Tappau and certain elders roused her up from a heavy sleep, late
on the morning of the following day. All night long she had trembled
and cried, till morning had come peering in through the square grating
up above. It soothed her, and she fell asleep, to be awakened, as I
have said, by Pastor Tappau.

'Arise!' said he, scrupling to touch her, from his superstitious idea
of her evil powers. 'It is noonday.'

'Where am I?' said she, bewildered at this unusual wakening, and the
array of severe faces all gazing upon her with reprobation.

'You are in Salem gaol, condemned for a witch.'

'Alas! I had forgotten for an instant,' said she, dropping her head
upon her breast.

'She has been out on a devilish ride all night long, doubtless, and is
weary and perplexed this morning,' whispered one, in so low a voice
that he did not think she could hear; but she lifted up her eyes, and
looked at him, with mute reproach.

'We are come' said Pastor Tappau, 'to exhort you to confess your great
and manifold sin.'

'My great and manifold sin!' repeated Lois to herself, shaking her
head.

'Yea, your sin of witchcraft. If you will confess, there may yet be
balm in Gilead.'

One of the elders, struck with pity at the young girl's wan, shrunken
look, said, that if she confessed, and repented, and did penance,
possibly her life might yet be spared.

A sudden flash of light came into her sunk, dulled eye. Might she yet
live? Was it yet in her power?

Why, no one knew how soon Ralph Lucy might be here, to take her away
for ever into the peace of a new home! Life! Oh, then, all hope was not
over--perhaps she might still live, and not die. Yet the truth came
once more out of her lips, almost without any exercise of her will.

'I am not a witch,' she said.

Then Pastor Tappau blindfolded her, all unresisting, but with languid
wonder in her heart as to what was to come next. She heard people enter
the dungeon softly, and heard whispering voices; then her hands were
lifted up and made to touch some one near, and in an instant she heard
a noise of struggling, and the well-known voice of Prudence shrieking
out in one of her hysterical fits, and screaming to be taken away and
out of that place. It seemed to Lois as if some of her judges must have
doubted of her guilt, and demanded yet another test. She sat down
heavily on her bed, thinking she must be in a horrible dream, so
compassed about with dangers and enemies did she seem. Those i