Gertrude's wrist, and the fourth towards her elbow.

What the impress resembled seemed to have struck Gertrude herself since
their last meeting. 'It looks almost like finger-marks,' she said;
adding with a faint laugh, 'my husband says it is as if some witch, or
the devil himself, had taken hold of me there, and blasted the flesh.'

Rhoda shivered. 'That's fancy,' she said hurriedly. 'I wouldn't mind
it, if I were you.'

'I shouldn't so much mind it,' said the younger, with hesitation, 'if--if
I hadn't a notion that it makes my husband--dislike me--no, love me less.
Men think so much of personal appearance.'

'Some do--he for one.'

'Yes; and he was very proud of mine, at first.'

'Keep your arm covered from his sight.'

'Ah--he knows the disfigurement is there!' She tried to hide the tears
that filled her eyes.

'Well, ma'am, I earnestly hope it will go away soon.'

And so the milkwoman's mind was chained anew to the subject by a horrid
sort of spell as she returned home. The sense of having been guilty of
an act of malignity increased, affect as she might to ridicule her
superstition. In her secret heart Rhoda did not altogether object to a
slight diminution of her successor's beauty, by whatever means it had