as well as if he had been straight. Dig
it deep, old Martin, dig it deep,--and let it be as long as other folks'
graves. And mind you get the sods flat, old man,--flat as ever a
straight-backed young fellow was laid under. And then, with a good tall
slab at the head, and a foot-stone six foot away from it, it'll look just
as if there was a man underneath.

A man! Who said he was a man? No more men of that pattern to bear his
name!--Used to be a good-looking set enough.--Where 's all the manhood
and womanhood gone to since his great-grandfather was the strongest man
that sailed out of the town of Boston, and poor Leah there the handsomest
woman in Essex, if she was a witch?

--Give me some light,--he said,--more light. I want to see the picture.

He had started either from a dream or a wandering reverie. I was not
unwilling to have more light in the apartment, and presently had lighted
an astral lamp that stood on a table.--He pointed to a portrait hanging
against the wall.--Look at her,--he said,--look at her! Wasn't that a
pretty neck to slip a hangman's noose over?

The portrait was of a young woman, something more than twenty years old,
perhaps. There were few pictures of any merit painted in New England
before the time of Smibert, and I am at a loss to know what artist could
have taken this half-length, which was evidently from life. It was
somewhat stiff and flat, but the grace of the figure and the sweetness of
the expression reminded me of the angels of the early Florentine
painters. She must have been of some consideration, for she was dressed
in paduasoy and lace with hanging sleeves, and the old carved frame
showed how the picture had been prized by its former owners. A proud eye
she had, with all her sweetness.--I think it was that which hanged her,
as his strong arm hanged Minister George Burroughs;--but it may have been
a little mole on one cheek, which the artist had just hinted as a beauty
rather than a deformity. You know, I suppose, that nursling imps addict
themselves, after the fashion of young opossums, to these little
excrescences. "Witch-marks" were good evidence that a young woman was
one of the Devil's wet-nurses;--I should like to have seen you make fun
of them in those days!--Then she had a brooch in her bodice, that might
have been taken for some devilish amulet or other; and she wore a ring
upon one of her fingers, with a red stone in it, that flamed as if the
painter had dip