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Then she knelt down on the rough boards, and
clasping her hands, began to writhe and wrestle as though she were
seized with a sudden convulsion. She groaned and tortured the tears from
her eyes; she pinched her own flesh till it was black and blue, and
scratched it with her nails till it bled,--and she prayed inaudibly, but
with evident desperation. Sometimes her gestures were frantic, sometimes
appealing; but she made no noise that was loud enough to attract
attention from any of the dwellers in the house. Her stolid features
were contorted with anguish,--and had she been an erring nun of the
creed she held in such bitter abhorrence, who, for some untold crime,
endured a self-imposed penance, she could not have punished her own
flesh much more severely.
She remained some quarter of an hour or twenty minutes thus; then rising
from her knees, she wiped the tears from her eyes and re-clothed
herself,--and with her usual calm, immovable aspect--though smarting
from the injuries she had inflicted on herself--she descended to the
kitchen, there to prepare Mr.


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