and given her some opiate, I suppose, for she
had dropped into a flushed snoring sleep, a horrid counterfeit of
repose. But she had first had two or three frightful fits, and all sorts
of wild, screaming talk between. Perhaps it was the apparition of Mary
Matchwell, whose evil influence was so horribly attested by the dismal
spectacle she had left behind her, that predisposed them to panic; but
assuredly each anticipated no good from the master's absence, and had a
foreboding of something bad, of which they did not speak; but only
disclosed it by looks, and listening, and long silences. The lights
burning in Nutter's study invited them, and there the ladies seated
themselves, and made their tea in the kitchen tea-pot, and clapped it on
the hob, and listened for sounds from Mrs. Nutter's chamber, and for the
step of her husband crossing the little court-yard; and they grew only
more nervous from listening, and there came every now and then a little
tapping on the window-pane. It was only, I think, a little sprig of the
climbing-rose that was nailed by the wall, nodding at every breath, and
rapping like unseen finger-tops, on the glass. But, as small things
will, with such folk, under such circumstances, it frightened them
confoundedly.

Then, on a sudden, there came a great yell from poor Mrs. Nutter's
chamber, and they both stood up very pale. The Widow Macan, with the cup
in her hand that she was 'tossing' at the moment, and Moggy, all aghast,
invoked a blessing under her breath, and they heard loud cries and
sudden volleys of talk, and Biddy's voice, soothing the patient.

Poor Mrs. Nutter had started up, all on a sudden, from her narcotic
doze, with a hideous scream that had frightened the women down stairs.
Then she cried--

'Where am I?' and 'Oh, the witch--the witch!'

'Oh! no, Ma'am, dear,' replied Betty; 'now, aisy, Ma'am, darling.'

'I'm going mad.'

'No, Ma'am, dear?--there now--sure 'tis poor Betty that's in it--don't
be afear'd, Ma'am.'

'Oh, Betty, hold me--don't go--I'm mad--am I mad?'

Then in the midst of Betty's consolations, she broke into a flood of
tears, and seemed in some sort relieved; and Betty gave her her drops
again, and she began to mumble to herself, and so to doze.

At the end of another ten minutes, with a scream, she started up again.

'That's her step--where are you, Betty?' she shrieked, and when Betty
ran to the bedside, she held her so hard that the maid was ready to cry
o