them, laughing and joking, and mixing up his jests with that mysterious
suspicion which gave so strange a character to his intercourse.

"It is good fortune, Mr. Hagburn," quoth he, "that brings me here on this
auspicious day. And how has been my learned young friend Dr.
Septimius,--for so he should be called,--and how have flourished his
studies of late? The scientific world may look for great fruits from that
decoction of his."

"He'll never equal Aunt Keziah for herb-drinks," said an old woman, smoking
her pipe in the corner, "though I think likely he'll make a good doctor
enough by and by. Poor Kezzy, she took a drop too much of her mixture,
after all. I used to tell her how it would be; for Kezzy and I were pretty
good friends once, before the Indian in her came out so strongly,--the
squaw and the witch, for she had them both in her blood, poor yellow
Kezzy!"

"Yes! had she indeed?" quoth the doctor; "and I have heard an odd story,
that if the Feltons chose to go back to the old country, they'd find a
home and an estate there ready for them."

The old woman mused, and puffed at her pipe. "Ah, yes," muttered she, at
length, "I remember to have heard something about that; and how, if Felton
chose to strike into the woods, he'd find a tribe of wild Indians there
ready to take him for their sagamore, and conquer the whites; and how, if
he chose to go to England, there was a great old house all ready for him,
and a fire burning in the hall, and a dinner-table spread, and the
tall-posted bed ready, with clean sheets, in the best chamber, and a man
waiting at the gate to show him in. Only there was a spell of a bloody
footstep left on the threshold by the last that came out, so that none of