er a struggle of some two or three minutes, the strength and coolness
of the step-mother at length prevailed, she wrested the knife out of
Sarah's hands and, almost at the same moment, stumbled and fell. The
other, however, was far from relaxing her hold. On the contrary, she
clung to her fiercely, shouting out--

"I won't give you up yet--I love you too well for that--no, no, it's
fond of you I'm gettin'. I'll hug you, mother, dear; ay will I, and kiss
you too, an' lave my mark behind me!" and, as she spoke, her step-mother
felt her face coming in savage proximity to her own.

"If you don't keep away, Sarah," said the other, "I'll stab you. What do
you mane, you bloody devil? It is going to tear my flesh with your teeth
you are? Hould off! or, as heaven's above us, I'll stab you with the
knife."

"You can't," shouted the other; "the knife's bent, or you'd be done for
before this. I'll taste your blood for all that!" and, as the words were
uttered, the step-mother gave a sudden scream, making at the same time a
violent effort to disentangle herself, which she did.

Sarah started to her feet, and flying towards the door, exclaimed with
shouts of wild triumphant laughter--

"Ha, ha, ha! do you feel anything? I was near havin' the best part of
one of your ears--ha, ha, ha!--but unfortunately I missed it; an' now
look to yourself. Your day is gone, an' mine is come. I've tasted-your
blood, an' I like it--ha, ha, ha!--an' if as you say it's kind father
for me to be fond o' blood, I say you had better take care of yourself.
And I tell you more: we'll take care of your fair-haired beauty for
you--my father and myself will--an' I'm told to act against her, an' I
will too; an' you'll see what we'll bring your pet, _Gra Gal_ Sullivan,
to yet! There's news for you!"

She then went down to the river which flowed past, in whose yellow and
turbid waters--for it was now swollen with rain--she washed the blood
from her hands and face with an apparently light heart. Having meditated
for some time, she fell a laughing at the fierce conflict that had just
taken place, exclaiming to herself--

"Ha, ha, ha! Well now if I had killed her--got the ould knife into her
heart--I might lave the counthry. If I had killed her now, throth it 'ud
be a good joke, an' all in a fit of passion, bekase she didn't come home
in time to let me meet him. Well, I'll go back an' spake soft to her,
for, afther all, she'll give me a hard life of it."

She