`` I will do your bidding though I die , '' replied the lady , desperately . The old woman seated herself on the trunk of the fallen tree , threw aside the hood that shrouded her gray locks and beckoned her companion to draw near . `` Kneel down , '' she said , `` and lay your forehead on my knees . '' She hesitated a moment , but the anxiety that had long been kindling burned fiercely up within her . As she knelt down the border of her garment was dipped into the pool ; she laid her forehead on the old woman 's knees , and the latter drew a cloak about the lady 's face , so that she was in darkness . Then she heard the muttered words of prayer , in the midst of which she started and would have arisen . `` Let me flee ! Let me flee and hide myself , that they may not look upon me ! '' she cried . But , with returning recollection , she hushed herself and was still as death , for it seemed as if other voices , familiar in infancy and unforgotten through many wanderings and in all the vicissitudes of her heart and fortune , were mingling with the accents of the prayer . At first the words were faint and indistinct -- not rendered so by distance , but rather resembling the dim pages of a book which we strive to read by an imperfect and gradually brightening light . In such a manner , as the prayer proceeded , did those voices strengthen upon the ear , till at length the petition ended , and the conversation of an aged man and of a woman broken and decayed like himself became distinctly audible to the lady as she knelt . But those strangers appeared not to stand in the hollow depth between the three hills . Their voices were encompassed and re-echoed by the walls of a chamber the windows of which were rattling in the breeze ; the regular vibration of a clock , the crackling of a fire and the tinkling of the embers as they fell among the ashes rendered the scene almost as vivid as if painted to the eye . By a melancholy hearth sat these two old people , the man calmly despondent , the woman querulous and tearful , and their words were all of sorrow . They spoke of a daughter , a wanderer they knew not where , bearing dishonor along with her and leaving shame and affliction to bring their gray heads to the grave . They alluded also to other and more recent woe , but in the midst of their talk their voices seemed to melt into the sound of the wind sweeping mournfully among the autumn leaves ; and when the lady lifted her eyes , there was she kneeling in the hollow between three hills . `` A weary and lonesome time yonder old couple have of it , '' remarked the old woman , smiling in the lady 's face . `` And did you also hear them ? '' exclaimed she , a sense of intolerable humiliation triumphing over her agony and fear .
`` Yea , and we have yet more XXXXX hear , '' replied the old woman , `` wherefore cover thy face quickly . ''
As At By In about into that though to with