of.

"When you need my help, ask for it without scruple, Dame Dodier," said
the old crone. "I see you have something on hand that may need my aid. I
would go into the fire to serve you, although I would not burn my finger
for any other woman in the world, and you know it."

"Yes, I know it, Mere Malheur," La Corriveau spoke with an air of
superiority, "and you say rightly: I have something on hand which I
cannot accomplish alone, and I need your help, although I cannot tell
you yet how or against whom."

"Is it a woman or a man? I will only ask that question, Dame Dodier,"
said the crone, turning upon her a pair of green, inquisitive eyes.

"It is a woman, and so of course you will help me. Our sex for the
bottom of all mischief, Mere Malheur! I do not know what women are made
for except to plague one another for the sake of worthless men!"

The old crone laughed a hideous laugh, and playfully pushed her
long fingers into the ribs of La Corriveau. "Made for! quotha! men's
temptation, to be sure, and the beginning of all mischief!"

"Pretty temptations you and I are, Mere Malheur!" replied La Corriveau,
with a scornful laugh.

"Well, we were pretty temptations once! I will never give up that! You
must own, Dame Dodier, we were both pretty temptations once!"

"Pshaw! I wish I had been a man, for my part," replied La Corriveau,
impetuously. "It was a spiteful cross of fate to make me a woman!"

"But, Dame Dodier, I like to be a woman, I do. A man cannot be half as
wicked as a woman, especially if she be young and pretty," said the old
woman, laughing till the tears ran out of her bleared eyes.

"Nay, that is true, Mere Malheur; the fairest women in the world are
ever the worst! fair and false! fair and false! they are always so. Not
one better than another. Satan's mark is upon all of us!" La Corriveau
looked an incarnation of Hecate as she uttered this calumny upon her
sex.

"Ay, I have his mark on my knee, Dame Dodier," replied the crone. "See
here! It was pricked once in the high court of Arras, but the fool judge
decided that it was a mole, and not a witch-mark! I escaped a red gown
that time, however. I laughed at his stupidity, and bewitched him for
it in earnest. I was young and pretty then! He died in a year, and Satan
sat on his grave in the shape of a black cat until his friends set a
cross over it. I like to be a woman, I do, it is so easy to be wicked,
and so nice! I always tell the girls that, and