"No, no, I'm sure she wouldn't--but isn't there anything I could give up: there's the cider, I used to be very fond of ginger and cider, winter evenings, but somehow without apples, it wouldn't seem exactly nat'ral: supposing you save a few apples for her without letting her know, and sell the cider. It would be a good example to set to the young men, you know, these temperance times?" "No," answered Hannah, with unusual energy, "not a comfort shall you give up; I will work my fingers to the bone first." "But," said uncle Nathan, rather timidly, as if he ventured a proposition that was likely to be ill received. "Why not let the poor fellow come here?--it would not cost much to keep him at the Homestead, and Mary is such a dear little nurse." Aunt Hannah did not receive this as he had expected, but with a slow wave of the head, "That can never be--I couldn't breathe under the same roof with them; don't mention it again, Nathan." "I never will," said the old man, touched by the sad determination in her voice and manner, "only tell me what I can do." "Nothing, only let me alone," was the reply, and taking up her empty basket, aunt Hannah went to work again. "Poor Hannah," murmured the good old man, "poor Hannah, she's got a hard row to hoe and always had, I'd help her out with the weeds, if some one would only tell me how, but she will work by herself." CHAPTER XXXIX. THE FARNHAMS' RETURN FROM ABROAD. There is fruit from the orchard and corn from the field, For old mother earth gives a bountiful yield; There is light in the kitchen and fire on the hearth, The Homestead is ready for feasting and mirth. It was the day before uncle Nathan's husking-frolic. All the corn was housed and stacked upon the barn floor, which had been swept and garnished for the occasion; for after the husking was to come a dance--not in the house, aunt Hannah had some old-fashioned prejudices about that--and uncle Nat shrunk from the idea of having a frolic in the out-room where poor Anna had died; so as the barn was large and the room sufficient, the play usually ended where the work began, upon the barn floor, which was always industriously cleared from the corn-stalks as the husking went on. Of course it was a busy day at the old house. Salina came early, and was in full force among the culinary proceedings of the occasion. Aunt Hannah received a slight exhilaration of life; she moved about the kitchen more briskly, let her cap get somewhat awry, and twice in the course of the morning was seen to wear a grim smile, as Mary, in her active desire to please, brought the flour-duster and nutmeg-grater to her help, before the rigid lady had quite found out that they were wanted. Uncle Nat, too, acted in a very excited and extraordinary manner, all day running in from the porch, asking breathlessly if he could do anything, and then subsiding back in his old arm-chair before aunt Hannah could force her thin lips into a speaking condition.