d say to her, "Why, Sophy, how young you're looking!"

As the spring came on, Elsie would leave the fireside, have her
tiger-skin spread in the empty southern chamber next the wall, and lie
there basking for whole hours in the sunshine. As the season warmed, the
light would kindle afresh in her eyes, and the old woman's sleep would
grow restless again,--for she knew, that, so long as the glitter was
fierce in the girl's eyes, there was no trusting her impulses or
movements.

At last, when the veins of the summer were hot and swollen, and the
juices of all the poison-plants and the blood of all the creatures that
feed upon them had grown thick and strong,--about the time when the
second mowing was in hand, and the brown, wet-faced men were following up
the scythes as they chased the falling waves of grass, (falling as the
waves fall on sickle-curved beaches; the foam-flowers dropping as the
grass-flowers drop,--with sharp semivowel consonantal sounds,--frsh,--for
that is the way the sea talks, and leaves all pure vowel-sounds for the
winds to breathe over it, and all mutes to the unyielding earth,)--about
this time of over-ripe midsummer, the life of Elsie seemed fullest of its
malign and restless instincts. This was the period of the year when the
Rockland people were most cautious of wandering in the leafier coverts
which skirted the base of The Mountain, and the farmers liked to wear
thick, long boots, whenever they went into the bushes. But Elsie was
never so much given to roaming over The Mountain as at this season; and
as she had grown more absolute and uncontrollable, she was as like to
take the night as the day for her rambles.

At this season, too, all her peculiar tastes in dress and ornament came
out in a more striking way than at other times. She was never so superb
as then, and never so threatening in her scowling beauty. The barred
skirts she always fancied showed sharply beneath her diaphanous muslins;
the diamonds often glittered on her breast as if for her own pleasure
rather than to dazzle others; the asp-like bracelet hardly left her arm.
She was never seen without some necklace,--either the golden cord she
wore at the great party, or a chain of mosaics, or simply a ring of
golden scales. Some said that Elsie always slept in a necklace, and that
when she died she was to be buried in one. It was a fancy of hers,--but
many thought there was a reason for it.

Nobody watched Elsie with a more searc