it was such as we feel it to be almost impossible to describe. Her face
was thin, and supernaturally pale, and her features had a death-like
composure, an almost awful rigidity, that induced the spectator to
imagine that she had just risen from the grave. Her thin lips were
repulsively white, and her teeth so much whiter that they almost filled
you with fear; but it was in her eye that the symbol of her prophetic
power might be said to lie. It was wild, gray, and almost transparent,
and whenever she was, or appeared to be, in a thoughtful mood,
or engaged in the contemplation of futurity, it kept perpetually
scintillating, or shifting, as it were, between two proximate objects,
to which she seemed to look as if they had been in the far distance of
space--that is, it turned from one to another with a quivering rapidity
which the eye of the spectator was unable to follow. And yet it was
evident on reflection, that in her youth she must have been not only
good-looking, but handsome. This quick and unnatural motion of the eye
was extremely wild and startling, and when contrasted with the white and
death-like character of her teeth, and the moveless expression of her
countenance, was in admirable keeping with the supernatural qualities
attributed to her. She wore no bonnet, but her white death-bed like cap
was tied round her head by a band of clean linen, and came under her
chin, as in the case of a corpse, thus making her appear as if she
purposely assumed the startling habiliments of the grave. As for the
outlines of her general person, they afforded evident proof--thin and
emaciated as she then was--that her figure in early life must have been
remarkable for great neatness and symmetry. She inhabited a solitary
cottage in the glen, a fact which, in the opinion of the people,
completed the wild prestige of her character.

"You accursed hag," said the baronet, whose vexation at meeting her was
for the moment beyond any superstitious impression which he felt, "what