as
she approached the hearth, she started to see Fanny still up.

"Dear heart alive!" she said; "why, Miss Fanny, you will catch your
death of cold,-what are you thinking about?"

"Sit down, Sarah; I want to speak to you." Now, though Fanny was
exceedingly kind, and attached to Sarah, she was seldom communicative
to her, or indeed to any one. It was usually in its own silence and
darkness that that lovely mind worked out its own doubts.

"Do you, my sweet young lady? I'm sure anything I can do--" and Sarah
seated herself in her master's great chair, and drew it close to Fanny.
There was no light in the room but the expiring fire, and it threw
upward a pale glimmer on the two faces bending over it,--the one so
strangely beautiful, so smooth, so blooming, so exquisite in its youth
and innocence,--the other withered, wrinkled, meagre, and astute. It was
like the Fairy and the Witch together.

"Well, miss," said the crone, observing that, after a considerable
pause, Fanny was still silent,--"Well--"

"Sarah, I have seen a wedding!"

"Have you?" and the old woman laughed. "Oh! I heard it was to be
to-day!--young Waldron's wedding! Yes, they have been long sweethearts."

"Were you ever married, Sarah?"

"Lord bless you,--yes! and a very good husband I had, poor man! But he's
dead these many years; and if you had not taken me, I must have gone to
the workhus."

"He is dead! Wasn't it very hard to live after that, Sarah?"

"The Lord strengthens the hearts of widders!" observed Sarah,
sanctimoniously.

"Did you marry your brother, Sarah?" said Fanny, playing with the corner
of her apron.

"My brother!" exclaimed the old woman, aghast. "La! miss, you must not
talk in that way,--it's quite wicked and heathenish! One must not marry
one's brother!"

"No!" said Fanny, tremblingly, and turning very pale, even by that
light. "No!--are you sure of that?"

"It is the wickedest thing even to talk about, my dear young
mistress;--but you're like a babby unborn!"

Fanny was silent for some moments. At length she said, unconscious that
she was speaking aloud, "But he is not my brother, after all!"

"Oh, miss, fie! Are you letting your pretty head run on the handsome
gentleman. You, too,--dear, dear! I see we're all alike, we poor femel
creturs! You! who'd have thought it? Oh, Miss Fanny!--you'll break your
heart if you goes for to fancy any such thing."

"Any what thing?"

"Why, that that gentleman will marry you!--I'm