acquired grace which compelled her to pray, insomuch that, after all, you
would have thought the poor old woman was cursing with all her rheumatic
might. All the time an old, broken-nosed, brown earthen jug, covered with
the lid of a black teapot, stood on the edge of the embers, steaming
forever, and sometimes bubbling a little, and giving a great puff, as if
it were sighing and groaning in sympathy with poor Aunt Keziah, and when
it sighed there came a great steam of herby fragrance, not particularly
pleasant, into the kitchen. And ever and anon,--half a dozen times it
might be,--of an afternoon, Aunt Keziah took a certain bottle from a
private receptacle of hers, and also a teacup, and likewise a little,
old-fashioned silver teaspoon, with which she measured three teaspoonfuls
of some spirituous liquor into the teacup, half filled the cup with the
hot decoction, drank it off, gave a grunt of content, and for the space of
half an hour appeared to find life tolerable.

But one day poor Aunt Keziah found herself unable, partly from rheumatism,
partly from other sickness or weakness, and partly from dolorous
ill-spirits, to keep about any longer, so she betook herself to her bed;
and betimes in the forenoon Septimius heard a tremendous knocking on the
floor of her bedchamber, which happened to be the room above his own. He
was the only person in or about the house; so with great reluctance, he
left his studies, which were upon the recipe, in respect to which he was
trying to make out the mode of concoction, which was told in such a
mysterious way that he could not well tell either the quantity of the
ingredients, the mode of trituration, nor in what way their virtue was to
be extracted and combined.

Running hastily up stairs, he found Aunt Keziah lying in bed, and groaning
with great spite and bitterness; so that, indeed, it seemed not
improvidential that such an inimical state of mind towards the human race