As I watched her, she arose from her knees and went to a door at the rear, and made sure that it was closed tight. She then went to a great heap of rubbish which was piled in one corner, and scratching with her poker amongst the rags, bones, and old iron there, picked out carefully a handful of bones, examining each one minutely. She then took from a shelf a large bottle of some dark liquid, and with this and the bones she returned to the fire. She poured the liquid into the iron pot and dropped in the bones, one by one; and as she did so I observed a thing which I had not discerned before, that what I had thought was a poker held in her hand was in fact a long, black, stiff forefinger, hooked at the end. There was no doubt about it; it was the first finger of her right hand, as stiff as an iron rod, and about a foot and a half long. She stuck it into the steaming pot and stirred the mixture with it, muttering to herself words which I could not understand. Presently she stopped stirring, and sniffing the contents of the pot nodded her head as if satisfied. She picked up from the ground an iron ladle and a pewter bowl, and ladling the steaming liquid from the pot into the bowl, drank it down, every drop. She put down the ladle and the bowl, and stood motionless, as if waiting. A change began to come over her. Her back straightened; she grew taller; the wrinkles left her face; her skin became fairer, her eyes larger, her hair longer; and there before my eyes stood a young and beautiful damsel, tall and erect, with dark eyes in a pale face, and two thick braids of brown hair hanging to her waist. She held up her right hand and looked at it. The long black stiff finger with the hook was still there. She screamed, and burying her face on her left arm shook with sobs. In a moment she raised her head and put away her hideous right hand behind her where she could not see it. Her left hand she placed over her eyes, with a gesture of despair, and as she remained standing in that attitude the hand over her eyes grew old and withered; she began to shrink and stoop, and she moaned to herself. It was plain that the effect of what she had drunk was beginning to wear off. She shuddered, and gave a mournful cry; and in another instant she was the old, bent Ragpicker again. I drew a long breath. I stood back, for fear that I might be seen, and when I looked again the old woman was standing with her back toward me, facing the closed door at the rear. I noticed now, what I had not noticed before, that she cast no shadow in the lamplight on the floor. “Skag!” she cried. “Come hither!” A shadow oozed into the room through the crack of the door, and moved upright across the floor toward the Ragpicker. It was the shadow of a bent old woman, stooping under a bulky bag, and holding out what appeared to be a poker, hooked at the end; the shadow of the old Ragpicker herself. It stood still, not far from the door.