Her head had been shaved, and around it was swathed a piece of rag, in which a few straws were stuck.

Her thin fingers were armed with nails as long as the talons of a bird.

A chain, riveted to an iron belt encircling her waist, bound her to the wall.

The cell in which she was confined was about six feet long and four wide; the walls were scored all over with fantastic designs, snatches of poetry, short sentences and names,--the work of its former occupants, and of its present inmate.
When Jack entered the cell, she was talking to herself in the muttering unconnected way peculiar to her distracted condition; but, after her eye had rested on him some time, the fixed expression of her features relaxed, and a smile crossed them.

This smile was more harrowing even than her former rigid look.
"You are an angel," she cried, with a look beaming with delight.
"Rather a devil," groaned her son, "to have done this." "You are an angel, I say," continued the poor maniac; "and my Jack would have been like you, if he had lived.