a refreshing rest returned, her
alarms also returned with tenfold terror; and such was her apprehension
of those fiend-like and nocturnal visits, that she entreated Sarah
Sullivan to sleep with and awaken her the moment she heard her groan or
shriek. Our readers may perceive that the innocent girl's tenure of life
could not be a long one under such strange and unexampled sufferings.

The state of her health now occasioned her parents to feel the most
serious alarm. She herself disclosed to them the fearful intelligence
which had been communicated to her in such a friendly spirit by Caterine
Collins, to wit, that Harry Woodward possessed the terrible power of the
Evil Eye, and that she felt he was attempting to kill her by it; adding,
that from the state of her mind and health she feared he had succeeded,
and that certainly, if he were permitted to continue his visits, she
knew that she could not long survive.

"I remember well," said her father, "that when he was a boy of about six
or seven he was called, by way of nickname, _Harry na Suil Glair_; and,
indeed, the common report always has been that his mother possesses the
evil eye against cattle, when she wishes to injure any neighbor that
doesn't treat her with what she thinks to be proper and becoming
respect. If her son Harry has the accursed gift it comes from her blood;
they say there is some old story connected with her family that accounts
for it, but, as I never heard it, I don't know what it is."

"I agree with you," said his wife; "if he has it at all, he may thank
her for it. There is, I fear, some bad principle in her; for surely
the fierceness and overbearing spirit of her pride, and the malignant
calumnies of her foul and scandalous tongue, can proceed from nothing
that's good."

"Well, Martha," observed her husband, "if the devilish and unaccountable
hatred which she bears her fellow-creatures is violent, she has the
satisfaction of knowing--and well she knows it--that it is returned to
her with compound interest; I question if the devil himself is detested
with such a venomous feeling as she is. Her own husband and children
cannot like a bone in her skin."

"And yet," replied Alice, "you would have made this woman my
mother-in-law! Do you think it was from any regard to us that she came
here to propose a marriage between her son and me? No, indeed, dear
papa, it was for the purpose of securing the property, which her brother
left me, for him who wo