a very intelligent woman in some respects, but
she is wild upon this question."

"I am told by the neighbors that the child is greatly afflicted."

"She came in the room while we were there," responded Master Raymond. "I
knew not what to make of it. She flung herself down on the floor, she
crept under the table, she shrieked, she said Goody Osburn was sticking
pins in her, and wound up by going into convulsions."

"What can it all mean?--it is terrible," said Dulcibel.

"Well, the Doctor says she is suffering under an 'evil hand,' and the
ministers have given their solemn opinion that she is bewitched; and
brother Thomas and Sister Ann, and about all the rest of the family
agree with them."

"I am afraid it will go hard with those two old women," interposed Ellis
Raymond.

"They will hang them as sure as they are tried," answered Joseph Putnam.
"Not that it makes much difference, for neither of them is much to speak
of; but they have a right to a fair trial nevertheless, and they cannot
get such a thing just now in Salem village.

"I can hardly believe there are such things as witches," said Dulcibel,
"and if there are, I do not believe the good Lord would allow them to
torment innocent children."

"Oh, I don't know that it will do to say there are no witches," replied
Joseph Putnam gravely. "It seems to me we must give up the Bible if we
say that. For the Old Testament expressly commands that we must not
suffer a witch to live; and it would be absurd to give such a command if
there were no such persons as witches."

"I suppose it must be so," admitted Dulcibel, with a deep sigh.

"And then again in the New Testament we have continual references to
persons possessed with devils, and others who had familiar spirits, and
if such persons existed then, why not now?"

"Oh, of course, it is so," again admitted Dulcibel with even a deeper
sigh than before.

But even in that day, outside of the Puritan and other religious bodies,
there were unbelievers; and Ellis Raymond had allowed himself to smile
once or twice, unperceived by the others, during their conversation.
Thus we read in the life of that eminent jurist, the Honorable Francis
North, who presided at a trial for witchcraft about ten years before the
period of which we are writing, that he looked upon the whole thing as a
vulgar delusion, though he said it was necessary to be very careful to
conceal such opinions from the juries of the time, or else they