, what colour would you like best, Dame--red?"

"Red!--no!--like a gypsy-quean, indeed! Besides, they all has red cloaks
in the village, yonder. No; a handsome dark grey--or a gay, cheersome
black, an' then I'll dance in mourning at your wedding, young lady; and
that's what ye'll like. But what ha'ye done with the merry bridegroom,
Ma'am? Gone away, I hear. Ah, ye'll have a happy life on it, with a
gentleman like him. I never seed him laugh once. Why does not ye hire
me as your sarvant--would not I be a favourite thin! I'd stand on the
thrishold, and give ye good morrow every day. Oh! it does me a deal of
good to say a blessing to them as be younger and gayer than me. Madge
Darkman's blessing!--Och! what a thing to wish for!"

"Well, good day, mother," said Lester, moving on.

"Stay a bit, stay a bit, Sir;--has ye any commands, Miss, yonder,
at Master Aram's? His old 'oman's a gossip of mine--we were young
togither--and the lads did not know which to like the best. So we often
meets, and talks of the old times. I be going up there now.--Och! I
hope I shall be asked to the widding. And what a nice month to wid in;
Novimber--Novimber, that's the merry month for me! But 'tis cold--bitter
cold, too. Well, good day--good day. Ay," continued the hag, as Lester
and the sisters moved on, "ye all goes and throws niver a look behind.
Ye despises the poor in your hearts. But the poor will have their day.
Och! an' I wish ye were dead--dead--dead, an' I dancing in my
bonny black cloak about your graves;--for an't all mine
dead--cold--cold--rotting, and one kind and rich man might ha' saved
them all."

Thus mumbling, the wretched creature looked after the father and his
daughters, as they wound onward, till her dim eyes caught them no
longer; and then, drawing her rags round her, she rose, and struck into
the opposite path that led to Aram's house.

"I hope that hag will be no constant visitor at your future residence,
Madeline," said the younger sister; "it would be like a blight on the
air."

"And if we could remove her from the parish," said Lester, "it would be
a happy day for the village. Yet, strange as it may seem, so great
is her power over them all, that there is never a marriage, nor a
christening in the village, from which she is absent--they dread her
spite and foul tongue enough, to make them even ask humbly for her
presence."

"And the hag seems to know that her bad qualities are a good policy, and
obtain more