widely.

"I was but a child," she whispered--"a child--as--as this will be--if she
lives fifteen years."

Despite her weakness, and it was great and woefully increasing with each
panting breath, she slowly laboured to turn herself towards the pillow on
which her offspring lay, and, this done, she lay staring at the child and
gasping, her thin chest rising and falling convulsively. Ah, how she
panted, and how she stared, the glaze of death stealing slowly over her
wide-opened eyes; and yet, dimming as they were, they saw in the sleeping
infant a strange and troublous thing--though it was but a few hours old
'twas not as red and crumple visaged as new-born infants usually are, its
little head was covered with thick black silk, and its small features
were of singular definiteness. She dragged herself nearer to gaze.

"She looks not like the others," she said. "They had no beauty--and are
safe. She--she will be like--Jeoffry--and like _me_."

The dying fire fell lower with a shuddering sound.

"If she is--beautiful, and has but her father, and no mother!" she
whispered, the words dragged forth slowly, "only evil can come to her.
From her first hour--she will know naught else, poor heart, poor heart!"

There was a rattling in her throat as she breathed, but in her glazing
eyes a gleam like passion leaped, and gasping, she dragged nearer.

"'Tis not fair," she cried. "If I--if I could lay my hand upon thy
mouth--and stop thy breathing--thou poor thing, 'twould be fairer--but--I