tten the command, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith
the Lord."

Sarah Williams proceeded to further delve into the trouble with Mr.
Parris and his church.

"Is Rebecca Nurse your enemy?" she asked.

"Verily, she is; so is her sister Goodwife Corey."

"Why are they your enemies?"

"They want another pastor, and have done all in their power to ruin me."

"Why do you endure it?" asked Sarah.

"How can I help myself? I retain my charge and shall retain it, despite
Goody Nurse."

At this the youngest child said:

"Goody Nurse was at church last Lord's day with a yellow bird."

"A yellow bird?" cried all.

"Yes; I saw a yellow bird fly into the church and light on her
shoulder."

Tituba had told the poor deluded child that if Goodwife Nurse were a
witch, she would be accompanied by a yellow bird.

"Surely you saw no yellow bird last Lord's day."

"Verily, I did, and it came first and sat on her shoulder, and then on
her knee, and, while father was preaching, it whispered in her ear."

"Could you hear what it said?" asked the pastor.

"No, for I was not near enough."

Then the pastor and his wife and visitor exchanged glances. Foolishly
credulous and blindly superstitious, as well as prejudiced, their minds
were like the fallow ground ready to receive any impression, however
silly.

Before more could be said, there came a rap at the door, and Charles
Stevens, the lad who succored the wounded stranger that had so
mysteriously disappeared, entered. Charles was almost a man, and bid
fair to make a fine-looking fellow. He was tall and muscular, with bold
gray eyes and a face open and manly. He had lost none of his mirth, and
his merry whistle still shocked some of the staid old Puritans.

As soon as Charles entered, the young widow rose, all blushing, to greet
him. She was not more than one or two years his senior, and, being still
beautiful, there was a possibility of her entrapping the youth.

The pastor greeted him warmly and assured him that his visit was most
opportune; but he regretted very much that he had not come an hour
sooner.

"Wherefore would you have had me come an hour sooner?" asked the merry
Charles.

"That you might, with your own eyes, behold some of the wonderful
manifestations of the prince of darkness."

With a laugh, Charles answered that such manifestations were too common
to merit much comment; but as a matter of course he asked what the
manifestations were.

"An exam