"Four days they kept her, when they did prepare
To lay her body in the dust we hear,
At her funeral a sermon then was preach'd,
All other wicked children for to teach....
But suddenly they bitter groans did hear
Which much surprized all that then were there.
At length they did observe the dismal sound
Came from the body just laid in the ground."

The Puritan pride in funeral display is naïvely exhibited in the
portrayal of the girl when she "in her coffin sat, and did admire her
winding sheet," before she related her experiences "among lonesome wild
deserts and briary woods, which dismal were and dark." But immediately
after her description of the lake of burning misery and of the fierce
grim Tempter, the Puritan matter-of-fact acceptance of it all is
suggested by the concluding lines:

"When thus her story she to them had told,
She said, put me to bed for I am cold."

The illustrations of a later edition entered thoroughly into the spirit
of the author's intent. The contemporary opinion of the French character
is quaintly shown in the portrait of the Devil dressed as a French
gentleman, his cloven foot discovering his identity. Whatever
deficiencies are revealed in these early attempts to illustrate, they
invariably expressed the artist's purpose, and in this case the Devil,
after the girl's conversion, is drawn in lines very acceptable to
Puritan children's idea of his personality.

Almanacs also were in demand, and furnished parents and children, in