"She would go out to work; we tried to stop it, but the child would go; Salina there, kept house for old Mrs. Farnham; they wanted help to spin up the wool and Anna went. She came back engaged to Mr. Farnham. I forgave her, God is my judge; I did not hate the child for supplanting me in the only love I ever hoped to know. It was a hard trial, but I bore it without a single bitter thought toward either of them. It nearly killed me, but I did my duty by the child. "He went to the city, for he had gone into business there, and was getting rich. Time went fast with him and slow with us. In the end he married that woman. Anna went wild when she knew it, and like a wounded bird fled to the first open heart for shelter. She married too, and in a single year died here in this room." "I remember it, oh! how well I remember it," sobbed Salina, while uncle Nat covered his face with both hands and wept aloud. "It was an awful night. Thunder shook the Old Homestead, and the winds rocked it as if death were rocking her to sleep; across them windows came the lightning, flash after flash, as if the angels of heaven were shooting fiery arrows over her as she breathed her last. Salina was there, but no doctor. He was at Mrs. Farnham's mansion up yonder, for that night her only son was born. "He came at last, to find her dead body lying there, cold and pale in the lightning flashes that broke against the windows. He found me alone with my dead sister, numb with sorrow, dead at the heart. "After this Salina brought Anna's baby and laid it in my lap. The doctor had ordered her home. The rich man's wife could not be neglected." "But I wouldn't have gone, you know I wouldn't for anything he could say," cried Salina, firing up amid her tears. "If you hadn't said go, all the doctors on arth couldn't have made me stir a foot!" "Yes, I told you to go, but it was in bitterness of heart; why should I with that living soul in my lap, and that cold body before me, keep you from the rich woman's couch? Farnham's heir must be kept warm, while ours lay wailing and shivering in my lap.