when I've
seen you lying asleep in my room and the old monk standing by my bed?"
faltered Dainty in surprise and bewilderment.

"Och, thin it was Miss Peyton playing the part. Shure, she's as tall as
mesilf, and I don't mind satisfyin' yer cur'osity now, seein' as yer'll
never git out o' this alive to blow on us!" returned the woman, with
cool effrontery.

"What do you mean, Sheila?" cried the young girl in alarm.

"Shure, I mane what I say! Ye're a pris'ner fer life, Miss Dainty Chase,
sintenced by yer aunt and cousins to solitary confinement on bread and
water till you die--and the sooner you do that last the better they will
be pleased!" returned the coarse woman letting down her basket and
taking out a glass tumbler, two large bottles of water, some loaves of
stale bread, and some of Dainty's clothes, saying, facetiously: "Here's
yer duds and yer grub--enough o' both ter last yer a week--and at the
end of a week I'll call again with more provisions, miss--and likewise,
if you get tired of living in such luxury, here's a bottle of laudanum
to pass yer into purgatory," coolly putting it on the only chair the
room contained, while Dainty's blue eyes dilated in horror at her
fiendish brutality.

"Sheila, Sheila, surely this is some cruel jest! You can not mean to
leave me here alone as you say! Oh, what harm have I ever done to you
that you treat me so cruelly?" she cried in anguish.

"As for the harrum, none; but I always hated ye from the first time I
looked on yer bonny face. As for the raison, 'tis soon towld. I fell in
love with the young masther soon's ever he kem home from Yurrup, and I
did me best ter make up ter him; but he would none of me. And I seen
straight away his heart was wid you, and I hated yer ever since, and
forby yer two cousins and t' ould Leddy Ellsworth turned against yer for
the same raison, because yer won the masther's heart. So whin they
offered ter make me fortune for scaring yer ter death, I was ready and
glad ter take the job ter pay off me own score agin ye! So there now,
ye see it's small good luck yer pritty face got ye!" concluded the cruel
Irish woman, exultantly.

Poor Dainty, gazing into that hard face, felt the utter uselessness of
all appeals for mercy. The woman had the heart of a fiend, and was
openly glad of her victim's misery.

She determined to appeal to her cupidity, and ventured, timidly:

"If you will only give me my liberty, Sheila, I give you my word of
honor