When the safe time came for leaving my hiding-place, I committed
a serious mistake. In thanking the old woman at parting, I said
to her (with a boy's sense of honor), "I won't tell upon you,
Dame. My mother shan't know that you hid me in your bedroom."

The Sibyl laid her dry, fleshless hand on my shoulder, and forced
me roughly back into the chair from which I had just risen.

"Boy!" she said, looking through and through me with her fierce
black eyes. "Do you dare suppose that I ever did anything that I
was ashamed of? Do you think I am ashamed of what I have done
now? Wait there. Your mother may mistake me too. I shall write to
your mother."

She put on her great round spectacles with tortoise-shell rims
and sat down to her letter. Whenever her thoughts flagged,
whenever she was at a loss for an expression, she looked over her
shoulder, as if some visible creature were stationed behind her,
watching what she wrote; consulted the spirit of her husband,
exactly as she might have consulted a living man; smiled softly
to herself, and went on with her writing.

"There!" she said, handing me the completed letter with an
imperial gesture of indulgence. "_His_ mind and _my_ mind are
written there. Go, boy. I pardon you. Give my letter to your
mother."

So she always spoke, with the same formal and measured dignity of
manner and language.