Arrived home, she cooked her limpets, gave twenty to each of her cats, and reserved sixty for herself.
A proof that she had gastronomic tendencies.
There was but one young man to whom she spoke freely.
One evening, this man tumbled near her doorstep. He was intoxicated. She took him inside, laid him on her own bed, and when he had slept and sobered, she gave him a cup of tea and escorted him to his home. Ever since, they had been friends.
This man's name was Tom Soher.
We have seen that an idea had struck him which he intended to carry out. He, too, believed in Mrs. Vidoux's power of bewitching.
So the day following his unpleasant discovery, Tom Soher directed his steps towards the old woman's cottage.
He knocked at the door. No one answered. "She must be in the garden," he said to himself. He accordingly went round the back of the house and espied her, laboriously occupied in trying to dig a few parsnips.
"Good morning, Mrs. Vidoux," he said; then perceiving her useless efforts, he took the spade from her bony hands, and dug up a few of the esculent roots.
"Thank you very much," said the old woman, leaning heavily on her walking-stick.