w they, suspecting the old servant, sent for her, but she had
disappeared and could not be found. Then the doctress took a caldron,
and put into it hot water and the undergarments of the girl and certain
herbs, and boiled them all together, singing an incantation, and, taking
a knife, sharpened it on the table, whetting it on the chemise of the
young lady.

"Then the old servant woman appeared at the door, against her will,
forced by the power of the spell, in an agony of rage and bitterness; but
she was at once seized and beaten, whereupon she consented to unbewitch
the girl, who speedily recovered.

"Now Florence was at that time fearfully afflicted with evil witches, who
defied all authority, and spread disease and death far and wide; but this
affair of the bewitched lady being made known, both priests and laymen
rose up in wrath, and the sorceress fled for sanctuary to the cloisters
of San Lorenzo.

"Then to save their lives the _Strege_ made a compromise with the
priests, and it was agreed that they should no longer live as witches, or
do any harm, but all live and die as cats in the cloister, where they
should be regularly fed, and exist in peace. Which agreement has been
duly carried out to this day, and among these cats are many who were once
witches in human form hundreds of years ago."

* * * * *

This narrative is not so much a story as an account of the manner in
which bewitchment is undone by another witch. The reader will find the
incantations in the chapter entitled "The Spell of the Boiling Clothes,"
in my work on "Etruscan-Roman Remains." One of the most serious riots
which has occurred in Milan for many years took place March 3, 1891, when
the populace tortured terribly and tried to kill a witch, who had, it was
believed, been detected by this spell.

* * * * *

"_Haec fabula docet_," adds the wise Flaxius, "this story suggests a
reason why a certain kind of ladies of ecclesiastical proclivities are
always called tabbies. And that there is something in it I can well
believe, knowing one who, when she calls her rector or bishop '_De-ar
man_!' does so in a manner which marvellously suggests the purring of a
cat. And the manner in which the tabby pounces on the small birds, mice,
and gold-fish of others--_i.e._, their peccadilloes, and small pets or
pleasures, which in good faith do her no harm--seems like literally
copying the