After breakfast, which was indeed not tasted, the same persons who had visited her the night before came to conduct Edith to the meeting-house, the place of examination. The house was nearly full; and among that crowd there was scarcely one to whom Edith had not been a friend and a benefactor, as far as her humble means would allow. As she entered, there was one by whose sick bed she had watched; another whose infant had died in her arms; and children stood looking on with stupid wonder to whom she had given flowers, and primers, and, more than all, her own gentle smile. But now every eye was averted, or turned on her with suspicion and terror,--so hardening is the power of fanaticism. I believe I have said that my heroine was not beautiful; but the inward harmony must have given a spiritual beauty to features animated with intellect, and softened by tenderness of heart; and a self-relying innocence and purity imparted something more of grace to her person than the most finished art could have given. Edith became very pale as she entered; and Dinah, who had followed her closely, begged permission to stand near and support her. This was denied, and she was placed between two men, who each held an arm, and in front of those who were to examine her. The afflicted--that is, the accuser--was now called in. Edith looked eagerly around, and, with grief and astonishment, saw her little Phoebe, the child of her care, when almost close to her, utter a piercing cry, and fall down in violent convulsions. She started forward to assist and raise her, but the men drew her rudely back. And this was her accuser! At the same time with Edith, a poor old woman, nearly eighty years of age, was brought in. Her accuser was her own grandchild,--a girl about the same age as Phoebe. Together they had concerted this diabolical plot, and had rehearsed and practised beforehand their contortions and convulsions, excited, no doubt, by the notoriety of wicked children they had heard of. The poor old creature was bent and haggard. She would have wept, but, alas! the fountain of her tears was dried up; and she looked at her grandchild with a sort of stupid incredulity and wonder. Her inability to weep was regarded as an infallible proof of her guilt. As she stood beside Edith, she shook with age and terror; and Edith, touched with pity, though she trembled herself, and was deadly pale, tried to give her a smile of hope and encouragement. The poor old wretch did not need it: she not only confessed to every thing of which she was accused, but added such circumstances of time and place, and of the various forms the devil had taken in her person, that Edith almost sickened with disgust. She could not understand how an old person, on the very verge of the grave, could wish to lengthen out her few years by such base and wicked lies.