k
after the boys----"

"After Mrs. Sheppard, you mean, Sir," interrupted his wife, ironically.
"Don't think to deceive me by your false pretences. Marry, come up! I'm
not so easily deluded. Sit down, I command you. Winny, show the person
into this room. I'll see her myself; and that's more than she bargained
for, I'll be sworn."

Finding it useless to struggle further, Mr. Wood sank, submissively,
into a chair, while his daughter hastened to execute her arbitrary
parent's commission.

"At length, I have my wish," continued Mrs. Wood, regarding her husband
with a glance of vindictive triumph. "I shall behold the shameless
hussy, face to face; and, if I find her as good-looking as she's
represented, I don't know what I'll do in the end; but I'll begin by
scratching her eyes out."

In this temper, it will naturally be imagined, that Mrs. Wood's
reception of the widow, who, at that moment, was ushered into the room
by Winifred, was not particularly kind and encouraging. As she
approached, the carpenter's wife eyed her from head to foot, in the hope
of finding something in her person or apparel to quarrel with. But she
was disappointed. Mrs. Sheppard's dress--extremely neat and clean, but
simply fashioned, and of the plainest and most unpretending
material,--offered nothing assailable; and her demeanour was so humble,
and her looks so modest, that--if she had been ill-looking--she might,
possibly, have escaped the shafts of malice preparing to be levelled
against her. But, alas! she was beautiful--and beauty is a crime not to
be forgiven by a jealous woman.

As the lapse of time and change of circumstances have wrought a
remarkable alteration in the appearance of the poor widow, it may not be
improper to notice it here. When first brought under consideration, she
was a miserable and forlorn object; squalid in attire, haggard in looks,
and emaciated in frame. Now, she was the very reverse of all this. Her
dress, it has just been said, was neatness and simplicity itself. Her
figure, though slight, had all the fulness of health; and her
complexion--still pale, but without its former sickly cast,--contrasted
agreeably, by its extreme fairness, with the dark brows and darker
lashes that shaded eyes which, if they had lost some of their original
brilliancy, had gained infinitely more in the soft and chastened lustre
that replaced it. One marked difference between the poor outcast, who,
oppressed by poverty, and stung by sha