"Really," rejoined Mr. Stacy, "I should hardly know what to say, if the rules of hospitality did not provide me with an excuse. It is fair, I imagine, to regard Miss Martine as a guest of Plymouth in general, as well as of the Danforth family in particular, therefore, fair lady, I yield to your demand. But what I am going to tell you is neither very exciting, nor very silly. It merely shows how recently in this corner of the globe the plain people retained some of the mediæval belief in witches. For I knew a man who in his youth knew a man who believed this story. On the outskirts of Plymouth once lived an old woman whom people called a witch, and once when she was calling at a certain house, Jenny, a girl of twelve, placed the broom with which she was sweeping, under Aunt Nabby's chair. Aunt Nabby was the reputed witch, and if you know anything about witches, you must know that to offer one a broomstick can only be regarded as an insult. So in this case Aunt Nabby, when she perceived what Jenny had done, rose in anger, and vowed that she would get even with Jenny and her family." "Did she?" asked George, who was always over-anxious to hear the conclusion of a story. "Wait," replied Mr. Stacy, "you will soon hear. In a day or two Jenny became very ill, and the old country doctor could not tell what the matter was. She seemed to be fading away. 'Perhaps Aunt Nabby has something to do with it,' said poor Mrs. Bonsal, Jenny's mother; and then the doctor, asking what was meant, heard the story of the broomstick. 'Go, John Bonsal,' he said to Jenny's father, 'go to Aunt Nabby's, and find out what she is up to.' When John Bonsal reached Aunt Nabby's house, there was no one in the kitchen but her big black cat, whom some people thought her assistant in evil doing. So John Bonsal went down by the brook, where he found Aunt Nabby so much occupied that she hardly looked up at his approach." "What was she doing?" asked George. "Hush," cried Marcus; "listen, and you will find out." "Well," continued Mr. Stacy, "Aunt Nabby seemed to be making little dolls of clay that she moulded into shape with water from the brook. When she finished these figures or dolls, she stuck a pin or two into them, and John Bonsal understood at once that by means of these dolls she was working a charm on poor Jenny that in time would cause her death, unless he could stop the doll-making. Upon this the angry father raised the horsewhip that he carried in his hand, and thrashed Nabby with might and main. As she cried for mercy, he told her that she should be burned as a witch unless she promised to remove the spell that she had cast over his daughter. At first she refused, but at last she promised. 'Your Jenny shall get well,' she cried, 'and I will work no more charms.' Upon this the big black cat that had followed John Bonsal from the house gave a great howl, and vanished completely from sight." [Illustration: "Aunt Nabby seemed to be making little dolls of clay."]