"They are sitting by the fire, both of them. Salina is talking. Aunt Hannah knitting hard, with her eyes on the fire, as if she didn't hear." And reseating herself she continued; "now tell me about _her_--she was very handsome, wasn't she?" "She was like a picture, Mary. You think Isabel Chester handsome, but she don't more than compare with our Anna. She had the softest and most beautiful brown eyes you ever saw, bright as a star and soft as a rabbit's--and such hair, it was all in crinkles and waves, breaking out into curls let her braid and twist it as she would--brown when she sat by me at her sewing-work in the morning, and shining out like gold when the sun lay in the porch. I wish you could a-seen her as she was drawing out her thread of woolen yarn, and running it up on the spindle as bright and spry as a bird." "I wasn't so old nor so heavy," continued uncle Nathan, with a sigh, "as I am now-a-days, but she always loved to wait on me just as you do; and when I came into the stoop, hot days in summer, tired with mowing or planting, away she would run after a pitcher of cool drink, holding it between her two little hands, and laughing till the dimples swarmed about her mouth like lady-bugs around a rose. I do really think, Mary Fuller, that our sister Anna was the handsomest gal I ever set eyes on, and so sweet tempered: you put me in mind of her every day, Mary." Mary Fuller did not answer, she was afraid that uncle Nathan might detect the tears that swelled at her heart in her voice. "I didn't like to part with Anna, she was so young, and both sister and I had promised our parents to take their place with her. We two were the children of their youth, but she was a sort of ewe lamb in the house, the child of their old age, and when they died we looked upon her as our own. "We both gave up all ideas of marrying for her sake; that wasn't much for me you may think, but it was a good deal for Hannah; she was a tall, good-looking woman then, and might have done well in the world; she did give up a match that I knew her heart was set on. As for me--but no matter about that--I wasn't likely to make a promise to my own parents on their death-beds and only half keep it, by marrying and putting a sort of step-mother over Anna--no, Hannah and I just put away all thoughts of settling for life, except with one another, and gave ourselves up to little Anna, heart and soul." The old man paused awhile, and bent his head as if overpowered by the fierce storm that raged around the house. The porch was sheltered, and though the rain rushed over its low eaves in sheets, nothing but the dampness reached the great easy-chair upon which uncle Nathan sat. Still Mary felt three or four heavy drops fall upon her hand, too warm for rain and too sacred for comment.