"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.
Mary and Joseph went out, and sat down together in the starlight, that fell softly upon them through the apple boughs. They had so many things to say, and confessions to make; each was timidly anxious to search the heart of the other, and read all the sweet hidden mysteries that seemed fathomless there.
Meanwhile aunt Hannah went into the out-room—that in which her sister Anna died, and kneeling down, with her hands pressed on the bottom of a chair, broke into a passion so deep and earnest that her whole frame shook with the agony of her struggle. She arose at length and began to walk the floor, wringing her hands and moaning as if in pain. Thus she toiled and struggled in prayer all night, for it was the anniversary of her sister's anguish and death. Many a softening influence had crept into that frozen nature, with the young persons who brought their joys and their sorrows beneath her roof, and now came the solemn breaking up of her heart. She learned the true method of atonement in the stillness of that nightwatch. It was the regeneration of a soul.
When the day broke, she stole up to Isabel Chester's room, and kissed her pallid cheeks as she slept. "Be comforted," she said, smiling down upon the unconscious face; "be comforted, for the day of your joy is at hand."