Dutch court, having been employed for many years in a subordinate capacity in the king’s household.  She was said to have once been handsome, and when young, prodigal of her favours; at present she was a palsied old woman, bent double with age and infirmity, but with all her faculties as complete as if she was in her prime.  Nothing could escape her little twinkling bloodshot eyes, or her acute ear; she could scarcely hobble fifty yards, but she kept no servant to assist her, for, like her son, she was avaricious in the extreme.  What crime she had committed was not known, but that something lay heavy on her conscience was certain; but if there was guilt, there was no repentance, only fear of future punishment.  Cornelius Vanslyperken was her only living child:  she had been twice married.  The old woman did not appear to be very fond of him, although she treated him still as a child, and executed her parental authority as if he were still in petticoats.  Her coming over was a sort of mutual convenience.  She had saved money, and Vanslyperken wished to secure that, and also have a home and a person to whom he could trust; and she was so abhorred, and the reports against her so shocking where she resided, that she was glad to leave a place where every one, as she passed, would get out of her way, as if to avoid contamination.  Yet these reports were vague, although hinting at some horrid and appalling crimes.  No one knew what they exactly were, for the old woman had outlived her contemporaries, and the tradition was imperfect, but she had been handed down to the next generation as one to be avoided as a basilisk.

It was to his mother’s abode, one room on the second floor, to which Mr Vanslyperken proceeded as soon as he had taken the necessary steps for the replacing of the boat.  As he ascended the stairs, the quick ear of the old woman heard his footstep, and recognised it.  It must be observed, that all the conversation between Vanslyperken and his mother was carried on in Dutch, of which we, of course, give the translation.

“There you come, Cornelius Vanslyperken; I hear you, and by your hurried tread you are vexed.  Well, why should you not be vexed as well as your mother, in this world of devils?”

This was a soliloquy of the old woman’s before that Vanslyperken had entered the room, where he found his mother sitting over a few cinders half ignited in a very small grate.  Parsimony would not allow her to use more fuel, although her limbs trembled as much from cold as palsy; her nose and chin nearly met; her lips were like old scars, and of an ashy white; and her sunken hollow mouth reminded you of a small, deep, dark sepulchre; teeth she had none.

“How fare you, mother?” said Vanslyperken on entering the room.

“I’m alive.”

“And long may you live, dear mother.”

“Ah,” replied the woman, as if doubting.

“I am here but for a short time,” continued Vanslyperken.