and mentally strained as herself, on the slope of Mt. Lebanon, but
finally quarrelled with her in regard to two white horses with red
marks on their backs which suggested the idea of saddles, on which
her titled hostess expected to ride into Jerusalem with the Lord. A
friend of mine found her, when quite an old woman, wandering in
Syria with a tribe of Arabs, who with the Oriental notion that
madness is inspiration, accepted her as their prophetess and
leader. At the time referred to in Snow-Bound she was boarding at
the Rocks Village about two miles from us.

In my boyhood, in our lonely farm-house, we had scanty sources of
information; few books and only a small weekly newspaper. Our only
annual was the Almanac. Under such circumstances story-telling was
a necessary resource in the long winter evenings. My father when a
young man had traversed the wilderness to Canada, and could tell us
of his adventures with Indians and wild beasts, and of his sojourn
in the French villages. My uncle was ready with his record of
hunting and fishing and, it must be confessed, with stories which
he at least half believed, of witchcraft and apparitions. My
mother, who was born in the Indian-haunted region of Somersworth,
New Hampshire, between Dover and Portsmouth, told us of the inroads
of the savages, and the narrow escape of her ancestors. She
described strange people who lived on the Piscataqua and Cocheco,
among whom was Bantam the sorcerer. I have in my possession the
wizard's "conjuring book," which he solemnly opened when consulted.
It is a copy of Cornelius Agrippa's Magic printed in 1651,
dedicated to Dr. Robert Child, who, like Michael Scott, had
learned "the art of glammorie In Padua beyond the sea," and who is
famous in the annals of Massachusetts, where he was at one time a
resident, as the first man who dared petition the General Court for