"Room--room for the pauper--room!" Isabel had caught the word, and sent it back again with wild glee, half singing half shouting it through her burning lips. The fever was beginning to rage through her veins. Three times that night aunt Hannah went to the front door, to answer the eager questions of young Farnham, who had been wandering for hours in sight of the house. At last, as if struck with sudden compassion, the old lady invited him into the kitchen, and these two seemingly uncongenial persons, sat and conversed together with strange confidence till the day dawned. When young Farnham arose to go, he took the aged hand of his companion and pressed it to his lips, with a homage to years acquired from abroad. He did not see the blood flush up into that withered face, or the tears that gathered slowly into her eyes; and was therefore, surprised when she arose, and as if actuated by an unconquerable impulse, kissed his forehead. "Good-bye," she said, in a broken voice, "the poor girl up stairs shall not die for want of nursing." "How good you are!" said the young man; "how can I ever repay you?" Aunt Hannah looked at him with strange fondness. "You paid our debts last night," she said, "or we might have had no home to give this girl." "That was nothing, never mention it again." "Nothing, why, boy, it was an act that you shall never forget to your dying day." "Save _her_, and that will be an act that I shall never forget." "Do you love her so much, then?" "Love! I worship her--I can hardly remember the time when I did not love her!" "And what would you sacrifice for her?" "What? Everything." "Stop and answer me steadily. If you could choose between all the property left by your father and Isabel Chester, which would you take?" "Which would I take? Labor, poverty, and my Isabel. The property! what has it of value in comparison to this noble girl? I answer again Isabel, Isabel!" A singular expression stole into the old woman's face. "Would you live here, and work the place, when Nathan and I are too old, if you were sure of her for a wife?" "I would do anything with her and for her," cried the youth, ardently. "And," continued aunt Hannah, in a broken voice, still eyeing him anxiously--"you would find a corner for two old people somewhere in the homestead!" "This is wild talk," said the young man, with a troubled smile. "I am my father's heir, and have no right to throw away his wealth; so it is useless talking of what I might, or could, do, under other circumstances." "Then you would not be content to live here with your wife, and support yourself from the place?" "I did not say so--but that it was impossible. Heaven knows I count wealth as nothing compared to Isabel." "Then you only think of her, you care nothing for, for "-- Aunt Hannah paused, and put a hand to her throat, as if the words she suppressed pained her.