Ishmael | Page 3

of
your dress because it is my own handiwork, and it does me credit; but
as for you--"
"I am Nature's handiwork, and I do her credit!" interrupted Nora, with
gay self-assertion.
"I am quite ashamed of you, you are so vain!" continued Hannah,
completing her sentence.
"Oh, vain, am I? Very well, then, another time I will keep my vanity to
myself. It is quite as easy to conceal as to confess, you know; though it
may not be quite as good for the soul," exclaimed Nora, with merry
perversity, as she danced off in search of her bonnet.
She had not far to look; for the one poor room contained all of the
sisters' earthly goods. And they were easily summed up--a bed in one

corner, a loom in another, a spinning-wheel in the third, and a
corner-cupboard in the fourth; a chest of drawers sat against the wall
between the bed and the loom, and a pine table against the opposite
wall between the spinning-wheel and the cupboard; four wooden chairs
sat just wherever they could be crowded. There was no carpet on the
floor, no paper on the walls. There was but one door and one window
to the hut, and they were in front. Opposite them at the back of the
room was a wide fire-place, with a rude mantle shelf above it, adorned
with old brass candlesticks as bright as gold. Poor as this hut was, the
most fastidious fine lady need not have feared to sit down within it, it
was so purely clean.
The sisters were soon ready, and after closing up their wee hut as
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 aged look peculiar to women who have the burdens of life
too soon and too heavily laid upon them. Her black hair was even
streaked here and there with gray. But with all this there was not the
least trace of impatience or despondency in that all-enduring face.
When grave, its expression was that of resignation; when gay--and even
she could be gay at times--its smile was as sunny as Leonora's own.
Hannah had a lover as patient as Job, or as herself, a poor fellow who
had been constant to her for twelve years, and whose fate resembled her
own; for he was the father of all his orphan brothers and sisters as she
had been the mother of hers. Of course, these poor lovers could not
dream of marriage; but they loved each other all the better upon that
very account, perhaps.
Lenora was ten years younger than her sister, eighteen, well grown,
well developed, blooming, beautiful, gay and happy as we have
described her. She had not a care, or regret, or sorrow in the world. She
was a bird, the hut was her nest and Hannah her mother, whose wings
covered her. These sisters were very poor; not, however, as the phrase
is understood in the large cities, where, notwithstanding the many
charitable institutions for the mitigation of poverty, scores of people
perish annually