Her
profile only was visible to the strangers, though, from a slight motion of
her eye, they perceived that she was aware of their presence. Her features
were pinched and spare, and wore a look of sullen discontent, for which
the evident wretchedness of her situation afforded a sufficient reason.
This female, notwithstanding her years, and the habitual fretfulness (that
is more wearing than time), was apparently healthy and robust, with a dry,
leathery complexion. A short space elapsed before she thought proper to
turn her face towards her visitors; and she then regarded them with a
lowering eye, without speaking, or rising from her chair.
"We entered," Edward Walcott began to say, "in the hope"--But he paused,
on perceiving that the sick woman had risen from her seat, and with slow
and tottering footsteps was drawing near to him. She took his hand in both
her own; and, though he shuddered at the touch of age and disease, he did
not attempt to withdraw it. She then perused all his features, with an
expression, at first of eager and hopeful anxiety, which faded by degrees
into disappointment. Then, turning from him, she gazed into Fanshawe's
countenance with the like eagerness, but with the same result. Lastly,
tottering back to her chair, she hid her face and wept bitterly.
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