"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 sure, tho' he's so simple like, he's some great gentleman! They say his hoss is worth a hundred pounds! Dear, dear! why didn't I ever think of this before? He must be a very wicked man. I see, now, why he comes here. I'll speak to him, that, I will!--a very wicked man!" Sarah was startled from her indignation by Fanny's rising suddenly, and standing before her in the flickering twilight, almost like a shape transformed,--so tall did she seem, so stately, so dignified. "Is it of him that you are speaking?" said she, in a voice of calm but deep resentment--"of him! If so, Sarah, we two can live no more in the same house."