An irresistible attraction caused me to enter. The woman never raised
her face, the upper part of which alone I could see distinctly; but, as
soon as I stepped within the threshold, she began to read aloud, in a
low and not altogether unpleasing voice, from an ancient little volume
which she held open with one hand on the table upon which stood the
lamp. What she read was something like this:

"So, then, as darkness had no beginning, neither will it ever have
an end. So, then, is it eternal. The negation of aught else, is its
affirmation. Where the light cannot come, there abideth the darkness.
The light doth but hollow a mine out of the infinite extension of the
darkness. And ever upon the steps of the light treadeth the darkness;
yea, springeth in fountains and wells amidst it, from the secret
channels of its mighty sea. Truly, man is but a passing flame, moving
unquietly amid the surrounding rest of night; without which he yet could
not be, and whereof he is in part compounded."

As I drew nearer, and she read on, she moved a little to turn a leaf
of the dark old volume, and I saw that her face was sallow and slightly
forbidding. Her forehead was high, and her black eyes repressedly quiet.
But she took no notice of me. This end of the cottage, if cottage it
could be called, was destitute of furniture, except the table with the
lamp, and the chair on which the woman sat. In one corner was a door,
apparently of a cupboard in the wall, but which might lead to a room
beyond.