I could see nothing else.
The drowsy traveller who opens his sheets to slip into bed, and sees a
scorpion coiled between them, may have experienced a shock the same in
kind, but immeasurably less in degree.
She sat in a clumsy old arm-chair, with an ancient shawl about her, and
her bare feet in a delft tub. She looked a thought more withered. Her wig
shoved back disclosed her bald wrinkled forehead, and enhanced the ugly
effect of her exaggerated features and the gaunt hollows of her face. With
a sense of incredulity and terror I gazed, freezing, at this evil phantom,
who returned my stare for a few seconds with a shrinking scowl, dismal and
grim, as of an evil spirit detected.
The meeting, at least then and there, was as complete a surprise for her as
for me. She could not tell how I might take it; but she quickly rallied,
burst into a loud screeching laugh, and, with her old Walpurgis gaiety,
danced some fantastic steps in her bare wet feet, tracking the floor with
water, and holding out with finger and thumb, in dainty caricature, her
slammakin old skirt, while she sang some of her nasal patois with an
abominable hilarity and emphasis.
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