rouble about the past, or life after death, or punishment
for sin. He believes if one tries to be kind and straight, the big
Kindness and Straightness takes care of everything. So I have learned to
feel that way, too. It is a--a calm sort of feeling all the time, if you
know what I mean. And that is the way you are good, although perhaps you
never thought of it."

"Thank you, Phillida," I acknowledged; and walked with her to the foot
of the stairs.

When her pink-clad figure had vanished behind her bedroom door, I went
back to the sewing room and drew up a chair before the case of books.

Phillida had not unreasonably stigmatized them as stuffy. They were a
sober collection. Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," an ancient copy of
the Apocrypha, and a three-volume Life of Martin Luther loaded the first
shelf. I looked at the second shelf and found it filled with the bound
sermons of a divine of whom I had never heard.

The lowest shelf held strange companions for the sedate volumes above.
Erudite works on theosophy, magic, the interpretation of dreams and
demonology huddled together here. Not all of them were readable by my
humble store of learning. There was a Latin copy of Artemidorus,
Mesmer's "Shepherd," Mathew Paris, some volumes in Greek, and some I
judged to be Arabian and Hebrew. At the end of the row stood a thin,
dingy book whose title had passed out of legibility. I took it out and
opened the covers.

Fronting the first page was a faded woodcut, the portrait of a woman.
Beneath in old long-s type, dim on the yellowed paper, was printed the
legend:

"_Desire Michell, ye foule witch._"

Closing the book, I forced reason to come forward. I was resolved that
panic should not drive me again nor my defense fall from within its
walls. Master of my enemy I might never be; master of my own inner
kingdom I must and should be. But I was glad to be here instead of
upstairs while I read; glad of the interlude in Phillida's company, and
of the presence of the three sleepy canaries who blinked down at the
disturbing lamp.

The date stamped into the back of the book in Roman numerals was of a
year in the seventeen hundreds. What connection could its Desire Michell
have with the girl I knew? Perhaps she had adopted the name to mystify
me. Or at most, she might be of the family of that unfortunate woman
branded witch by a bigoted generation.

Reopening the book, I studied the dim, stiff portrait. The face was
young, de