Her pale, pinched and patient
face was white as the face of a corpse; so, also, was her thin hair,
combed smoothly down under the plain cap she always wore. Very white
indeed she was, as to face, and hair, and cap, but otherwise she was all
and always black, especially so as regarded an ugly pair of gloves,
which were never removed from her hands, so far as the youngsters were
aware, and which added to the fearfully mysterious aspect of those
members. Exactly what they covered, the children never knew, but they
saw that one hideous glove enclosed something like a gigantic, withered
bird's claw, while within the other there musts have been a repulsive
and horrid knob, without proper form, and lacking any remotest attempt
at thumb and fingers.
These shapeless members, forever covered from the world, wrought fearful
images in the minds of the children, and their youthful imaginations
conjured up all sorts of uses to which such strange members might be
applied. Upon one point they were agreed. There was no doubt in any
little head among them that Aunt Hannah had at some time sold herself to
Satan, and that he had placed this deformity upon her as a mark of
ownership. Then she had a humped back, poor woman, the result of the
cruel weight of many weary years; and she leaned upon an old-fashioned
staff with a curved and crutch-like handle; and her bleared eyes were
bent forever on the ground; and her thin lips twitched convulsively, and
she muttered to herself as she crawled about the village streets; and
it was said by those who knew, that she was nearly a hundred years of
age.
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