with full hands and left a full
heart behind her." Helen sometimes playfully asked her to tell her the
history of the wheel so long promised, but she put her off with a shake
of the head, saying--"she should hear it by and by, when the right time
was at hand."

"But when is the right time, Miss Thusa?" asked Helen. "I begin to think
it is to-morrow."

"To-morrow never comes," replied Miss Thusa, solemnly, "but death does.
When his footsteps cross the old stile and tramp over the mossy
door-stones, I'll tell you all about that ancient machine. It won't do
any good till then. You are too young yet. I feel better than I did in
autumn, and may last longer than I thought I should--but, perhaps, when
the ground thaws in the spring the old tree will loosen and fall--or
break off suddenly near the root. I have seen such things in my day."

"Oh! Miss Thusa," said Helen, "I never want to hear any thing about it,
if its history is to be bought so dear--indeed I do not."

"Only if you should marry, child, before I die," continued Miss Thusa,
musingly, "you shall know then. It is not very probable that such will
be the case; but it is astonishing how young girls shoot up into
womanhood, now-a-days."

"It will be a long time before I shall think of marrying, Miss Thusa,"
answered Helen, laughing. "I believe I will live as you do, in a cottage
of my own, with my wheel for companion and familiar friend."

"It is not such as you that are born to live alone," said the spinster,
passing her hand lovingly over Helen's fair, warm cheek. "You are a
love-vine that must have something to grow upon. No, no--don't talk in
that way. It don't sound natural. It don't come from the heart. Now _I_
was made to be by myself. I never saw the man I wanted to live one day
with--much less all the days of my life. They may say this is sour
grapes, and call me an old maid, but I don't care for that; I must have
my own way, and I know it is a strange one; and there never was a man
created that didn't want to have his. You laugh, child. I hope you will
never find it out to your cost. But you havn't any will of your own; so
it will be all as it should be, after all."

"Oh, yes I have, Miss Thusa; I like to have my own way as well as any
one--when I think I am right."

"What makes your cheeks redden so, and your heart flutter like a bird
caught in a snare?" cried the spinster, looking thoughtfully, almost
sorrowfully, into Helen's soft, loving, hazel e