"Who are you, you wild witch, grabbing a fellow like a cat! Who are
you?" cried the watchman, shaking her off.

"I am the niece of old Mark Stillinghast. He is dying, I fear," she
cried, wringing her hands.

"Zounds! the old man dying! Yes, I'll go directly," said the watchman,
moving off. He had been on the beat twenty years, and felt an
individual interest in all those whose property and lives he guarded.
Then May, thankful for his promptness, remembered to have heard that
ice applications to the head were good in cases like this, and rushing
back into the yard, she groped her way to the rain-barrel, and stooping
over, seized the jagged edges of the ice, which she had broken that
very day, and tearing it away from the sides, hastened back, and up to
the chamber of death, with her prize in her bleeding hands. Stripping
a case from a pillow, she threw in the ice--pounded it with the
tongs--shook it together, and lifting up her uncle's insensible head,
laid the icy pillow under it, and gathered the ends over his forehead,
as well as she could. Then she chafed his hands, exclaiming all the
time, "Merciful Jesus, pity him! Merciful Jesus, help me, and
strengthen me!" But his breathing became more and more difficult, and
his limbs began to be agitated with horrible convulsions. A sudden
thought suggested itself. She untied her silk apron, tore off the
strings--ripped up the sleeve of Mr. Stillinghast's shirt, and wound
the ribbon tightly around his arm above the elbow; and while waiting
for the vein to swell, she took a small penknife from her pocket, and
opened the blade--it was thin, keen, and pointed. She had found it
among her father's papers years ago, and kept it about her to scrape
the points of her ivory knitting-needles. In another moment, invoking