This feat seemed to fascinate Mistress Anne, who watched the last bit of tail disappear, the robin having succeeded in taking down a worm nearly twice its own length; such a feat, indeed, as a man would have accomplished had he made a meal of a serpent some ten or eleven feet long, swallowing it, writhing and twisting, whole. "How cruel Nature is!" said Mistress Anne, in a low thoughtful voice, and as she spoke there was a strange light in her eyes. "Everything for its own pleasure seems to kill what it wills. Why should I not be cruel too?" She laughed then--a curious unpleasant laugh; and rising, the robin flitted away over the low undergrowth, apparently none the heavier for its meal, and there was a sharp rustle and a bound in the grass. Mistress Anne Beckley seemed now to be too much occupied by her thoughts to pay much heed to the objects she passed as she walked slowly on. Once more she said softly, "Why should not I be cruel too?" Then she laughed in a very unpleasant way, and half-closed her eyes. About a mile farther, and in a very solitary place by an opening in the sandstone rock that rose in front, she stopped before a low, thatched cottage, glanced to right and left hastily, and then opening the rough gate, passed between a couple of rows of old-fashioned flowers, pushed the door, and entered the low-ceiled, homely room, with its bricked floor and open fireplace, where, in spite of the heat, a few sticks of wood were smouldering between the firedogs. Quite in the chimney-corner, and seated upon a stool so low that her chin was brought in close proximity to her knees, was a hard-featured gaunt woman of sixty, dressed in widow's weeds of a very homely kind, but scrupulously clean. The muslin kerchief and cap she wore were white as snow, and her grey hair was tidily smoothed back. But, in spite of her neat look, there was something repulsive about the woman's face--a look of low cunning that played about her thin lips, which were drawn in at the corners, while she had a habit of bringing her thick grey eyebrows down over her eyes so as almost to conceal them, though, as you looked at her, you felt that she was scrutinising you severely from behind the shaggy grey fringe, and judging you from a hidden point of view. She rose from her seat as Mistress Anne entered, and welcomed her with a smile, half defiant, half fawning. "I'm so glad to see thee again, dearie," she said, in a harsh voice. "What can I do for thee now?" "I don't know," cried the visitor, sharply; "but look here, Mother Goodhugh, mind this: my father is a justice, and if you play foul games with me I have only to complain to have you seized and punished as a witch." "Me a witch, dearie? Oh, fie! I never pretended to be, only helped you to a little of my knowledge when you came to me." "I believe your knowledge is all nonsense," cried the girl, angrily. "What good has it done?"