"I couldn't help kissing her hot cheeks, though every word went to my heart, for I saw well enough how Hannah would take it.
"Anna hung around me till I had kissed her more than once, I'm afraid, then she drew away from my arm like a child that's determined to stand alone, and went up to sister Hannah.
"'Sister, won't you kiss me, as well as Nathan?' says she in her sweet, coaxing way.
"But Hannah sat still, white as ever. She only gave her fingers a closer grip around each other. Anna sunk down to the floor, bending her ankle back and sitting upon the heel of one little foot.
"'Mother Hannah, don't be cross—what harm have I done?' says she, lifting her pretty face, all wet with tears, to meet the hard, set look of our sister. 'Mother Hannah,' says the girl again, drawing her face closer and closer, 'won't you kiss me as Nathan did?'
"Hannah bent her head, and it seemed as if a marble woman had moved.
She touched the girl's forehead with her lips, and, says she,
"'God forgive you!'
"I think to this day that sister meant, 'God bless you' and tried to say it, but 'God forgive you' came from her lips in spite of that. This frightened Anna. So with a sort of wild look toward me, the girl got up and went out of the room, crying as if her heart would break. She couldn't understand the thing at all.
"The minute she was gone, Hannah unlocked her hands, that shook like dead leaves in parting from each other, and holding them out toward me, she cried out, 'Nathan, Nathan!' and fell down in a fainting fit, just as she did the other night."
"But why," said Mary Fuller, drawing a deep breath, "why did aunt
Hannah feel so dreadfully, wasn't Mr. Farnham a good man?"