nd the slave turned as pale as the
cheek of the witch herself.

'Why dost thou laugh, old crone?' said Glaucus, somewhat sternly, as he
concluded his invocation.

'Did I laugh?' said the hag, absently.

'She is in her dotage,' whispered Glaucus: as he said this, he caught
the eye of the hag fixed upon him with a malignant and vivid glare.

'Thou liest!' said she, abruptly.

'Thou art an uncourteous welcomer,' returned Glaucus.

'Hush! provoke her not, dear Glaucus!' whispered Ione.

'I will tell thee why I laughed when I discovered ye were lovers,' said
the old woman. 'It was because it is a pleasure to the old and withered
to look upon young hearts like yours--and to know the time will come
when you will loathe each other--loathe--loathe--ha!--ha!--ha!'

It was now Ione's turn to pray against the unpleasing prophecy.

'The gods forbid!' said she. 'Yet, poor woman, thou knowest little of
love, or thou wouldst know that it never changes.'

'Was I young once, think ye?' returned the hag, quickly; 'and am I old,
and hideous, and deathly now? Such as is the form, so is the heart.'
With these words she sank again into a stillness profound and fearful,
as if the cessation of life itself.

'Hast thou dwelt here long?' said Glaucus, after a pause, feeling
uncomfortably oppressed beneath a silence so appalling.

'Ah, long!--yes.'

'It is but a drear abode.'

'Ha! thou mayst well say that--Hell is beneath us!' replied the hag,
pointing her bony finger to the earth. 'And I will tell thee a
secret--the dim things below are preparing wrath for ye above--you, the
young, and the thoughtless, and the beautiful.'

'Thou utterest but evil words, ill becoming the hospitable,' said
Glaucus; 'and in future I will brave the tempest rather than thy
welcome.'

'Thou wilt do well. None should ever seek me--save the wretched!'

'And why the wretched?' asked the Athenian.

'I am the witch of the mountain,' replied the sorceress, with a ghastly
grin; 'my trade is to give hope to the hopeless: for the crossed in love
I have philtres; for the avaricious, promises of treasure; for the
malicious, potions of revenge; for the happy and the good, I have only
what life has--curses! Trouble me no more.

With this the grim tenant of the cave relapsed into a silence so
obstinate and sullen, that Glaucus in vain endeavored to draw her into
farther conversation. She did not evince, by any alteration of her
locked and rigid featur