The words died on her pale lips; she reached out her hands as if to lay hold of something, and fell senseless to the floor. Salina seized a pitcher that stood on the table, rushed out to the water trough and back again, so like a spirit that the two little girls in the porch broke from each other's arms and shrieked aloud. But they recognized her when she came back and stood trembling by the door, while she dashed the contents of her pitcher both over the fainting woman and the kind old man that knelt by her. It had no effect. Aunt Hannah opened her eyes but once during the next hour. Neither the chilly water nor the old brother's terror had power to reach the numbed pulses of her life. CHAPTER XXXIII. AUTUMN IN THE MOUNTAINS. The children gazed with a grateful thrill, 'Twas a glorious sight I know-- Those cornfields sweeping o'er the hill-- Those meadow-slopes below!-- Tall mountain ridges rich with light, Broke up the crimson skies, Their refted blossoms burning bright, With autumn's fervid dies. It was fortunate for Isabel that Mrs. Farnham was unstable even in her petty oppressions. While the country was a novelty she would not allow the child out of her sight. But after a little her agent sent her up from the city a dashing carriage and a superb pair of grey horses, which she gloried in supposing excelled even the noble animals with which Judge Sharp had brought her over the mountains. These new objects soon drove Isabel from her position as chief favorite, and she was allowed to run at large without much constraint. This threw her a good deal with Salina Bowles, in whom she found a rough but true-hearted friend. What was far better than this, it left her free to visit Mary Fuller, and it was not long before the child was almost as much at home with dear old uncle Nat, as Mary herself. It was pleasant to watch the two girls meet in the garden when Mary returned from school, and go about the household work together so cheerfully. That working-time was the sunny hour of Isabel's day, she did so love the order and quiet of the old homestead. But the autumn drew on, and Mrs. Farnham began to talk of returning to the city. It was time, she said, that Isabel should be placed at boarding-school, where all her old vulgar associations might be polished away, and that she might be taught the dignity of her present position. These threats, for they appeared to poor Isabel in this light, only made her cling more tenaciously to her friend, and every moment she could steal from the exactions of her benefactress was spent at the Old Homestead or among the hills where Mary wandered with a deeper and deeper interest as the autumn wore on. One night, while the foliage was green and thrifty on the mountain ridges, there came a sharp frost, and in the morning all the hill-sides were in a blaze of gorgeous tints.