Exili: she was astute enough to throw a veil
of hypocrisy over the evil eyes which shot like a glance of death from
under the thick black eyebrows.

Her craft was equal to her malice. An occasional deed of alms, done not
for charity's sake, but for ostentation; an adroit deal of cards, or a
horoscope cast to flatter a foolish girl; a word of sympathy, hollow
as a water bubble, but colored with iridescent prettiness, averted
suspicion from the darker traits of her character.

If she was hated, she was also feared by her neighbors, and although
the sign of the cross was made upon the chair whereon she had sat in a
neighbor's house, her visits were not unwelcome, and in the manor-house,
as in the cabin of the woodman, La Corriveau was received, consulted,
rewarded, and oftener thanked than cursed, by her witless dupes.

There was something sublime in the satanic pride with which she carried
with her the terrible secrets of her race, which in her own mind made
her the superior of every one around her, and whom she regarded as
living only by her permission or forbearance.

For human love other than as a degraded menial, to make men the slaves
of her mercenary schemes, La Corriveau cared nothing. She never felt
it, never inspired it. She looked down upon all her sex as the filth
of creation and, like herself, incapable of a chaste feeling or a pure
thought. Every better instinct of her nature had gone out like the flame
of a lamp whose oil is exhausted; love of money remained as dregs at
the bottom of her heart. A deep grudge against mankind, and a secret
pleasure in the misfortunes of others, especially of her own sex, were
her ruling passions.

Her mother, Marie Exili, had died in her bed, warning her daughter not
to dabble in the forbidden arts which she had taught her, but to cling
to her husband and live an honest life as the only means of dying a more
hopeful death than her ancestors.

La Corriveau heard much, but heeded little. The blood of Antonio Exili
and of La Voisin beat too vigorously in her veins to be tamed down by
the feeble whispers of a dying woman who had been weak enough to give
way at last. The death of her mother left La Corriveau free to follow
her own will. The Italian subtlety of her race made her secret and
cautious. She had few personal affronts to avenge, and few temptations
in the simple community where she lived to practise more than the
ordinary arts of a rural fortune-teller, keeping in i