Isabel started as if a viper had stung her, tore herself from Farnham's arms, and fled. CHAPTER XLV. OLD MEMORIES AND YOUNG HEARTS. Away, away, on the wide, wide world-- With aching heart and fevered brain, Like a broken waif she is sharply hurled, To her dreary orphan life again. When uncle Nathan led his nephew into the house, and told aunt Hannah who he was, she grew pallid as a corpse, and when the young man took her hand, she began to shiver from head to foot, till the chattering of her teeth was audible in the stillness. "It is our nephew, little Anna's boy, come to live with us, Hannah." "To live with us?" she repeated, in a hoarse voice. "Yes," answered uncle Nathan, taking the youth's hand between both his plump palms, and smoothing it caressingly as he would have quieted a kitten, for he felt all the chill that was in her voice. Where else should our sister's child make his home?" "But his father?" "My father is dead," answered the youth, sadly, "and before he went I was told of all your kindness, how for years your own means of livelihood had been stinted that I might become perfect in my art. I have not wasted your means, and some day, God willing, may return something of all that you have done for me." Aunt Hannah listened in silence, but her eyes burned in their sockets, and her hands worked nervously around each other. Happily the youth saw nothing of this, or he might have doubted the welcome so expressed. It was now late in the night, and with anxious haste aunt Hannah turned to a stand, where an iron candlestick supported the end of what had been a tallow candle. "We are all tired," she said, presenting the candlestick to uncle Nathan. "He can sleep in the spare bed up stairs." Uncle Nat took the candle and conducted his relative from the room, leaving aunt Hannah standing by the hearth, pale and almost as rigid as marble. After a little she began to pace up and down the kitchen with measured strides, her eyes cast down, and her fingers locked together as if made of iron. Thus the morning found her, for she did not go to rest that night. A few days after, just before sunset, uncle Nat was enjoying himself as usual in the old porch, while Mary Fuller and Joseph sat together on the threshold of the door, conversing in low tones between the impromptu air which he gave to them in delicious snatches. Behind, in the dark of the kitchen, sat aunt Hannah, gazing over her knitting-work at the group. Her hands were motionless upon the needles, and she seemed lost in profound thought. All at once her lips moved, and she muttered, "Yes, they, too, will love each other. I can see it plainly enough. Poor Mary, how he turns to her voice, how greedily he listens when she speaks; can the love of childhood revive so suddenly? But what do I know of love, save its humiliation and pain--rejected, despised, trampled on!"