malady, after naming the day and hour at which they would cease to be.
Standing at their feet she looked at them with a calm eye, not showing
either sadness, or grief, or joy, or curiosity. When we approached to
remove the two bodies she said, 'Carry them away!' 'Seraphita,' I
said, for so we called her, 'are you not affected by the death of your
father and your mother who loved you so much?' 'Dead?' she answered,
'no, they live in me forever-- That is nothing,' she pointed without
emotion to the bodies they were bearing away. I then saw her for the
third time only since her birth. In church it is difficult to
distinguish her; she stands near a column which, seen from the pulpit,
is in shadow, so that I cannot observe her features.

"Of all the servants of the household there remained after the death
of the master and mistress only old David, who, in spite of his
eighty-two years, suffices to wait on his mistress. Some of our Jarvis
people tell wonderful tales about her. These have a certain weight in
a land so essentially conducive to mystery as ours; and I am now
studying the treatise on Incantations by Jean Wier and other works
relating to demonology, where pretended supernatural events are
recorded, hoping to find facts analogous to those which are attributed
to her."

"Then you do not believe in her?" said Wilfrid.

"Oh yes, I do," said the pastor, genially, "I think her a very
capricious girl; a little spoilt by her parents, who turned her head
with the religious ideas I have just revealed to you."

Minna shook her head in a way that gently expressed contradiction.