ion
altogether,--when the old crone, eager for the money, stuck her candle
somewhat nearer his face than it had before been held. Instantly her
withered face assumed a new expression of intelligence, and her hand
shook so that she almost dropped the candle, as she cried:

"Merciful Lord and Marser! If dat are ain't young Egbert Crawford!"

"My name is certainly Egbert Crawford!" said that individual, very much
surprised in his turn. "But who are you that know _me_?"

"Don't know his ole Aunt Synchy!" exclaimed the old woman.

"Aunt Synchy! Aunt Synchy!" said the lawyer, trying to recollect the
past very rapidly, and catching some glimmers. "What? Aunt Synchy that
used to live at--"

"Used to live at old Tom Crawford's. Lor bress you, yes! Why come in,
honey!" and before the lawyer could answer further, he was literally
dragged through the dingy door by the still vigorous old woman, and
found himself inside her apartment, Master Jeffy and his pitcher being
left neglected on the entry floor.

Once within the door, and in the better light afforded even by the dingy
windows, Crawford had a better opportunity to observe the old woman, and
he now found no difficulty in recalling something more than the name.
She might have been sixty-five or seventy years of age, to judge by the
wrinkles on her face and the white of her eyebrows, though her hair was
hidden under a gaudy and dirty cotton plaid handkerchief and her tall
form seemed little bowed by age. Two coal-black eyes, showing no
diminution of their natural fire, gleamed from under those white
eyebrows; and on the portions of the cheeks yet left smooth enough to
show the texture of the skin, there were deep gashes that had once been
the tattooing of her barbarian youth and beauty. Her hands were
withered, much more than her face, and seemed skinny and claw-like. Her
dress, which had once been plaid cotton gingham, was fearfully dirty and
unskilfully patched with other material; and the frayed silk shawl
thrown around her old shoulders might have been rescued from a rag-heap
in the streets to serve that turn.

The room, as Crawford readily noticed, was almost as remarkable in
appearance as the old woman herself. There was nothing singular in the
bare floor, the pine table and two or three broken chairs; for something
very like them, or worse, can be found in almost every miserable
tenement where virtue struggles or vice swelters, in the slums of the
great city. Neith