t on a monk's
cowl; but no convent would let me in. Then came my doctoring days, and
I was to be burnt; for they muttered about, what think you?
witchcraft. I became a scholar, wrote essays, systems of philosophy,
poems: those who could not read were sure I was blaspheming God and
Christianity, and that was too bad. After many long years I betook
myself to the man who was making such a pother in the world, Pietro
Apone, and became his familiar, next a hermit, and what not? The best
is that in every state of life I have made money and hoarded it up; so
that I can now lay down my grey head free from want and care. And now,
coz, for your history."

"Just like yours;" answered she: "the innocent are always persecuted.
I have had a few times to stand in the pillory; have been banisht out
of half a dozen countries; among other things they even wanted to burn
me; they would have it I conjured, I stole children, I bewitcht
people, I fabricated poisons."

"And coz," said Beresynth in the openness of his heart, "there was
some truth in all this, was not there? innocent as you are. I at least
must confess it as to myself, and perhaps it may lie in the family,
that I have given in to more than one of the aforesaid practices. My
amiable gossip, he who has once swallowed a titbit of dear witchcraft,
can never keep his fingers from it afterward as long as he lives. The
thing is just like dram-drinking: once get the taste for it, and
tongue, and throat, and gums, and marry! even lungs and liver, will
never let it go."

"You know human nature, I see, my dear cousin;" said the hag, with a
grin that tried to be a simper. "Such trifles as a little murder and
witchcraft, poisoning and stealing, run in the blood even of the
innocentest. Bawding was a thing in which I could never hit the mark.
And what shall one say when one has to endure thanklessness and woe
from one's own children? My daughter, though she has seen how I suffer
hunger and trouble, and how I have stinted and starved my old mouth,
merely to put her into fine clothes, the graceless wench would never
let me coax her into earning but a single half-crown. Some time since
she might have made a good match of it! there was Ildefonso and
Andrea, and many other brave fellows besides, who supported our whole
house, herself among the rest; but she set up the paltry pretense that
the gentry were robbers and murderers, and that she could not let them
into her heart. The gallants were