ing the slave mistress of her mistress's
fate, while the latter thenceforward held her very existence at the will
of her slave. The cruel woman had raised up for herself that enemy more
terrible even to throned tyrants than an army with banners: for there
is something truly terrific in the almost omnipotent power of harm
possessed by any intelligent being, whom hatred, or fanaticism, or
suffering has wound up to that point of desperation where it is willing
to throw away its own life in order to reach that of an adversary,
--such desperation as inspired the gladiator Maternus, in his romantic
expedition from the woods of Transylvania through the marshes of
Pannonia and the Alpine passes, to strike the lord of the Roman world
in the recesses of his own palace, and in the presence of his thousand
guards. He who has provoked such hostility can know no safety, but in
the destruction of his enemy,--a fact well understood by the elder
Napoleon, who, however he might admire, never pardoned those whose
attempts on his person showed them utterly reckless of the safety of
their own.

And now, for a few hours, the whole interest of our narrative centres in
her whom that moment had so completely transformed and made already a
murderess in heart and in purpose. And how thoroughly must that heart
have been steeled, and how entire must have been the banishment of all
counteracting feelings, when she could for a whole day, in the midst of
a household of fellow-servants, and under the watchful eyes of an angry
mistress, continue to discharge her usual tasks, bearing this deadly
purpose in her breast, yet never, by word, look, or gesture, betray the
slightest indication of its dreadful secret,--no, not even so much as to
draw suspicion toward herself after the discovery of the crime! There
was no time or opportunity for preparation, of which little was indeed
necessary; for human life is a frail thing, and a determined hand is
always strong. She had already undergone the most effectual preparation
for such a task,--that of the soul; and when that is once thoroughly
accomplished, not much more is needed: a fact which seems not to be
understood by those patriotic assassins--French and Italian--whose
elaborately contrived infernal-machines do but betray the anxious
precautions taken to insure lives which, according to their own
professions, have been rendered valueless by tyranny, and ought
therefore to be the more freely risked. Felton and