ife; and it seemed as if even misfortune had with her but a preserving
power. It is not wonderful, however, that, while it worked thus upon her
body, it should likewise have stiffened and withered and hardened her
heart.

I am not sure that conscience itself went untouched in this searing
process. It is not clear at all that even her claim upon Sir John
Hastings was not an unjust one; but just or unjust his repulse sunk deep
and festered.

Let us trace her from the church-yard after she met him. She took her
path away from the park and the hamlet, between two cottages, the ragged
boys at the doors of which called her "Old Witch," and spoke about a
broom-stick.

She heeded them little: there were deeper offences rankling at her
heart.

She walked on, across a corn-field and a meadow, and then she came upon
some woodlands, through which a little sandy path wound its way, round
stumps of old trees long cut down, amidst young bushes and saplings just
springing up, and catching the sunshine here and there through the
bright-tinted foliage overhead. Up the hill it went, over the slope on
which the copse was scattered, and then burst forth again on the
opposite side of wood and rise, where the ground fell gently the other
way, looking down upon the richly dressed grounds of Colonel Marshall,
at the distance of some three miles.

Not more than a hundred yards distant was poor man's cottage, with an
old gray thatch which wanted some repairing, and was plentifully covered
with herbs, sending the threads of their roots into the straw. A little
badly cultivated garden, fenced off from the hill-side by a loose stone
wall, surrounded the house, and a gate without hinges gave entrance to
this inclosed space.

The old woman went in and approached the cottage door. When near it she
stopped and listened, lifting one of the flapping ears of her cotton cap
to aid the dull sense of hearing. There were no voices within; but there
was a low sobbing sound issued forth as if some one were in bitter
distress.

"I should not wonder if she were alone," said the old woman; "the
ruffian father is always out; the drudging mother goes about this time
to the town. They will neither stay at home, I wot, to grieve for him
they let too often into that door, nor to comfort her he has left
desolate. But it matters little whether they be in or out. It were
better to talk to her first. I will give her better than
comfort--revenge, if I judge right.