healthy face became contracted into shrivel and
pallor, but she uttered not a word, only looked
at Dr. Mather with her dilated, terrified eyes.

Some one said, "She is of the household of
Grace Hickson, a God-fearing woman." Lois
did not know if the words were in her favour or
not. She did not think about them even; they
told less on her than on any person present.
She a witch! and the silver glittering Avon, and
the drowning woman she had seen in her
childhood at Barford, at home in England, were
before her, and her eyes fell before her doom.
There was some commotion—some rustling of
papers; the magistrates of the town were drawing
near the pulpit and consulting with the ministers.
Dr. Mather spoke again.

"The Indian woman, who was hung this

morning, named certain people, whom she
deposed to having seen at the horrible meetings
for the worship of Satan; but there is no name
of Lois Barclay down upon the paper, although
we are stricken at the sight of the names of
some—"

An interruption—a consultation. Again Dr.
Mather spoke.

"Bring the accused witch Lois Barclay near
to this poor suffering child of Christ."

They rushed forward to force Lois to the
place where Prudence lay. But Lois walked
forward of herself.

"Prudence," she said, in such a sweet, touching
voice, that long afterwards those who heard
it that day, spoke of it to their children, "have
I ever said an unkind word to you, much less
done you an ill turn? Speak, dear child. You
did not know what you said just now, did you?"

But Prudence writhed away from her
approach, and screamed out, as if stricken with
fresh agony,

"Take her away! take her away! Witch
Lois, witch Lois, who threw me down only this
morning, and turned my arm black and blue."
And she bared her arm, as if in confirmation of
her words. It was sorely bruised.

"I was not near you, Prudence!" said Lois,
sadly. But that was only reckoned fresh
evidence of her diabolic power.

Lois's brain began to get bewildered. Witch
Lois! She a witch, abhorred of all men. Yet
she would try to think, and make one more effort.

"Aunt Hickson," she said, and Grace came
forwards—"am I a witch, Aunt Hickson?" she
said; for her aunt, stern, harsh, unloving as she
might be, was truth itself, and Lois thought—
so near to delirium had she come—if her aunt
condemned her, it was possible she might indeed
be a witch.

Grace Hickson faced her unwillingly.

"It is a stain upon our family for ever," was
the thought in her mind.

"It is for God to judge whether thou art a
witch, or not. Not for me."

"Alas, alas!" moaned Lois; for she had
looked at Faith, and learnt that no good word
was to be expected from her gloomy face and
averted eyes. The meeting-house was full of
eager voices, repressed, out of reverence to the
place, into tones of earnest murmuring that
seemed to fill the air with gathering sounds of
anger, and those who had at first fallen back
from the place where Lois stood were now
pressing forwards and round about her, ready to
seize the young friendless girl and bear her off
to prison. Those who might have been, who
ought to have been, her friends, were either averse
or indifferent to her; though only Prudence
made any open outcry upon her. That evil
child cried out perpetually that Lois had cast a
devilish spell upon her, and bade them keep the
witch away from her; and, indeed, Prudence
was strangely convulsed when once or twice
Lois's perplexed and wistful eyes were turned
in her direction. Here and there girls, women
uttering strange cries, and apparently suffering
from the same kind of convulsive fit as that which
had attacked Prudence, were centres of a group
of agitated friends, who muttered much and
savagely of witchcraft, and the list which had
been taken down only the night before from
Hota's own lips. They demanded to have it
made public, and objected to the slow forms of
the law. Others, not so much or so immediately
interested in the sufferers, were kneeling around,
and praying aloud for themselves and their own
safety, until the excitement should be so much
quelled as to enable Dr. Cotton Mather to be
again heard in prayer and exhortation.

And where was Manasseh? What said he? You
must remember that all the stir of the outcry,
the accusation, the appeals of the accused, all
seemed to go on at once amid the buzz and din
of the people who had come to worship God,
but remained to judge and upbraid their fellow-
creature. Till now Lois had only caught a
glimpse of Manasseh, who was apparently trying
to push forwards, but whom his mother was
holding back with word and action, as Lois
knew she would hold him back, for it was not
for the first time that she was made aware how
carefully her aunt had always shrouded his
decent reputation among his fellow citizens from
the least suspicion of his seasons of excitement
and incipient insanity. On such days, when he
himself imagined that he heard prophetic voices
and saw prophetic visions, his mother would do
much to prevent any besides his own family from
seeing him; and now Lois, by a process swifter
than reasoning, felt certain, from her one look
at his face, when she saw it, colourless and
deformed by intensity of expression, among a number
of others all simply ruddy and angry, that
he was in such a state that his mother would in
vain do her utmost to prevent his making himself
conspicuous. Whatever force or argument
Grace used, it was of no avail. In another
moment he was by Lois's side, stammering with
excitement and giving vague testimony, which
would have been of little value in a calm court
of justice, and was only oil to the smouldering
fire of that audience.

"Away with her to gaol!" "Seek out the
witches!" "The sin has spread into all households!"
"Satan is in the very midst of us!"
"Strike and spare not!" In vain Dr. Cotton