ose sharp and spiteful claws. Hence the boys were
certain as to the witchcraft, and 'knew' that these savage animals were
true imps of Satan.

This weak and defenceless creature, living thus apart from human
companionship, was supported on a small annuity, paid her quarterly by a
very honest company, that would have been ruined with many such
venerable clients. On pleasant days she crept about the town to do her
meagre marketing, or crawled to the paupers' pew in the old brick
meeting-house. During the warm summer weather her scant life was
somewhat cheered, and a faint attempt at joyousness sometimes winked in
her old eyes, but with the winter's cold came the cruel cramps and
rheumatism, the sleepless nights and painful days. Then Mrs. Marjoram
frequently drove to her door, carrying medicines and nourishing
food,--over and above all, bringing cheerful words and a warm and hearty
smile.

One winter Mrs. Marjoram was taken ill, and, being so very old, her life
was despaired of. During this sickness there came a great fall of snow,
piling up four or five feet on the level, and driving and drifting into
the hollows, so that for several days the less frequented roads in that
part of the country were impassible. And now, when Mrs. Marjoram, but
for her own sad plight, would have thought of poor Aunt Hannah, there
was no one enough interested to give her loneliness a moment's
consideration, till, one morning, one street lad cried out suddenly to
another that Aunt Hannah must be buried alive!

Buried _alive?_ The men, suddenly summoned from their business or their
leisure, hardly thought _that_ possible in the deep hollow, filled
nearly to the level with heavily packed and frozen snow.

Men walked out on the firm crust till they were directly over the spot
where, full twenty feet below, stood Aunt Hannah's little house. And
they shook their heads mournfully at the sickening thought of what must
lie below them.

It was a good day's work for twenty men to open a gradually descending
way to the lonely house,--a good day's work; so that when they reached
the door--finding it locked inside--they sent back to the village for
lanterns and candles before bursting it in.

The sight that startled and horrified them after they had forced the
door, they never liked to speak of. The sounds from the furious,
spitting and snarling cats they never forgot.

Her disfigured and mutilated remains were decently interred, and when
the spri