licate of line, with long eyes set wide apart; eyes that even
in this wretched picture kept a curious drowsy watchfulness. The
inevitable white Puritan cap was worn, but curls clustered about the
brow and two massive braids descended over either shoulder. The perfumed
bronze-colored braid up in my drawer----?

The volume was entitled "Some Manifestations of Satan in Witchcraft in
Ye Colonies," by Abimelech Fetherstone. Disregarding the satanic
manifestations set forth in the other four chronicles, I turned to "Ye
Foule Witch, Desire Michell."

As I began to read, another breath of wind sighed through the house,
sucking windows and doors in and out with the shock of sound, instantly
ended, that is produced by a distant explosion. I thought a flash of
lightning whipped across my eyes. But when I glanced toward the windows
I saw only the smoke-like fog banked in drifts against the panes.

CHAPTER XIV

"Beauty is a witch--"
--MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

I will tear the core out of many yellow pages of diffuse writing spiced
with smug moral reflections.

Desire Michell had been no traditional old hag, hideous and malevolent;
no pallid, raving epileptic to accuse herself in shrieking tales of
Black Men, and Sabbats, and harm done to neighbors' cattle or crops. Her
father was a clergyman who brought his goods and his motherless daughter
from England to the Colonies, and settled in "ye Pequot Marsh country."
There he found a congregation, and they lived much respected. Their
culture appeared to be far beyond that of their few, hard-working
neighbors. Young Mistress Michell was reputed learned in the use of
simples, among other arts, and to have been "of a beauty exceeding the
custom among godly women, to so great degree that sorcery should have
been suspected of her."

However, sorcery was not suspected; not even when her fame spread among
near-dwelling Indian tribes who gave her a name signifying _Water on
which the Sun is Shining_. Admiration was her portion, then, with all
the suitors the vicinity held. But from fastidiousness or ambition she
refused every proposal made to her father for her. She walked aloof and
alone, until another sort of wooer came to the gate of the minister's
house.

This man's full name was not given, apparently through the writer's
cautious respect for place and influence. He was vaguely described as
goodly in appearance, of high family, but not abundantly supplied wi