f the house did not
allow of conversation, not with the proprietors, carried on in that
apartment sacred to the divine mysteries.

"Perhaps fifteen minutes had elapsed, and I had grown fearfully tired of
waiting, when the corner of the curtain was suddenly thrown back, and
the figure of a woman stood in the space thus created. Every thing
behind her seemed to be in darkness; but some description of bright
light, which did not show through the curtain at all, and which seemed
almost dazzling enough to be Calcium or Drummond, shed its rays directly
upon her side-face, throwing every feature, from brow to chin, into bold
relief, and making every fold of her dark dress visible. But I scarcely
saw the dress, the face being so remarkable beyond any thing I had ever
witnessed. I had looked to see an old, wrinkled hag--it being the
general understanding that all witches and fortune-tellers must be long
past the noon of life; but instead, I saw a woman who could not have
been over thirty-five or forty, with a figure of regal magnificence, and
a face that would have been, but for one circumstance, beautiful beyond
description. Apelles never drew and Phidias never chiselled nose or brow
of more classic perfection, and I have never seen the bow of Cupid in
the mouth of any woman more ravishingly shown than in that feature of
the countenance of the sorceress.

"I said that but for one circumstance that face would have been
beautiful beyond description. And yet no human eye ever looked upon a
face more hideously fearful than it was in reality. Even a momentary
glance could not be cast upon it without a shudder, and a longer gaze
involved a species of horrible fascination which affected one like a
nightmare. You do not understand yet what was this remarkable and most
hideous feature. I can scarcely find words to describe it to you so that
you can catch the full force of the idea--I must try, however. You have
often seen Mephistopheles in his flame-colored dress, and caught some
kind of impression that the face was of the same hue, though the fact
was that it was of the natural color and only affected by the lurid
character of the dress and by the Satanic pencilling of the eyebrows!
Well, this face was really what that seemed for the moment to be. It was
redder than blood--red as fire, and yet so strangely did the flame-color
play through it that you knew no paint laid upon the skin could have
produced the effect. It almost seemed tha