whole body," the girl moaned out in the bitter
pain of jealousy.

"Hush thee, hush thee, prairie bird. How
can he build a nest when the old bird has got
all the moss and the feathers? Wait till the
Indian has found means to send the old bird
flying far away." This was the mysterious
comfort Nattee gave.

Grace Hickson took some kind of charge over
Manasseh that relieved Lois of much of her
distress at his strange behaviour. Yet at times he
escaped from his mother's watchfulness, and at
such opportunities he would always seek Lois,
entreating her, as of old, to marry him—sometimes
pleading his love for her, oftener speaking
wildly of his visions and the voices which he
heard foretelling a terrible futurity.

We have now to do with the events which
were taking place in Salem beyond the narrow
circle of the Hickson family; but as they only
concern us in as far as they bore down in their
consequences upon the future of those people
whom I have already named, I shall go over
their narrative very briefly. The town of Salem
had lost by death, within a very short time
preceding the commencement of my story, nearly
all its venerable men and leading citizens—men
of ripe wisdom and sound counsel. The people
had hardly yet recovered from the shock of their
loss, as one by one the patriarchs of the primitive
little community had rapidly followed each
other to the grave. They had been beloved as
fathers, and looked up to as judges in the land.
The first bad effect of their loss was seen in the
heated dissension which sprang up between
Pastor Tappau and the candidate Nolan. It
had been apparently healed over; but Mr.
Nolan had not been many weeks in Salem, after
his second coming, before the strife broke out
afresh, and alienated many for life who had till
now been bound together by the ties of friendship
or relationship. Even in the Hickson
family something of this feeling soon sprang up;
Grace being a vehement partisan of the elder
pastor's more gloomy doctrines, while Faith
was a passionate, if a powerless, advocate of
Mr. Nolan. Manasseh's growing absorption in
his own fancies and imagined gift of prophecy
making him comparatively indifferent to all
outward events, did not tend either to the fulfilment
of his visions, or the elucidation of the
dark mysterious doctrines over which he had
pondered too long for the health either of his
mind or body; while Prudence delighted in
irritating every one by her advocacy of the
views of thinking to which they were most
opposed, and in retailing every gossiping story
to the person most likely to disbelieve, and be
indignant at what she told with an assumed
unconsciousness of any such effect to be produced.
There was much talk of the congregational
difficulties and dissensions being carried up to the
general court, and each party naturally hoped
that, if such were the course of events, the
opposing pastor and that portion of the congregation
that adhered to him might be worsted in
the struggle.

Such was the state of things in the township
when, one day towards the end of the month of
February, Grace Hickson returned from the
weekly prayer meeting, which it was her custom
to attend at Pastor Tappau's house, in a state
of extreme excitement. On her entrance into
her own house she sat down, rocking her body
backwards and forwards, and praying to herself;
both Faith and Lois stopped their spinning in
wonder at her agitation before either of them
ventured to address her. At length Faith rose,
and spoke:

"Mother, what is it? Hath anything
happened of an evil nature?"

The brave, stern old woman's face was
blenched, and her eyes were almost set in horror,
as she prayed; the great drops running down her
cheeks.

It seemed almost as if she had to make a
struggle to recover her sense of the present
homely accustomed life, before the could find
words to answer:

"Evil nature ' Daughters, Satan is abroad, is
close to us. I have this very hour seen him
afflict two innocent children, as of old he
troubled those who were possessed by him in
Judea. Hester and Abigail Tappau have been
contorted and convulsed by him and his
servants into such shapes as I am afeard to think
on; and when their father, godly Mr. Tappau,
began to exhort and to pray, their howlings
were like the wild beasts' of the field. Satan is
of a truth let loose amongst us. The girls kept
calling upon him as if he were even then present
among us. Abigail screeched out that he stood
at my very back in the guise of a black man;
and truly, as I turned round at her words, I saw
a creature like a shadow vanishing, and turned
all of a cold sweat. Who knows where he is
now? Faith, lay straws across on the door-
sill."

"But if he be already entered in," asked
Prudence, " may not that make it difficult for him to
depart?"

Her mother, taking no notice of her question,
went on rocking herself, and praying, till again
she broke out into narration:

"Reverend Mr. Tappau says that only last
night he heard a sound as of a heavy body
dragged all through the house by some strong
power; once it was thrown against his bedroom
door, and would, doubtless, have broken it
in, if he had not prayed fervently and aloud at
that very time; and a shriek went up at his
prayer that made his hair stand on end; and
this morning all the crockery in the house was
found broken and piled up in the middle of
the kitchen floor; and Pastor Tappau says that
as soon as he began to ask blessing on the
morning's meal, Abigail and Hester cried out, as
if some one was pinching them.  Lord, have
mercy upon us all! Satan is of a truth let
loose."

"They sound like the old stories I used to
hear in Barford," said Lois, breathless with
affright.

Faith seemed less alarmed; but then her