The small
apartment in which they were, was formed in great part from the natural
rock; where a fissure presented itself, a huge pine-tree, overthrown so
as to fill the vacuity, completed what nature had left undone; and,
bating the one or two rude cavities left here and there in the
sides--themselves so covered as to lie hidden from all without--there
was all the compactness of a regularly-constructed dwelling. A single
and small lamp, pendent from a beam that hung over the room, gave a
feeble light, which, taken in connection with that borrowed from
without, served only to make visible the dark indistinct of the place.
With something dramatic in their taste, the old women had dressed
themselves in sombre habiliments, according to the general aspect of all
things around them; and, as the unfortunate pedler continued to gaze in
wonderment, his fear grew with every progressive step in his
observation. One by one, however, the old women commenced stirring, and,
as they moved, now before and now behind him--his eyes following them on
every side--he at length discovered, amid the group, the small and
delicate form of the very being for whom he sought.
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