“See that pretty little thing, with the yellow head?  Shouldn’t you say she looks like an angel, and ought to be put on the altar to hear the prayers of sinners?  Would you believe she is a mother?  Arson is her hobby.  She is a regular ‘fire-bug’.  She was adopted by a German couple, and one night, when the old farmer had come home with the money paid him for his sheep and hogs, she stole the last cent he had, pocketed all the oold frau’s silver spoons, poured kerosene around the floor, set fire to the house in several places, locked the door and ran for her life.  A peddler happened to seek quarters for the night, and finding the place on fire, managed to break through the windows and save the old folks from being roasted alive.  When the case came to trial it was proved that she had set fire to two other buildings, but on account of her youth had escaped prosecution.  They could not hang her, though she deserved the gallows, and her child was born three months after she came here.  Looks innocent as a wax doll doesn’t she?  Eve Werneth she calls herself; and she is well named after the original mother of all sin.  She is Satan’s own imp, and we chain her every night, for she boasts that when things grow tiresome to her she always burns her way out.  I think she is the worst case we have, except the young mulatto—­I don’t see her here just now—­who was sent up for life, for poisoning a baby she was hired to nurse.  There is Mrs. Singleton.”

The warden’s wife came forward with a vial in one hand, and at sight of the visitor, paused and held out the other.

“How’dy do, Mr. Dunbar.  You are waiting to see Ned?”

“I much prefer seeing you, if you have leisure for an interview.  Singleton can join us when the inspectors take their leave.”

“Very well; come up stairs.  Jarvis, send Ned up as soon as you can.”

She led the way to the room where her two children were at play, and breaking a ginger cake between them, dragged their toys into one corner, and bade them build block houses, without a riot.

“I have never received even a verbal reply to the note which I requested your husband to place in Miss Brentano’s hands.”

“Probably you never will.  She took cold by being dragged back and forth to court during that freezing weather, and two days after her conviction she was taken ill with pneumonia.  First one lung, then the other, and the case took a typhoid form.  For six weeks she could not lift her head, and now though she goes about my rooms, and into the yard a little, she is awfully shattered, and has a bad cough, Once when we had scarcely any hope, she asked the doctor to give her no more medicine; said that it would be a mercy to let her die.  Poor thing! her proud spirit is as broken as her body, and the thought of being seen seems to torture her.  Dyce is the only person whom she allows to come near her.”

“Where is she?”