"An' ye do? Well, I'm glad I please ye there. Och! yes! the Bible's a
mighty comfort; for it says as much that the rich man shall not inter the
kingdom of Heaven! There's a truth for you, that makes the poor folk's
heart chirp like a cricket--ho! ho! I sits by the imbers of a night, and
I thinks and thinks as how I shall see you all burning; and ye'll ask me
for a drop o' water, and I shall laugh thin from my pleasant seat with
the angels. Och--it's a book for the poor that!"

The sisters shuddered. "And you think then that with envy, malice, and
all uncharitableness at your heart, you are certain of Heaven? For shame!
Pluck the mote from your own eye!"

"What sinnifies praching? Did not the Blessed Saviour come for the poor?
Them as has rags and dry bread here will be ixalted in the nixt world;
an' if we poor folk have malice as ye calls it, whose fault's that? What
do ye tache us? Eh?--answer me that. Ye keeps all the larning an' all the
other fine things to yoursel', and then ye scould, and thritten, and hang
us, 'cause we are not as wise as you. Och! there is no jistice in the
Lamb, if Heaven is not made for us; and the iverlasting Hell, with its
brimstone and fire, and its gnawing an' gnashing of teeth, an' its
theirst, an' its torture, and its worm that niver dies, for the like o'
you."

"Come! come away," said Ellinor, pulling her father's arm.

"And if," said Aram, pausing, "if I were to say to you,--name your want
and it shall be fulfilled, would you have no charity for me also?"

"Umph," returned the hag, "ye are the great scolard; and they say ye
knows what no one else do. Till me now," and she approached, and