you would make him a proper wife, or company-keeper,
for there's never an honest marriage among them." Then looking sternly
at me, he asked me why I did keep this matter from him, and thus allow
the foolish young man to get entangled in the snares of Satan. Whereat
I was so greatly grieved, that I could answer never a word.

"You may well weep," said my uncle, "for you have done wickedly. As to
your brother, he will do well to keep where he is in the plantations;
for if he come hither a theeing and thouing of me, I will spare him
never a whit; and if I do not chastise him myself, it will be because
the constable can do it better at the cart-tail. As the Lord lives, I
had rather he had turned Turk!"

I tried to say a word for my brother, but he cut me straightway short,
bidding me not to mention his name again in his presence. Poor me! I
have none here now to whom I can speak freely, Rebecca having gone to
her sister's at Weymouth. My young cousin Grindall is below, with his
college friend, Cotton Mather; but I care not to listen to their
discourse, and aunt is busied with her servants in the kitchen, so that
I must even sit alone with my thoughts, which be indeed but sad company.

The little book which I brought with me from the Maine, it being the
gift of young Mr. Jordan, and which I have kept close hidden in my
trunk, hath been no small consolation to me this day, for it aboundeth
in sweet and goodly thoughts, although he who did write it was a monk.
Especially in my low state, have these words been a comfort to me:--

"What thou canst not amend in thyself or others, bear thou with patience
until God ordaineth otherwise. When comfort is taken away, do not
presently despair. Stand with an even mind resigned to the will of God,
whatever shall befall, because after winter cometh the summer; after the
dark night the day shineth, and after the storm followeth a great calm.
Seek not for consolation which shall rob thee of the grace of penitence;
for all that is high is not holy, nor all that is pleasant good; nor
every desire pure; nor is what is pleasing to us always pleasant in the
sight of God."

January 23.

The weather is bitter cold, and a great snow on the ground. By a letter
from Newbury, brought me by Mr. Sewall, who hath just returned from that
place, I hear that Goodwife Morse hath been bound for trial as a witch.
Mr. Sewall tells me the woman is now in the Boston jail. As to Caleb
Powell,