with his homely uneducated mother,
who could neither read nor write).--"Your sister! is it possible! My
aunt, then. How comes it you never spoke of her before? Oh, you should
be so proud of her, Mother!"

MRS. FAIRFIELD (clasping her hands).--"We were proud of her, all of us,--
father, mother, all! She was so beautiful and so good, and not proud
she! though she looked like the first lady in the land. Oh, Nora, Nora!"

LEONARD (after a pause).--"But she must have been highly educated?"