would ill accord with your offices. Ye shall hear me. I speak no
more for myself--ye may go hang me--I speak for my child. Ye shall
not hang her, or judgment will come upon ye. Ye know there is no
guile in her; it were monstrous to call her a witch. It were less
blasphemy to call her an angel than a witch, and ye know it. Ye know
it, all ye maids she hath played with and done her little kindnesses
to, ye who would now go hang her. That cape--that cape, most
worshipful magistrates, did the dear child earn with her own little
hands, that she might give it to Ann, whom she loved so much.
Knowing, as she did, that Ann was poor, and able to have but little
bravery of apparel, it was often on her mind to give her somewhat of
her own, albeit that was but scanty; and she hath toiled overtimes
at her wheel all winter, and sold the yarn in Salem, and so gained a
penny at a time wherewithal to buy that cape for Ann. And now will
it hang her, the dear child?

Dear Ann, dost thou not remember how thou and my Olive have spent
days together, and slept together many a night, and lain awake till
dawn talking? Dost thou not remember how thou couldst go nowhere
without Olive, nor she without thee, and how no little junketing
were complete to the one were the other not there? Dost thou not
remember how Olive wept when thy father died? Mercy Lewis, dost thou
not remember how my Olive came over and helped thee in thy work that
time thou wert ailing, and how she lent thee her shoes to walk to
Salem?

Oh, dear children, oh, maids, who have been playmates and friends
with my dear child, ye will not do her this harm! Do ye not know
that she hath never harmed ye, and would die first? Think of the
time when this sickness, that is nigh to madness, shall have passed