locks were black as the raven's wing: her figure was tall and slender,
but elastic and full of symmetry. The ivory itself was not more white
nor glossy than her skin; her teeth were--bright and beautiful, and her
mouth a perfect rosebud. It is unnecessary to say that her eyes
we're black and brilliant, for such ever belong to her complexion and
temperament; but it in necessary to add, that they were piercing and
unsettled, and you felt that they looked into you rather than at you or
upon you. In fact, her features were all perfect, yet it often happened
that their general expression was productive of no agreeable feeling on
the beholder. Sometimes her smile was sweet as that of an angel, but let
a single impulse or whim be checked, and her face assumed a character of
malignity that made her beauty appear like that which we dream of in an
evil spirit.

The other woman, who stood to her in the relation of step-mother, was
above the middle size. Her hair was sandy, or approaching to a pale red;
her features were coarse, but regular; and her whole figure that of
a well-made and powerful woman. In her countenance might be read a
peculiar blending of sternness and benignity, each evidently softened
down by an expression of melancholy--perhaps of suffering--as if some
secret care lay brooding at her heart. The inside of the hovel itself
had every mark of poverty and destitution about it. Two or three stools,
a pot or two, one miserable standing bed, and a smaller one gathered up
under a rug in the corner, were almost all that met the eye on entering
it; and simple as these meagre portions of furniture were, they bore no
marks of cleanliness or care. On the contrary, everything appeared to be
neglected, squalid and filthy--such, precisely, as led one to see at a
glance that the inmates of this miserable hut were contented with their
wretched state of life, and had no notion whatsoever that any moral or
domestic duty existed, by which they might be taught useful notions of
personal comfort and self-respect.

"So," said the young woman, addressing her step-mother, as she entered,
"you're come back at last, an' a purty time you tuck to stay away!"

"Well," replied the other, calmly, "I'm here now at any rate; but I see
you're in one of your tantrums, Sally, my lady. What's wrong, I say? In
the mean time don't look as if you'd ait us widout salt."

"An' a bitter morsel you'd be," replied the younger, with a flashing
glance--"di