r me?"

"Don't tell stories, Hannah. If you really said your prayers, you
would never have come here to sell your soul to Satan."

Tightening her clutch, the old woman shook her, as if she had been
a slender weed, and an ashen hue settled upon her wrinkled features,
as she cried in an unnaturally shrill quavering tone:

"Aha! you were eavesdropping yesterday in the church. How I wish to
God it had all blown down on you! And you watched me,--you mean to
disgrace me,--to ruin me,--to arrest me! You do! But you shall not! I
will strangle you first!"

"Take your hands off my shoulders, Hannah. Do you think you can scare
me with such wild desperate threats? In the first place, I am not
afraid to die, and in the second you know very well you dare not kill
me. Let go my shoulder, you hurt me."

Very white but fearless, the young face was lifted to hers, and
before those wrathful glittering eyes that flashed like blue steel,
Hannah quailed.

"Will you promise not to betray me?"

"I will promise nothing while you threaten me. Sit down, you are
shaking all over as if you had an ague. When I came here I had no
intention of betraying you; I only wanted to prevent you from
committing a sin. Are you going to have a spasm? Do sit down."

Hannah's teeth were chattering violently, and her trembling limbs
seemed indeed unable to support her. When she sank down on the stone
base of the shaft, Regina stood before her, leaning more heavily upon
the cane.

"I heard all that you said yesterday, yet I was not 'eavesdropping.'
You came and stood under the window where I sat, and if you had
looked up would have seen me. When I learned you were engaged in a
wicked plot, I determined to try to stop you before it was too late.
I followed you here, hoping that you would give that paper to me,
instead of to that bold, bad man; for though you did very wrong, I
can't believe that you have a wicked cruel heart."

She paused, but the only response was a deep groan, and; Hannah
shrouded her face in her arms.

"Hannah, did my mother ever injure you, ever harm you, in any way?"

"Yes, she caused me to steal, and I shall hate her as long as I live.
I was as honest as an angel until she came that freezing night so
many years ago, and showed me by her efforts, her anxiety to get the
paper, how valuable it was. Beside, it was on her account that my
nephew went to destruction; and I was sure all the blame and
suspicion would fall on her: it seeme