otion, now after all, just to go off
and desert her. She had said that, if Hannah thought she ought to, she
would go back to Hillsboro, and they would have to wait ever so long. So
now Captain Winthrop looked very nervously at Ann Mary's little sister.

But he did not know Hannah. She gave a little cry, as if someone had
stabbed her, turned very pale, and, leaving her wheel still whirling, she
ran like the wind toward Dr. Necronsett's. She wanted to see her sister;
she wanted to _see_ if this----

Close to the minister's house she met Ann Mary, who could not wait any
longer, and was coming to meet her. After one glimpse of that beautiful,
radiant face, Hannah fell a weeping for very joy that her dear Ann Mary
was so happy, and was to marry the grand and learned and goodly Captain
Winthrop.

There was not a thought in Hannah's mind, then or later, that she must
lose Ann Mary herself. Grandmother explains here that the truth is that a
heart like Hannah's cannot lose anything good; and perhaps that is so.

Thus, hand in hand, laughing and crying together, the two girls came back
to the granary, where Ann Mary's lover took her in his arms and kissed her
many times out of light-heartedness that Hannah would put no obstacle in
the way. This made little Hannah blush and feel very queer. She looked
away, and there was her wheel still languidly stirring a little. Dear me!
How many, many times have I heard the next detail in the story told!

"And, without really, so to speak, sensing what she was doing, didn't she
put her hand to the rim and start it up again? And when the other two
looked around at her, there she was, spinning and smiling, with the tears
in her eyes. It had all happened in less time than it takes a spin-wheel
to run down."

After that day things happened fast. Captain Winthrop rode off over the
mountains to Hillsboro, to ask John Sherwin if he might marry his
daughter; and when he came back, there was John Sherwin himself riding
along beside him, like an old friend. And when he saw his two dear
daughters--Ann Mary, who had gone away like a lily, now blooming like a
rose, and Hannah, stout little Hannah, with her honest blue eyes
shining--when he saw his two daughters, I say--well, I'm sure I have no
idea what happened, for at this point grandmother always takes off her
glasses, and sniffs hard, and wipes her eyes before she can go on.

So there was a wedding at the minister's house, and everybody in Heath