"Oh!" said Alice. me?" "You are here! Do you remember "Yes," she answered, wondering. The face that had humbled itself before her, looked on her now with such invincible hatred and defiance; and the hand that had gently touched her arm, was clenched with such a show of evil purpose, as if it would gladly strangle her; that she drew close to her brother for protection. "That I could speak with you, and not know you! That I could come near you, and not feel what blood was running in your veins, by the tingling of my own!" said Alice with a menacing gesture. "What do you mean? What have I done?" "Done!" returned the other. "You have sat me by your fire; you have given me food and money; you have bestowed your compassion on me! You! whose name I spit upon!" The old woman, with a malevolence that made her ugliness quite awful, shook her withered hand at the brother and sister in confirmation of her daughter, but plucked her by the skirts again, nevertheless, imploring her to keep the money. "If I dropped a tear upon your hand, may it wither it up! If I spoke a gentle word in your hearing, may it deafen you! If I touched you with my lips, may the touch be poison to you! A curse upon this roof that gave me shelter ! Sorrow and shame upon your head! Ruin upon all belonging to you!" As she said the words, she threw the money down upon the ground, and spurned it with her foot. "I tread it in the dust: I wouldn't take it if it paved my way to Heaven! I wish the bleeding foot that brought me here to-day, had rotted off, before it led me to your house!" Harriet, pale and trembling, restrained her brother, and suffered her to go on uninterrupted. "It was well that I should be pitied and forgiven by you, or any one of your name, in the first hour of my return! It was well that you should act the kind good lady to me! I'll thank you when I die; I'll pray for you, and all your race, you may be sure!" With a fierce action of her hand, as if she sprinkled hatred on the ground, and with it devoted those who were standing there to destruction, she looked up once at the black sky, and strode out into the wild night |