Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/289

Rh been able to persuade Pearly Gates that she, and she alone, had brought this misfortune on her. She had left her with the parting announcement that she would never be any better, no matter what the doctor said—that she, Mam' Peachy, would see to it that she never got out of bed. A day had never passed in all the twenty years that Aunt Pearly Gates had been bedridden that the wretched old black woman had not endeavored to work her spells against the invalid. Not only did she work them, but she saw to it from time to time the news was taken to her victim that she had not forgotten her. Long ago the doctor had ceased his visits to Aunt Pearly Gates. Her case was given up as hopeless.

It was a fly in the ointment that Pearly Gates refused to acknowledge to anyone the fear she had for Mam' Peachy. The one time that she had confessed it to Rebecca was the only weakness she had shown in the twenty years of her invalidism. She had held firmly to her faith in the goodness of God, proclaiming it at all times. Nobody but her faithful Si knew of her dark hours, when belief in Mam' Peachy's evil power got the better of her belief in the all-loving Father's infinite tenderness and mercy. She never openly confessed it even to