ars). But my mother shrank away from her and would not allow her to
touch me; nor was it until I had grown older and ran about the village
alone that the old woman, having tracked me to a lonely spot, took me in
her arms, mumbled over my head some words I did not understand, and
kissed me. That a mole grows on the spot she kissed is but a fable (for
how do the women know where her kiss fell save by where the mole
grows?--and that is to reason poorly), or at the most the purest chance.
Nay, if it were more, I am content; for the mole does me no harm, and
the kiss, as I hope, did Betty some good; off she went straight to the
Vicar (who was living then in the cottage of my Lord Quinton's gardener
and exercising his sacred functions in a secrecy to which the whole
parish was privy) and prayed him to let her partake of the Lord's
Supper: a request that caused great scandal to the neighbours and sore
embarrassment to the Vicar himself, who, being a learned man and deeply
read in demonology, grieved from his heart that the witch did not play
her part better.

"It is," said he to my father, "a monstrous lapse."

"Nay, it is a sign of grace," urged my mother.

"It is," said my father (and I do not know whether he spoke perversely
or in earnest), "a matter of no moment."

Now, being steadfastly determined that my boyhood shall be less tedious
in the telling than it was in the living--for I always longed to be a
man, and hated my green and petticoat-governed days--I will pass
forthwith to the hour when I reached the age of eighteen years. My dear
father was then in Heaven, and old Betty had found, as was believed,
another billet. But my mother lived, and the Vicar, like the King, had
come to his own again: and I was five feet eleven in my stockings, and
there was urgent need that I should set about pushing my way and putting
money in my purse; for our lands had not returned with the King, and
there was no more incoming than would serve to keep my mother and
sisters in the style of gentlewomen.

"And on that matter," observed the Vicar, stroking his nose with his
forefinger, as his habit was in moments of perplexity, "Betty Nasroth's
prophecy is of small service. For the doings on which she touches are
likely to be occasions of expense rather than sources of gain."

"They would be money wasted," said my mother gently, "one and all of
them."

The Vicar looked a little doubtful.

"I will write a sermon on that theme," said h