ame to this very disagreeable conclusion she spied an opening
on her left, from which a bridle-path struck out. With an exclamation
of joy she immediately turned her horse's head and struck into it. This
path was very rocky, but in some degree clearer than the other, and she
went on quickly, singing to herself, until gradually her voice began to
be lost in the sound of many rushing waters.

"It must be the Devil's Punch Bowl! I am approaching!" she said to
herself, as she went on.

She was right. The roaring of the waters grew deafening and the path
became so rugged with jagged and irregularly piled rocks, that Cap
could scarcely keep her horse upon his feet in climbing over them. And
suddenly, when she least looked for it, the great natural
curiosity--the Devil's Punch Bowl--burst upon her view!

It was an awful abyss, scooped out as it were from the very bowels of
the earth, with its steep sides rent open in dreadful chasms, and far
down in its fearful depths a boiling whirlpool of black waters.

Urging her reluctant steed through a thicket of stunted thorns and over
a chaos of shattered rocks, Capitola approached as near as she safely
could to the brink of this awful pit. So absorbed was she in gazing
upon this terrible phenomenon of natural scenery that she had not
noticed, in the thicket on her right, a low hut that, with its
brown-green moldering colors, fell so naturally in with the hue of the
surrounding scenery as easily to escape observation. She did not even
observe that the sky was entirely overcast, and the thunder was
muttering in the distance. She was aroused from her profound reverie by
a voice near her asking:

"Who are you, that dares to come without a guide to the Devil's Punch
Bowl?"

Capitola looked around and came nearer screaming than she ever had been
in her life, upon seeing the apparition that stood before her. Was it
man, woman, beast or demon? She could not tell! It was a very tall,
spare form, with a black cloth petticoat tied around the waist, a blue
coat buttoned over the breast, and a black felt hat tied down with a
red handkerchief, shading the darkest old face she had ever seen in her
life.

"Who are you, I say, who comes to the Devil's Punch Bowl without leave
or license?" repeated the frightful creature, shifting her cane from
one hand to the other.

"I? I am Capitola Black, from Hurricane Hall; but who, in the name of
all the fates and furies, are you?" inquired Capitola, w