One was a hideous old harridan whose years could not have been less than sixty-two or sixty-three; and yet, though her form--once tall, symmetrical, and on a large scale--was bowed with age and sufferings, she still possessed considerable physical energy. The countenance was weather-beaten and tanned to such an extreme that, had she been dressed in male attire, no delicacy nor feminine cast of features would have betrayed her real sex: her short grizzled locks were confined by an old kerchief wound round her head in a gipsy fashion;--and her garb denoted the utmost penury and distress. Not only did she leave upon the mind the disagreeable impression of revolting ugliness;--but her look was sinister and repulsive. The wrinkles beneath her eyes and about her closely compressed lips, bespoke a ferocious and determined character,--a soul resolute and nerved to every evil purpose;--and the acute observer might also mark in that countenance traces of those stormy and impetuous passions which had influenced her earlier years. Her companion was a young woman of about nineteen; and though she was dressed almost as wretchedly as the old harridan, yet how different was the form which those rags covered! For her figure, though full even to a maturity beyond her years, was exquisitely modelled,--a waist not ridiculously small, but still small enough to develop in all their voluptuous proportions the swelling hips and fine bust. Clothed in stockings covered with darns, and shod with large clumsy shoes, were limbs and feet that for symmetry might have been envied by a queen;--and, as if anxious in the depths of her penury to preserve her charms as completely as possible, she wore an old pair of gloves upon her beautifully sculptured hands. Then her face, though sun-burnt was of a beauty which event an anchorite must have turned to admire,--yet a beauty of a bold and masculine style, and stamping her rather as a very handsome than as a very lovely woman. Her features were of the Roman cast,--the strong facial aquiline denoting a voluptuous and profoundly sensual disposition;--her fine large grey eyes looked boldly and wantonly from beneath dark brows majestically arched and almost meeting between the temples, and above which rose the high, straight, wide forehead, crowned with intelligence. Her hair was of a dark brown and singularly luxuriant, glossy, and silken;--and it was evident that not even the bitter miseries of poverty rendered her indifferent to the care which that glorious covering required to maintain its splendour unimpaired. Her mouth was small,--the upper lip thin--the lower one fuller, but not pouting;--her teeth, the least thing large, were nevertheless perfectly regular and of pearly whiteness;--and her chin was prominent, but well rounded. The general expression of her countenance was indicative of strong passions and fierce desires--great resolution of purpose--and something approaching even to a resolute