"No, no!" cried the poor girl, covering her face with her hands. "But you are. I drink in beauty from your voice, there is beauty in your touch. Oh! how I love to hear you talk, it was music to me from the first day I ever saw you." "Oh, forbear, forbear, it is Isabel you are describing," said Mary, shrinking away from him. "Oh! she is all this and more." "Hush, Mary, hush; I feel the tones of your voice thrilling through and through me. This is the best beauty I can comprehend. When you disclaim it, I hear the tears breaking up through your voice, and it grows heavenly in its sadness. Your beauty is immortal, it can never grow old!" The youth paused, and turned towards aunt Hannah, for his quick sense had caught the sobs that she was striving to smother by burying her face in her folded arms. Many a stern grief and sore trial had wrung that aged heart, but for a quarter of a century she had not wept heartily before. As she looked on these young persons, and witnessed the first rich joy of their love, her heart gave way. The memories of her youth came back, and in the fullness of her regrets she cried like a child. Mary Fuller withdrew her hand from her lover, and moving close to aunt Hannah, stole her arm around her neck. "Aunt, dear aunt, look up and tell Joseph that he must not leave us. Tell him how strong I am to work for us all." Aunt Hannah lifted her face, and swept the grey locks back from her temples. "What day of the month is this?" asked the old lady, standing up and speaking in a subdued voice; "it should be near the tenth of November." "To-morrow will be the tenth," answered Mary. "Stay together while I go talk with Isabel." With these words the old woman went up stairs feebly, as if her tears had swept all the strength from her frame. Mary and her lover sat down by the hearth and fell into a sweet fragmentary conversation. Soft low words and broken sentences, the overflow of two hearts brimful of happiness alone, passed between them. A strange timidity crept over them. Neither dared approach the subject of a separation, though both were saddened by it. Aunt Hannah came down at last, calmer, and with more of her usual cold manner. "Help me," said Mary, appealing to her; "oh! aunt, persuade him to stay with us!" "To-morrow will be time enough," was the answer. "Go away, now, and God bless you both!" Never in her whole life had the voice of aunt Hannah sounded so deep with meaning, so solemn in its earnestness. It was seldom that she ever blessed any one aloud, or entered, save passively, into the devotions of the family--now her benediction had the energy of an earnest soul in it. The very tones of her voice were changed. She seemed to have thrown off the icy crust from her heart, and breathed deeper for it.