try, was built of hewn stone and very solid. Stone, too, was its
foundation, stone its background. Not a blade of grass sprouted among
the broken mineral about the walls, not a flower adorned the windows.
Over the door, by way of sole adornment, the Mormon Eye was rudely
sculptured; I had been brought up to view that emblem from my
childhood; but since the night of our escape, it had acquired a new
significance, and set me shrinking. The smoke rolled voluminously from
the chimney-top, its edges ruddy with the fire; and from the far corner
of the building, near the ground, angry puffs of steam shone snow-white
in the moon and vanished.

The doctor opened the door and paused upon the threshold. "You ask me
what I make here," he observed: "Two things: Life and Death." And he
motioned me to enter.

"I shall await my mother," said I.

"Child," he replied, "look at me: am I not old and broken? Of us two,
which is the stronger, the young maiden or the withered man?"

I bowed and, passing by him, entered a vestibule or kitchen, lit by a
good fire and a shaded reading-lamp. It was furnished only with a
dresser, a rude table, and some wooden benches; and on one of these the
doctor motioned me to take a seat; and passing by another door into the
interior of the house, he left me to myself. Presently I heard the jar
of iron from the far end of the building; and this was followed by the
same throbbing noise that had startled me in the valley, but now so near
at hand as to be menacing by loudness, and even to shake the house with
every recurrence of the stroke. I had scarce time to master my alarm
when the doctor returned, and almost in the same moment my mother
appeared upon the threshold. But how am I to describe to you the peace
and ravishment of that face? Years seemed to have passed over her head
during that brief ride, and left her younger and fairer; her eyes shone,
her smile went to my heart; she seemed no more a woman, but the angel of
ecstatic tenderness. I ran to her in a kind of terror; but she shrank a
little back and laid her finger on her lips, with something arch and yet
unearthly. To the doctor, on the contrary, she reached out her hand as
to a friend and helper; and so strange was the scene that I forgot to be
offended.

"Lucy," said the doctor, "all is prepared. Will you go alone, or shall
your daughter follow us?"

"Let Asenath come," she answered, "dear Asenath! At this hour when I am
purified of fear and