husband?"

"Come, come, my dear creature! You have no right to put such questions
to me. You ought rather to ask me whether I am hungry and would like
some supper. You would not have to ask me that twice I can assure you."

The woman, at this hint, arose sullenly and took from a wainscot
cupboard a plate of hearth cakes which she set before the stranger.

"I suppose, sir, you don't mind eating off the headsman's platter?" said
she.

"Stuff! What if I am of the same profession!"

"Oh, of course! I can see that from those soft white little hands of
yours which are not such as the hands of a man ought to be."

But the words were scarce out of her mouth when the virago uttered a
loud scream, for the little white paws she had just tapped suddenly
pressed her huge fleshy palm so vigorously that every bone in it
cracked.

"Satan take him!--'tis a man, not a doubt of it!" whispered the woman to
Ivan. "He has a hand like an iron vice."

The stranger had an excellent appetite. There was absolutely nothing at
the bottom of the platter when he had finished eating.

"Pardon!" cried he at last, "perhaps I ought not to have gobbled up
everything. Perchance this was set aside for someone who does not happen
to be at home just now."

"Oh, don't be uneasy on that score, we have all had our suppers."

"But this is not the whole family I suppose? Have you no children?"

"Yes," replied the woman, and as she spoke she durst not lift her eyes
to the stranger's face. "I have a daughter."

"Really your own child?"

The woman looked hesitatingly at the stranger, twice she attempted to
speak and twice the words seemed to stick in her throat.

"Yes, my own child," she said at last.

"And have you no other 'prentice but this one, Dame Zudar?"

"No, why should I?"

"And are you two able to carry on the business?--for I suppose there are
all sorts of things to be done?"

"Good heart alive! The less you say about the headsman's trade the
better."

"But why should I not talk about it? It is a regular profession, is it
not, like any other? And just as respectable too, eh? Nay, it is more
profitable than most trades, because there is less of competition in
it. Now, as for me, I have a perfect passion for it. Why, the only
reason why I am here is to come to some arrangement with Master Zudar. I
want to buy of him, my pretty dame, the business which you loathe so
much."

The headsman's wife regarded the stranger with eyes full o