se to do hurt either her self-respect or her character? You have
not told me that yet!"

"This way, Mr. Brudenell! If we were to accept your offers, our
neighbors would talk of us."

"Neighbors! why, Hannah, what neighbors have you? In all the months that
I have been coming here, I have not chanced to meet a single soul!"

"No, you have not. And if you had, once in a way, met anyone here, they
would have taken you to be a mere passer-by resting yourself in our hut;
but if you were to make us as comfortable as you wish, why the very
first chance visitor to the hut who would see that the loom and the
spinning-wheel and old furniture were gone, and were replaced by the
fine carpet, curtains, chairs, and sofa that you wish to give us, would
go away and tell the wonder. And people would say: 'Where did Hannah
Worth get these things?' or, 'How do they live?' or, 'Who supports those
girls?' and so on. Now, Mr. Brudenell, those are questions I will not
have asked about myself and my sister, and that you ought not to wish to
have asked about your wife!"

"Hannah, you are quite right! You always are! And yet it distresses me
to see you living and working as you do."

"We are inured to it, Mr. Brudenell."

"But it will not be for long, Hannah. Very soon my mother and sisters go
to take possession of their new house in Washington. When they have left
Brudenell I will announce our marriage and bring you and your sister
home."

"Not me, Mr. Brudenell! I have said before that in marrying Nora you did
not marry all her poor relatives. I have told you that I will not share
the splendors of Nora's destiny. No one shall have reason to say of me,
as they would say if I went home with you, that I had connived at the
young heir's secret marriage with my sister for the sake of securing a
luxurious home for myself. No, Mr. Brudenell, Nora is beautiful, and it
is not unnatural that she should have made a high match; and the world
will soon forgive her for it and forget her humble origin. But I am a
plain, rude, hard-working woman; am engaged to a man as poor, as rugged,
and toil-worn as myself. We would be strangely out of place in your
mansion, subjected to the comments of your friends. We will never
intrude there. I shall remain here at my weaving until the time comes,
if it ever should come, when Reuben and myself may marry, and then, if
possible, we will go to the West, to better ourselves in a better
country."

"Well, Hannah, wel