This devil that she saw was but a mock devil. Did she never see that Scriptural Devil—that Foul Fiend Lucifer? Ah, that she could never quite recall—not even with the powerful help of her strange minute images. It is true that after hours of application she would sometimes see a woman whom she knew to be her mother walking through great oak woods (mistletoe-infested) and with her, clinging to her skirts, was a child. The child was her own self. A great light pierced the green gloom of the forest and where it fell stood a man. He was an aristocrat, carried a small rapier with the hilt of which he toyed; he was dressed in green velvet, had a handsome, ruddy face, and loving blue eyes. Nor had he horns, she said, and if a tail, he kept it to himself; but his shoes she noticed were unsightly, as though contrived to accommodate clubbed foot or cloven hoof. To him her mother knelt, and the child knelt also. The mother said she had a little servant for him, who she promised would obey him in all things. ‘What shall I do with so little a one?’ But he caressed her with his hands. His touch was cold as ice. Even to remember that touch raised the gooseflesh upon her. It was searing as the hands of Death. She never saw this particular scene enacted before her without experiencing a physical shock—pleasant and yet repellent. Then she could see the child accept the Book the man offered her, and she always made a mark in the Book with blood drawn from her own arm. But the end of this particular and much-loved vision was always the same and always disappointing, for she saw herself and her mother sitting by the hearth. Her mother was stirring the pot and as she stirred she talked, telling the story of a little girl who had walked with her mother in a great wood, had met the Devil, and had sworn to serve him. So it was Doll Bilby never could be sure whether or not she had actually promised to serve the Foul Fiend and had made her blood-mark in his Book, or whether it was but a tale told by her mother. At first she felt no terror of the strange phantasies which, waking and sleeping, were always before her eyes, but as she grew to young womanhood, this uncertainty as to her true status came greatly to worry her. If she had indeed signed the Book of Hell, then was she utterly damned, and there was no hope for her. If she had not, then might she, by prayer, watchfulness, etc., escape into Paradise. Thus she endured great anguish of spirit. At last the Soul, which ever turns and struggles in the heart of man, turned uneasily within her and she tried to forget all the evil which she remembered—even the voice of her mother, crying out piteously to her from the midst of flame.