r as soon as we had got through she
should have it. She went off muttering, and when we thought our batch was
done and went to take it out, it was burned just as black as a coal."

"I am afraid," said my uncle, "you let it stay in too long, or the oven
was too hot."

"You may laugh as much as you please," replied Aunt Judith, with spirit,
"but I tell you what I actually saw with my own eyes. We did not stay
longer in that house than we could find another place; but before we left
something took place which perhaps you'll not find it so easy to explain.
Young William Stout's folks had been so troubled about him, and the
doctors said they could do nothing, that they determined to try a
'project.'"

I may as well explain what Aunt Judith's modesty prevented her from
doing; that a "project" was to inclose a certain liquid emanation of the
afflicted person in a phial tightly stopped, and to put it over the fire
in a pot to boil. Of course, as in the case of the sympathetic remedies
described by Sir Kenelm Digby and practised by him, as the contents of
the phial boil, the witch burns, and she is inevitably detected by the
scorching she gets and the scars it leaves behind. It is from this
circumstance, undoubtedly, that the nursery rhyme derives its
authority,--

"Hinx minx, the old witch winks,
The fat begins to fry," etc.

This is precisely the operation of the process in question.

"Accordingly," continued Aunt Judith, "the Stout folks made all their
preparations, in company with some trusty neighbors; the doors were
fastened, and exactly at twelve o'clock the 'project' was begun.
Everything went on well; but, as often happens in such cases, something
was forgotten, or the witches' master interferes; for it seemed, after a
while, that more water was wanted, and one of the company took the pail
to go to the well for it. As he cautiously opened the door, there to
their horror stood Granny Holt, in the darkness of midnight! She came in
grinning and complimenting, and without expressing surprise at finding so
many persons together, at such an unusual hour, or making any inquiry as
to the reason, she said, 'one of their folks was taken sick and seeing a
light there, she had come over to beg some herbs.' There was the end of
the _project_, and I don't know as it was ever tried again."

"Were you there, yourself?" asked Uncle Richard.

"No, I can only swear to the black cat and the b