The woman’s face had got haggard, and its features distorted; but in a few minutes they resumed their peculiar expression of settled wildness and mystery.  “Sick!” she replied, licking her parched lips; “awirck, awirck! look! look!” and she pointed with a shudder that almost convulsed her whole frame, to a lump that rose on her shoulders; this, be it what it might, was covered with a red cloak, closely pinned and tied with great caution about her body—­“’tis here!—­I have it!”

“Blessed mother!” exclaimed Mrs Sullivan, tottering over to her chair, as finished a picture of horror as the eye could witness, “this day’s Friday:  the saints stand betwixt me an’ all harm!  Oh, holy Mary, protect me! Nhanim an airh,” in the name of the Father, etc., and she forthwith proceeded to bless herself, which she did thirteen times in honour of the blessed virgin and the twelve apostles.

“Ay, it’s as you see!” replied the stranger bitterly.  “It is here—­husht, now—­husht, I say—­I will say the thing to her, mayn’t I?  Ay, indeed, Mary Sullivan, ’tis with me always—­always.  Well, well, no, I won’t I won’t—­easy.  Oh, blessed saints, easy, and I won’t!”

In the meantime Mrs Sullivan had uncorked her bottle of holy water, and plentifully bedewed herself with it, as a preservative against this mysterious woman and her dreadful secret.

“Blessed mother above!” she ejaculated, “the Lianhan Shee!” And as she spoke, with the holy water in the palm of her hand, she advanced cautiously, and with great terror, to throw it upon the stranger and the unearthly thing she bore.

“Don’t attempt it!” shouted the other, in tones of mingled fierceness and terror; “do you want to give me pain without keeping yourself anything at all safer?  Don’t you know it doesn’t care about your holy water?  But I’d suffer for it, an’ perhaps so would you.”

Mrs Sullivan, terrified by the agitated looks of the woman, drew back with affright, and threw the holy water with which she intended to purify the other on her own person.

“Why thin, you lost crathur, who or what are you at all?—­don’t, don’t—­for the sake of all the saints and angels of heaven, don’t come next or near me—­keep your distance—­but what are you, or how did you come to get that ‘good thing’ you carry about wid you?”

“Ay, indeed!” replied the woman bitterly, “as if I would or could tell you that!  I say, you woman, you’re doing what’s not right in asking me a question you ought not let to cross your lips—­look to yourself, and what’s over you.”

The simple woman, thinking her meaning literal, almost leaped off her seat with terror, and turned up her eyes to ascertain whether or not any dreadful appearance had approached her, or hung over her where she sat.

“Woman,” said she, “I spoke you kind an’ fair, an’ I wish you well—­but——­”

“But what?” replied the other—­and her eyes kindled into deep and profound excitement, apparently upon very slight grounds.