hose always went by contraries, and that a funeral denoted
a wedding. Still a sigh would now and then heave, to think that in
that wedding Jacob would have no part. Such of my readers as know
the power which superstition has over the weak and credulous mind,
scarcely need be told, that poor Sally's happiness was soon
completed. She forgot all her vows to Jacob; she at once forsook an
honest man whom she loved, and consented to marry a stranger, of
whom she knew nothing, from a ridiculous notion that she was
compelled to do so by a decree which she had it not in her power to
resist. She married this Robert Price, the strange gardener, whom
she soon found to be very worthless, and very much in debt. He had
no such thing as "money beyond sea," as the fortune teller had told
her; but alas! he had another wife there. He got immediate
possession of Sally's twenty pounds. Rachel put in for her share,
but he refused to give her a farthing and bid her get away or he
would have her taken up on the vagrant act. He soon ran away from
Sally, leaving her to bewail her own weakness; for it was that
indeed, and not any irresistible fate, which had been the cause of
her ruin. To complete her misery, she herself was suspected of
having stole the silver cup which Rachel had pocketed. Her master,
however, would not prosecute her, as she was falling into a deep
decline, and she died in a few months of a broken heart, a sad
warning to all credulous girls.

Rachel, whenever she got near home, used to drop her trade of
fortune telling, and only dealt in the wares of her basket. Mr.
Wilson, the clergyman, found her one day dealing out some very
wicked ballads to some children. He went up with a view to give her
a reprimand; but had no sooner begun his exhortation than up came a
constable, followed by several people. "There she is, that is the
old witch who tricked my wife out of the five guineas," said one of
them; "do your office, constable, seize that old hag. She may tell
fortunes and find pots of gold in Taunton jail, for there she will
have nothing else to do!" This was that very Farmer Jenkins, whose
wife had been cheated by Rachel of the five guineas. He had taken
pains to trace her to her own parish: he did not so much value the
loss of the money, as he thought it was a duty he owed the public to
clear the country of such vermin. Mr. Wilson immediately committed
her. She took her trial at the next assizes, when she was sentenced
to a