to her old
home in Salem village, having arranged to board with Goodman Buckley,
whose lease had not yet expired. But in the course of the following
winter she also died, leaving this only child, Dulcibel, now a beautiful
girl of eighteen years. Dulcibel, as was natural, went on living with
the Buckleys, who had no children of their own, and were very
good-hearted and affectionate people.

Dulcibel therefore was an heiress, in a not very large way, besides
having wealthy relatives in England, from some of whom in the course of
years more or less might reasonably be expected. And as our Puritan
ancestors were by no means blind to their worldly interests, believing
that godliness had the promise of this world as well as that which is to
come--the bereaved maiden became quite an object of interest to the
young men of the vicinity.

I have called her beautiful, and not without good reason. With the old
manuscript volume--a family heirloom of some Quaker friends of
mine--from which I have drawn the facts of this narrative, came also an
old miniature, the work of a well-known English artist of that period.
The colors have faded considerably, but the general contour and the
features are well preserved. The face is oval, with a rather higher and
fuller forehead than usual; the hair, which was evidently of a rather
light brown, being parted in the center, and brought down with a little
variation from the strict Madonna fashion. The eyes are large, and blue.
The lips rather full. A snood or fillet of blue ribbon confined her
luxuriant hair. In form she was rather above the usual height of women,
and slender as became her age; though with a perceptible tendency
towards greater fullness with increasing years.

There is rather curiously a great resemblance between this miniature,
and a picture I have in my possession of the first wife of a celebrated
New England poet. He himself being named for one of the Judges who sat
in the Special Court appointed for the trial of the alleged witches, it
would be curious if the beautiful and angelic wife of his youth were
allied by blood to one of those who had the misfortune to come under the
ban of witchcraft.

Being both beautiful and an heiress, Dulcibel naturally attracted the
attention of her near neighbor in the village, Jethro Sands. Jethro was
quite a handsome young man after a certain style, though, as his life
proved, narrow minded, vindictive and avaricious. Still he had a high