“Here the widow puffed forth a volume of smoke as large as a small thunder-cloud, and gazed knowingly among the embers.
“‘And the young painter in the village, they say, is going distracted at her loss,’ continued Mistress Guernsey, not observing the drift of the other’s remarks. ‘He has been painting a portrait of her, and now he has left all and gone off to search for her in the woods.’
“‘Small chance of his finding her, Neighbor Guernsey,’ answered the widow, drily; her remarks still tending in a direction which her companion did not perceive. ‘It is no wolf of the forest which will have the pleasure of picking her bones.’
“‘Heaven grant it may be as you say!’ was the reply, referring to the last clause of the sentence, whose ambiguity was unnoticed.
“‘Hast thou not heard tales about this dame?’ asked the widow, dropping her disguise and speaking more openly.
“‘Ay, ay, many a time and oft; tales smacking of mystery and mischief, which boded no good to Dame Burton. They say she has unholy company o’nights in the wood. But, after all, they were only tales about which I knew nothing certain.’
“‘Hast thou not,’ continued the widow, ‘noticed a strange twinkle in her eyes, a shrillness in her voice, and that her hair is becoming coarse and grizzled? What does this portend?’
“‘Alas! I cannot tell,’ replied Mistress Guernsey. ‘There were strange hints when her good man died, and now I bethink me that they might have been true, and the remorse of the inner conscience might thus have developed itself outwardly.’
“Here there ensued a pause, and the two sat awhile quietly listening to the hollow moaning of the wind among the trees of the old forest hard by. Superstition, which always attends ignorance, was a prominent point in the characters of both; but more especially in that of the widow. No doubt she heard demon voices in the wind wailing in the crannies, and fancied the air filled with evil spirits, hurrying like lightning upon their various errands of mischief. When she spoke again her voice quivered, and her frame shook as with an ague-fit.
“‘I tell thee, Mistress Guernsey, I have seen—’ said she, at last, her gaze fixed intently on vacancy.