Four years!—yes, I think it was a little over four years, after the scene in our last chapter, when we bring our readers to the Old Homestead again.
It was the evening of a disagreeable, chilly day. Everything was gloomy inside and out. Salina had come up from the Farnham's deserted mansion to spend the evening with aunt Hannah, and arrange the preliminaries for a "husking frolic," which was to take place on the morrow in uncle Nathan's barn. But she found the good lady so taciturn and gloomy, that even her active spirit was awed into stillness. So the two women remained almost in silence, knitting steadily, with a round candle-stand between them.
Uncle Nathan, notwithstanding the cold and the storm, occupied his great chair in the porch. I think the old man must have grown a trifle stouter since the reader saw him, and his face had a still more benevolent look; something of serene goodness, mellowing in the sunshine of his genial nature, was perceptible there, as the tints of a golden pippin, ripened in the autumn sun.
But you could see nothing of this, as the old man sat in his easy-chair that night. Everything was dark around him. Black clouds hung overhead, broken now and then with gleams of pale blue lightning. Once or twice these flashes were bright enough to reveal his features, which were strangely troubled and thoughtful. Since nightfall, he had been sitting there almost in silence, watching the storm gather overhead, and the black shadows as they crowded down from the hills and choked up the garden. He listened to the wind as it rose and swelled down the valley, rushing through the orchard boughs, and tossing them up and down in the darkness. The old man was not reposing; thoughtful and aroused he took a clear retrospection of those phases of life that had left scars even on his placid heart.
A shadow, for it seemed nothing more, lingered by his side.
It moved now and then, and amid the hushes of the wind you might have known that two persons breathed close together in the old porch.
At length what seemed the shadow spoke.
"Shall we go in, uncle Nathan? The wind is getting high, here. How the rain beats on the porch—you will catch cold."
"No, I'd rather sit out here yet awhile. But go in yourself, Mary; it is getting rather chilly for you."
"No," answered Mary, in her old gentle way, "I'd rather sit with you, uncle Nat."