“Yes, mother,” replied the frightened young girl, “they want to kill me. They are coming to seize me. That gallows is for me! Save me! save me! They are coming! Save me!”

The recluse remained for several moments motionless and petrified, then she moved her head in sign of doubt, and suddenly giving vent to a burst of laughter, but with that terrible laugh which had come back to her, —

“Ho!

ho! no! ‘tis a dream of which you are telling me. Ah, yes! I lost her, that lasted fifteen years, and then I found her again, and that lasted a minute! And they would take her from me again! And now, when she is beautiful, when she is grown up, when she speaks to me, when she loves me; it is now that they would come to devour