She pointed her finger at Eddie, who, shrinking away as if from a basilisk, began to cry.
The old man turned his eyes that way. In the confusion and anxieties of the morning, he had hardly looked on the child. Now the glance brought an entire change in his countenance. A faint color mounted to his forehead, and stepping forward, he took the boy suddenly from his mother.
“Don’t let her touch him. Oh! don’t let her touch him!” pleaded the lady.
“Not for the universe!” said the old man. “I know what her touch is to innocent things like this. Have no fear. She shall be driven hence, leper as she is.”
“Leper! Ah! that’s a new name,” half snarled, half jeered the woman. “I thought you had run yourself out abusing me. But this is something uncommon! Leper! that is a name in your Protestant Bible, I suppose.”
“If you have business here, speak; if not, go out from under my roof; I cannot breathe while it shelters you. Go, I say. You have driven my poor child mad again. The sight of you is worse than death to us all.”
“Now this is hospitality, this is gratitude. Well, well, I am ready to go. Shall I carry the little boy for you, ma’am?”
“No,” replied the widow, breathless with apprehension; “give Edward to me, sir. I must return home. My people do not know that he is found.”
“Oh! don’t be frightened. I a’n’t after your precious treasure. Keep him to yourself, for what I care. He isn’t mine a bit more than he’s yours, so we won’t quarrel about him.”
The witch gave the strings of her bonnet a sharp jerk as she spoke, tied them in a hard knot under her chin, and fluttered from the room, leaving an unpleasant laugh floating behind.