I knocked, and the sweetest voice I had ever heard said, "Come in." I entered.

A bright fire was burning on a hearth in the centre of the earthern floor, and the smoke found its way out at an opening in the centre of the pyramidal roof.

Over the fire hung a little pot, and over the pot bent a woman-face, the most wonderful, I thought, that I had ever beheld.

For it was older than any countenance I had ever looked upon.

There was not a spot in which a wrinkle could lie, where a wrinkle lay not.