last that would ever
have entered her head. Her feeling was one of profound humiliation
and unworthiness. Her mother's bitter words could never be
forgotten by her; and after what her father had told her of his
ruined state, it appeared to her simply impossible that she should
let Reuben take possession of her and her future when she could
bring nothing in return.

But she could not speak of these things to Lady Scrope; and finding
her favourite irresponsive and reserved, the dame shrugged her
shoulders and passed on to another room, where the children were
soon heard to utter shrieks and gasps of mingled delight and terror
at the stories she told them, which stories invariably fascinated
them to an extraordinary degree, yet left them with a sense of
undefined horror that was half delightful, half terrible.

They all thought that she was a witch, and that she could spirit
any of them away to fairy land. But since she brought sweetmeats in
her capacious pockets, and had an endless fund of stories at her
disposal, her visits were always welcomed, and she had certainly
shown herself capable of a most unsuspected benevolence at this
crisis, in presenting this house to the authorities for such a
purpose, and in contributing considerably to the maintenance of the
desolate little inmates.

She liked to hear their dismal stories almost as well as they liked
to hear hers. She made a point of visiting every fresh batch of
children, after they had been duly fumigated and disinfected, and
she seemed to take a horrible and unnatural delight in the ghastly
details of desolation and death which were revealed in the artless
narratives of the children.

She was one of those who, knowing much of the fearful corruption of
the times, were fond of prognosticating this judgment as a sweeping
away of the dregs of the earth; although she still maintained that
had the water supply been purer and differently arranged, the
judgment of Heaven would have had to seek another medium.

For three or four days Gertrude lived in a state of feverish
expectancy and subdued excitement. She had fancied from her
father's tone in speaking that there had been some talk of a
betrothal between him and his neighbour, and that Reuben might take
her consent for granted. The idea made her restless and unhappy.
She wished the ordeal of refusing him over. She believed she was
right in taking this step; but it was a hard one, and she was
sometimes afraid of her