s greatly
skilled in the use of simples, and had no equal for curing fevers and
the like in all the country round. (But, besides this, it was said she
could look into the future and forecast events truer than any Egyptian.)
There was a chair by the table, on which was an empty bowl and some
broken bread; but the wise woman sat in the chimney corner, bending over
the hearth, though the fire had burnt out, and not an ember glowed. And
a strange little elf she looked, being very wizen and small, with one
shoulder higher than the other, and a face full of pain.

When I told her our business,--for Moll was too greatly moved to
speak,--the old woman pointed to the adjoining room.

"He is gone!" cries Moll, going to the open door, and peering within.

"Yes," answers Anne Fitch. "Alas!"

"When did he go?" asks Moll.

"An hour since," answers the other.

"Whither is he gone?"

"I am no witch."

"At least, you know which way he went."

"I have not stirred from here since I gave him his last meal."

Moll sank into the empty chair, and bowed her head in silence.

Anne Fitch, whose keen eyes had never strayed from Moll since she first
entered the room, seeming as if they would penetrate to the most secret
recesses of her heart, with that shrewd perception which is common to
many whose bodily infirmity compels an extraordinary employment of their
other faculties, rises from her settle in the chimney, and coming to the
table, beside Moll, says:

"I am no witch, I say; yet I could tell you things would make you think
I am."

"I want to know nothing further," answers she, dolefully, "save where he
is."

"Would you not know whether you shall ever see him again, or not?"

"Oh! If you can tell me that!" cries Moll, quickly.

"I may." Then, turning to me, the wise woman asks to look at my hand,
and on my demurring, she says she must know whether I am a friend or an
enemy, ere she speaks before me. So, on that, I give my hand, and she
examines it.

"You call yourself James Hopkins," says she.

"Why, every one within a mile knows that," says I.

"Aye," answers she, fixing her piercing eye on my face; "but every one
knows not that some call you Kit."

This fairly staggered me for a moment.

"How do you answer that?" she asks, observing my confusion. "Why," says
I, recovering my presence of mind, "'tis most extraordinary, to be sure,
that you should read this, for save one or two familiars, none know that
my second n