y were tame.

All over the place you feel the thrill of witches and the torturing of
Quakers. That's partly thanks to Longfellow, and Whittier, of course,
but mostly from the _influence_ which such tremendous happenings leave,
I think. It's as if some picture of the past were in the atmosphere, and
now and then, out of a corner of your eye, you caught a glimpse, as you
do of the "ghost" of a rainbow when the rainbow seems to have gone.

The "Witch House," where Judge Corwin lived at the time of the
persecution, is almost hidden away now, as if it were trying to escape
from something, and at last brought to bay like a very small, fierce
animal. Even now I can hardly bear to think of those days, and all those
poor people suffering through a few naughty, hysterical children. I'm
sure the Indian woman Tituba could haunt me in Salem even if I lived in
a perfectly new, perfectly good modern hotel! I should have tried the
experiment, I think, if it hadn't been for Aunt Mary being so nearby,
at Wenham.

Well, quite late in the afternoon (I forgot to tell you we lunched, but
you may take that for granted, with so many men in the party) we said
good-bye to Salem. We said other things, too, all in praise of it; and
Jack felt particularly reverential because Salem sent the first ships
from America to Indian and Russian ports. Wasn't it sporting when you
think of what ships were then? But these seafaring men of the New
England coast were like the men of Devon, the "bravest of the brave."

Aunt Mary had plumped heavily down on my heart again, before we got to
Beverly, and this time I couldn't put her out of my mind though the
grandeur of the north coast was in my eyes. Oliver Wendell Holmes lived
in Beverly and loved it, but then he had no Aunt Mary in the
neighbourhood.

Did you ever read what Thackeray said about Wenham Lake Ice? It seems
every London house of any pretension had it on its dinner table, but I
don't think it travels so far in these days of artificial ice. The
lake's still there, anyhow, in a hollow to the left of the road as you
go, gleaming blue and mysterious as watching eyes between the dark
trunks of a pine forest. Then, after that lake, there was no more excuse
for lingering, unless at the monument. We came into Wenham. Jack was
trying to look brave.

"In a few minutes now," said he, with galvanized cheerfulness, "we shall
be having tea with your Aunt Mary."

At that instant (we had purposely dropped bac