ing; how she
would daily advance up the steps of the church, and then pause before
the threshold, as if she feared to pass it, and then throw herself down
upon the stones before the gate, where she would lie in strange
convulsions, and at last return without having penetrated into the
building--an evident proof that the devil she served had forbidden her
to put her foot into any sacred dwelling, but had taught her,
nevertheless, to approach near enough to treat the awful mysteries of
the Christian religion, performed within, with mockery and contempt. To
this accusation, which was confirmed by the acclamation of several
persons present in the court, Magdalena, when called upon to speak,
proffered no denial; she contented herself with the meek reply, that God
alone knew the motives of the heart--that it was for him alone to judge.
The words were still uttered in the same low despairing tone, and
without the slightest movement of her head from its sunken posture.

The partially monastic dress, which was her habitual attire, was next
brought forward against her as a proof of her desire to treat with
contempt the dress of the religious orders: and to this absurd
accusation, when asked why she had adopted a costume resembling that of
the holy sisterhood of penitents, the old woman still refused any reply.

The events of the previous afternoon, when she had been openly seen to
throw her staff at the Amtmann's unoffending daughter, and wound her on
the neck, and then break into pieces the image of the Holy Cross, were
then recapitulated, as facts known upon the positive evidence of a
hundred witnesses.

These matters disposed of, the cripple proceeded to detail his own
peculiar grievances, and attributed, as he had done in the cases of the
seven unhappy women who had already fallen victims of his frantic
delusion, the severe pains that had racked his poor distorted limbs to
the malefic charms of the sorceress. He related how, on the last night
on which he had met Mother Magdalena, he had found her sitting by the
well in the market-place, casting a spell upon the spring, and turning
the waters to poison and blood--as a proof of which, he swore to have
himself tasted in the water of the bucket the taste of blood; how, in
revenge for his warning to her to desist from her foul practices, she
had pointed up her finger to the sky, and immediately brought down upon
his head all the combined waters of heaven; how she had vanished fr