stitiously affected by the vehemence and the language of the dying woman, and he answered as he kissed the pretended Bible,—that he swore to keep the secret, as much as he knew of it, which, she must be sensible, he said, was very little. As he spoke, the wind swept with a loud and sudden gust down the chimney, and shook the roof above them so violently as to loosen many of the crumbling tiles, which fell one after the other, with a crashing noise, on the pavement below. Dummie started in affright; and perhaps his conscience smote him for the trick he had played with regard to the false Bible. But the woman, whose excited and unstrung nerves led her astray from one subject to another with preternatural celerity, said with an hysterical laugh, "See, Dummie, they come in state for me,—give me the cap—yonder! and bring the looking-glass!"
Dummie obeyed, and the woman, as she in a low tone uttered something about the unbecoming colour of the ribbons, adjusted the cap on her head; and then saying in a regretful and petulant voice, "Why should they have cut off my hair?—such a disfigurement!" bade Dummie
