ent prayer of relief and ease for the
unhappy woman, whose unhallowed association had, in her opinion, sealed
her doom.

"Will I?--will I?--oh!" she replied, "may you never know misery for
offering it! Oh, bring me something--some refreshment--some food--for
I'm dying with hunger."

Mrs Sullivan, who, with all her superstition, was remarkable for charity
and benevolence, immediately placed food and drink before her, which the
stranger absolutely devoured--taking care occasionally to secrete under
the protuberance which appeared behind her neck, a portion of what she
ate. This, however, she did, not by stealth, but openly; merely taking
means to prevent the concealed thing from being, by any possible
accident, discovered.

When the craving of hunger was satisfied, she appeared to suffer less
from the persecution of her tormentor than before; whether it was, as
Mrs Sullivan thought, that the food with which she plied it appeased in
some degree its irritability, or lessened that of the stranger, it was
difficult to say; at all events, she became more composed; her eyes
resumed somewhat of a natural expression; each sharp ferocious glare,
which shot from them with such intense and rapid flashes, partially
disappeared; her knit brows dilated, and part of a forehead, which had
once been capacious and handsome, lost the contractions which deformed
it by deep wrinkles. Altogether the change was evident, and very much
relieved Mrs Sullivan, who could not avoid observing it.

"It's not that I care much about it, if you'd think it not right o' me,
but it's odd enough for you to keep the lower part of your face muffled
up in that black cloth, an' then your forehead, too, is covered down on
your face a bit. If they're part of the _bargain_,"--and she shuddered
at the thought,--"between you an' anything that's not good--hem!--I
think you'd do well to throw thim off o' you, an' turn to thim that can
protect you from everything that's bad. Now, a scapular would keep all
the divils in hell from one; an' if you'd----"

On looking at the stranger she hesitated, for the wild expression of her
eyes began to return.

"Don't begin my punishment again," replied the woman; "make no
allus----don't make mention in my presence of anything that's good.
Husht--husht--it's beginning--easy now--easy! No," said she, "I came to
tell you, that only for my breaking a vow I made to this thing upon me,
I'd be happy instead of miserable with it. I say