"What shall we do? Shall we go in the house?" whispered Grace to Betty.
"I don't like her looks very much, do you?"
"She isn't particularly beautiful," Betty telegraphed back. "But she
can't possibly do us any harm. Let's wait and see what she has to say."
As the old hag drew nearer, the girls instinctively shrank back in their
chairs. And, indeed, she was not a prepossessing figure. Her head was
bound about with an old red handkerchief, tied under the wrinkled chin
and framing a face seamed and crisscrossed with a million wrinkles. An
old, tattered shawl covered her bent shoulders, and the hand that
grasped the knotted stick was claw-like and emaciated. Her eyes were the
only part of her that seemed to retain some semblance of youth. They
were little and beady and exceedingly keen, so that when she raised them
to Betty's young face, that staunch little captain felt that she would
almost rather be anywhere else than there beneath the trees with the
searching eyes of the old crone fixed upon her.
"What do you want?" Betty gasped, trying to make her voice calm and
steady, but with little success.
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