The Fatal Deed

I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one,
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me.
The hind that would be mated by the lion,
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty though a plague
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brow, his hawking eyes, his curls
In our heart's table; heart too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favor.

--Shakspere.

Hannah Worth walked home, laden like a beast of burden, with an enormous
bag of hanked yarn on her back. She entered her hut, dropped the burden
on the floor, and stopped to take breath.

"I think they might have sent a negro man to bring that for you,
Hannah," said Nora, pausing in her spinning.

"As if they would do that!" panted Hannah.

Not a word was said upon the subject of Herman Brudenell's morning
visit. Hannah forebore to allude to it from pity; Nora from modesty.

Hannah sat down to rest, and Nora got up to prepare their simple
afternoon meal. For these sisters, like many poor women, took but two
meals a day.

The evening passed much as usual; but the next morning, as the sisters
were at work, Hannah putting the warp for Mrs. Brudenell's new web of
cloth in the loom, and Nora spinning, the elder noticed that the younger
often paused in her work and glanced uneasily from the window. Ah, too
well Hannah understood the meaning of those involuntary glances. Nora
was "watching for the steps that came not back again!"