wife have shown their withered faces at children's bedsides, mocking,
making mouths, and affrighting the poor little innocents in the night-
time. They, or their spectral appearances, have stuck pins into the
Afflicted Ones, and thrown them into deadly fainting-fits with a touch,
or but a look. And, while we supposed the old man to be reading the
Bible to his old wife,--she meanwhile knitting in the chimney-corner,--
the pair of hoary reprobates have whisked up the chimney, both on one
broomstick, and flown away to a witch-communion, far into the depths of
the chill, dark forest. How foolish! Were it only for fear of rheumatic
pains in their old bones, they had better have stayed at home. But away
they went; and the laughter of their decayed, cackling voices has been
heard at midnight, aloft in the air. Now, in the sunny noontide, as they
go tottering to the gallows, it is the Devil's turn to laugh.

Behind these two,--who help another along, and seem to be comforting and
encouraging each other, in a manner truly pitiful, if it were not a sin
to pity the old witch and wizard,--behind them comes a woman, with a dark
proud face that has been beautiful, and a figure that is still majestic.
Do you know her? It is Martha Carrier, whom the Devil found in a humble
cottage, and looked into her discontented heart, and saw pride there, and
tempted her with his promise that she should be Queen of Hell. And now,
with that lofty demeanor, she is passing to her kingdom, and, by her
unquenchable pride, transforms this escort of shame into a triumphal
procession, that shall attend her to the gates of her infernal palace,
and seat her upon the fiery throne. Within this hour, she shall assume
her royal dignity.

Last of the miserable train comes a man clad in black, of small stature
and a dark complexion, with a clerical band about his neck. Many a time,
in the years gone by, that face has been uplifted heavenward from the