er was there anything notable in the smoke-greased
walls and ceiling, the miserable fire-place with one cracked kettle and
a red earthen bowl, and the wretched bed of rags stuck away in one of
the corners, on which evidently both the old crone and Master Jeffy made
their sad pretence at sleep.

But what really was singular in the appearance of the apartment, and
what Crawford noted at once, although he did not allude to it until
afterwards, was--first, a ghastly attempt at painting, hanging behind
the chimney, representing a death's-head and cross-bones, which might
have been executed by an artist in whitewash, on a ground of black
muslin. Second, a hanging shelf in one corner, with a dozen or two of
dingy small bottles and vials, and a rod lying across it, apparently
made from a black birchen switch, peeled in sections. Third, and most
important of all, a string of twine suspended from one side of the room
to the other, in front of the fire-place and near the ceiling, and hung
with objects that required a moment to recognize. Among them, when
closely examined, could be found two or three bats, dried; a string of
snake's eggs, blackened by being smoked; a tail and two legs of a black
cat; a bunch of the dried leaves of the black hellebore; a snake's
skin--not the "shedder" or superficial skin, but the cuticle itself,
peeled from the writhing reptile; two objects that might have been
spotted toads, run over by wagons until thoroughly flattened--then
dried; and one object which could not well be anything more or less than
the hand of a child a few weeks old, cut off just above the wrist and
subjected to some kind of embalming or drying process.

The purposes of this narrative do not require the recording of all the
conversation which took place between the Tombs lawyer and Aunt Synchy,
when the latter had dusted off one of the miserable chairs and forced
the former down into it, taking another herself, sitting square in front
of him, and thrusting her face so close into his that the withered
features seemed almost plastered against his own. It is enough to say
that that conversation corroborated the suspicion which the first words
of the crone would have engendered--that Aunt Synchy, in her younger
days, had been a slave in the Crawford family, in a neighboring State
where the institution had not yet been entirely abolished--and that, at
last manumitted by a mistaken kindness, she had finally wandered away to
the crime a