"After awhile--I don't know how long--I got up and went into the house. Everything was still as death. I stood at the out-room door and listened. There was no noise. I thought it was the storm that drowned everything, and opened the door. Hannah was not there, nor Salina either, but a window had blown open, and in drifted the rain and wind over the bed that stood close by it--poor Anna's bed. I could not see distinctly, my eyes were blinded with the storm that leapt into my face, and I could hardly close the window agin it. "At last I got the sash down and went up to Anna's bed. She was there"-- "Well!" said Mary, at length, in a low whisper. "She was there--all alone--dead--my little sister Anna!" answered the old man, covering his face with both hands, and crying till his sobs were carried away in the louder wail of the storm. "At first I could not believe it. A candle stood on the table with its wick bent double. It had swirled away at the sides till the tallow ran down upon the brass. After I had shut the window, it gave out a steadier light, that fell on Anna's face. I would not believe it, but bent down and kissed her on the forehead. My lips were amost as cold as hers then, I believe. Oh! darter, darter, our poor little Anna was dead--dead--and cold--with the storm blowing over her." Mary took uncle Nathan's hand between hers, and kissed it. "Don't cry," said the old man, gently removing his hand, upon which her tears had fallen. "_I_ can't help it, but _you_ mustn't cry. It was very hard at the time, and the old house has never been the same since,--or, at any rate," continued the kind old man, thoughtful of Mary's feelings even in his grief, "not till you came." "But I can't be supposed to fill her place," said Mary, "she, so bright and handsome." "I thought," answered uncle Nathan, "as I sat by her bed that night, and saw her lying there, so young, and with her bright hair falling in waves down the pillow, that one of God's own angels couldn't have looked more lovely. She was smiling in her death, just as I'd seen her a thousand times when she fell asleep. It seemed as if a kiss from brother Nathan would make her start up, and open those great brown eyes again; but when I gave the kiss it didn't wake her, but froze me almost into a stone." "But the cry you had heard?" said Mary. "I forgot that, and never thought to ask why every one had left poor dead Anna alone, with the swirling light and the storm. But the next day Hannah took me up into her bedroom, and showed me our sister's child, a little boy, Mary, that might have been a comfort to us. I couldn't bear to look at it, lying there so innocent, like a young robin left alone in its nest; the sight of it almost broke my heart." "But what became of it?" "Hannah brought it up by hand a few weeks, and then went down to York with it herself, and left the poor baby with its father." "How could she?" exclaimed Mary; "I wonder you could part with it."