t of food, if they've an eye to it;
they can take every bit of nouriture out of it that's in it. There were
two young men that went from here to the States--that's Boston, ye know.
Well, pretty soon one, that was named M'Pherson, came back, looking so
white-like and ill that nothing would do him any good. He drooped and he
died. Well, years after, the other, whose name was McVey, came back. He
was of the same wicked stock as the old folks I've been telling ye of.
Well, one day, he was in low spirits like, and he chanced to be talking
to my father, and says he, "It's one of the sins I'll have to 'count for
at the Judgment that I took the good out of M'Pherson's food till he
died. I sat opposite to him at the table when we were at Boston
together, and I took the good out of his food, and it's the blackest sin
I done," said he.

'Oh, they're awful wicked people, these witches! One of them offered to
teach my sister how to take the good out of food, but my sister was too
honest; she said, "I'll learn to keep the good of my own, if ye like."
However, the witch wouldn't teach her that because she wouldn't learn
the other. Oh, but I cheated a witch once. Donald, he brought me a pound
of tea. 'Twasn't always we got tea in those days, so I put it in the tin
box; and there was just a little over, so I was forced to leave that in
the paper bag. Well, that day a neighbour came in from over the hill. I
knew fine she was a witch; so we sat and gossiped a bit; she was a real
pleasant woman, and she sat and sat, and the time of day went by. So I
made her a cup of tea, her and me; but I used the drawing that was in
the paper bag. Said she, "I just dropped in to borrow a bit of tea going
home, but if that's all ye have"--Oh, but I could see her eyeing round;
so I was too sharp for her, and I says, "Well, I've no more in the paper
just now, but if ye'll wait till Donald comes, maybe he'll bring some."
So she saw I was too sharp for her, and away she went. If I'd as much as
opened the tin, she'd have had every grain of good out of it with her
eyes.'

At first the student had had the grave and righteous intention of
denouncing the superstition, but gradually he had perceived that to do
so would be futile. The artistic soul of him was caught by the curious
recital. He remembered now the bidding of Mary Torrance, and thought
with pleasure that he would go back and repeat these strange stories to
Miss Torrance, and smile at them in her compan