“How would drinkin’ the bottle get me money?” inquired Mrs. Sullivan, who certainly felt a strong tendency of heart to the wealth.

“That I can’t tell you now, nor would you understand it, even if I could; but you will know all when what I say is complied with.”

“Keep your bottle, dacent woman.  I wash my hands of it:  the saints above guard me from the timptation!  I’m sure it’s not right, for as I’m a sinner, ’tis getting stronger every minute widin me?  Keep it!  I’m loth to bid any one that ett o’ my bread to go from my hearth, but if you go, I’ll make it worth your while.  Saints above, what’s comin’ over me.  In my whole life I never had such a hankerin’ afther money!  Well, well, but it’s quare entirely!”

“Will you drink it?” asked her companion.  “If it does hurt or harm to you or yours, or anything but good, may what is hanging over me be fulfilled!” and she extended a thin, but, considering her years, not ungraceful arm, in the act of holding out the bottle to her kind entertainer.

“For the sake of all that’s good and gracious take it without scruple—­it is not hurtful, a child might drink every drop that’s in it.  Oh, for the sake of all you love, and of all that love you, take it!” and as she urged her, the tears streamed down her cheeks.

“No, no,” replied Mrs. Sullivan, “it’ll never cross my lips; not if it made me as rich as ould Hendherson, that airs his guineas in the sun, for fraid they’d get light by lyin’ past.”

“I entreat you to take it?” said the strange woman.

“Never, never!—­once for all—­I say, I won’t; so spare your breath.”

The firmness of the good housewife was not, in fact to be shaken; so, after exhausting all the motives and arguments with which she could urge the accomplishments of her design, the strange woman, having again put the bottle into her bosom, prepared to depart.

She had now once more become calm, and resumed her seat with the languid air of one who has suffered much exhaustion and excitement.  She put her hand upon her forehead for a few moments, as if collecting her faculties, or endeavoring to remember the purport of their previous conversation.  A slight moisture had broken through her skin, and altogether, notwithstanding her avowed criminality in entering into an unholy bond, she appeared an object of deep compassion.

In a moment her manner changed again, and her eyes blazed out once more, as she asked her alarmed hostess:—­

“Again, Mary Sullivan, will you take the gift that I have it in my power to give you? ay or no? speak, poor mortal, if you know what is for your own good?”

Mrs. Sullivan’s fears, however, had overcome her love of money, particularly as she thought that wealth obtained in such a manner could not prosper; her only objection being to the means of acquiring it.