more than most of yonr neighbours. But is it not strange, mother, that these powers are all for evil ? Have you no faculty for conferring good—for cheering the heart instead of distressing it, and giving pleasure instead of pain?"
"Ay! I can avenge you upon your enemy!" As she spoke, her form suspended its waving motion, was bent forward in eagerness, and her eye glistened, while her look seemed to say, "Is not that the capacity you would have me serve you in?"
"That, also, is a power of evil, dame, and not of good. I spoke of good, not evil."
"Not that!" she muttered, with an air of disappointment, while drawing herself back and resuming her croning movement.
"Not that! is not revenge sweet, young master—very sweet, when you have been robbed and wronged for years; trampled in the dust; laughed and sneered at; hunted and hated: is not the moment of revenge sweet? When you see your enemy writhing in pain, you put your ear down and listen to his suffering, and your heart, that used to beat only with its own sorrow, you feel is throbbing with a strange, sweet joy at his—is it not sweet, my master?"
"Ay, sweet perhaps to many, dame, but I fear me, still evil; still not good; still harmful to man. Have you no better powers in your collection? none to give strength and youth, and bring back health?"
She pointed to a bunch of the smaller snake-roots which lay in the corner, but with much seeming indifference, as if the cure of disease formed but an humble portion of her mystery and labours.
"And your art gives you power over affections, and brings pleasure sometimes, mother?"
"Is it love?—the love of the young woman—hard to please, difficult to soothe, cold to sweet words—that you would win, my young master?"
She again bent her head towards him, and suspended her motion, as if now hopeful that, in this reference, she had found out the true quest of the seeker. A warm glow overspread the cheek of Singleton, as, in answering the inquiry correctly, he must necessarily have confessed that such a desire was in his bosom,
