OLD MEMORIES AND YOUNG HEARTS.
Away, away, on the wide, wide world—
With aching heart and fevered brain,
Like a broken waif she is sharply hurled,
To her dreary orphan life again.
When uncle Nathan led his nephew into the house, and told aunt Hannah who he was, she grew pallid as a corpse, and when the young man took her hand, she began to shiver from head to foot, till the chattering of her teeth was audible in the stillness.
"It is our nephew, little Anna's boy, come to live with us, Hannah."
"To live with us?" she repeated, in a hoarse voice.
"Yes," answered uncle Nathan, taking the youth's hand between both his plump palms, and smoothing it caressingly as he would have quieted a kitten, for he felt all the chill that was in her voice. Where else should our sister's child make his home?"
"But his father?"
"My father is dead," answered the youth, sadly, "and before he went I was told of all your kindness, how for years your own means of livelihood had been stinted that I might become perfect in my art. I have not wasted your means, and some day, God willing, may return something of all that you have done for me."
Aunt Hannah listened in silence, but her eyes burned in their sockets, and her hands worked nervously around each other. Happily the youth saw nothing of this, or he might have doubted the welcome so expressed.
It was now late in the night, and with anxious haste aunt Hannah turned to a stand, where an iron candlestick supported the end of what had been a tallow candle.