the basin.  Such scenes as this (so gray tradition tells) were once the resort of a power of evil and his plighted subjects, and here at midnight or on the dim verge of evening they were said to stand round the mantling pool disturbing its putrid waters in the performance of an impious baptismal rite.  The chill beauty of an autumnal sunset was now gilding the three hill-tops, whence a paler tint stole down their sides into the hollow.

“Here is our pleasant meeting come to pass,” said the aged crone, “according as thou hast desired.  Say quickly what thou wouldst have of me, for there is but a short hour that we may tarry here.”

As the old withered woman spoke a smile glimmered on her countenance like lamplight on the wall of a sepulchre.  The lady trembled and cast her eyes upward to the verge of the basin, as if meditating to return with her purpose unaccomplished.  But it was not so ordained.

“I am stranger in this land, as you know,” said she, at length.  “Whence I come it matters not, but I have left those behind me with whom my fate was intimately bound, and from whom I am cut off for ever.  There is a weight in my bosom that I cannot away with, and I have come hither to inquire of their welfare.”

“And who is there by this green pool that can bring thee news from the ends of the earth?” cried the old woman, peering into the lady’s face.  “Not from my lips mayst thou hear these tidings; yet be thou bold, and the daylight shall not pass away from yonder hilltop before thy wish be granted.”

“I will do your bidding though I die,” replied the lady, desperately.

The old woman seated herself on the trunk of the fallen tree, threw aside the hood that shrouded her gray locks and beckoned her companion to draw near.

“Kneel down,” she said, “and lay your forehead on my knees.”

She hesitated a moment, but the anxiety that had long been kindling burned fiercely up within her.  As she knelt down the border of her garment was dipped into the pool; she laid her forehead on the old woman’s knees, and the latter drew a cloak about the lady’s face, so that she was in darkness.  Then she heard the muttered words of prayer, in the midst of which she started and would have arisen.

“Let me flee!  Let me flee and hide myself, that they may not look upon me!” she cried.  But, with returning recollection, she hushed herself and was still as death, for it seemed as if other voices, familiar in infancy and unforgotten through many wanderings and in all the vicissitudes of her heart and fortune, were mingling with the accents of the prayer.  At first the words were faint and indistinct—­not rendered so by distance, but rather resembling the dim pages of a book which we strive to read by an imperfect and gradually brightening light.  In such a manner, as the prayer proceeded, did those voices strengthen upon the ear, till at length the petition ended, and the conversation of an aged man and of