"As to witches," said my uncle Richard, gravely, "I don't know. Whether the denunciations of them in Holy Writ are intended to apply to any actually supernatural power possessed by them, or only to the pretence of it,--and both are mischievous in their effect on the popular mind,--I shall not undertake to say. It is certain that the poor old women who are thus stigmatized seem to have little power to help themselves in this world, or, if real tamperers with the powers of darkness, any enjoyable expectations from the other. But this I do know, that I was riding, not many days since, with my lawyer, a man of considerable acuteness, though a little eccentric at times, coming from K--'s Island, where we had been on some business; and as we neared the turn of the causeway to the main road, he pulled up the chaise, jumped out, and placing himself on a broad flat rock by the road-side, began violently to dance up and down and to shake his clothes. 'Good Heavens!' cried I, 'are you mad?' 'Oh, no,' said he, resuming his seat, 'but my mother always told me, that whenever I was coming away from K--'s Island, I must stand upon that rock and shake the witches off!'" "But your story, Aunt Judith! your story," we all cried out, and after a little more hesitation the good woman _prit la parole_, as Madame de Staeel so often phrases it in "Corinne." "When I was a grown-up girl," said she, "I and my older sister, who had lost her husband at sea, lived with my mother, who was also a widow. We had few of this world's goods, but health and energy enough to take care of ourselves. At one time, we moved into half a house, in a decent quarter of the town, the other part of which was occupied by an old woman called by the neighbors 'Granny Holt.' Coming from a street of the town at some distance, we had heard nothing that I remember about her; but the day had not gone by, before it was made fully known to us by such acquaintances as we saw, that we had taken up our abode in the same house with a person of a very crabbed disposition, whom all the neighborhood looked upon as a witch. This was not very agreeable news, but we tried to make the best of it. Our house was near the river-side, and we were surrounded by the families of those who followed the sea, and we endeavored to flatter ourselves with the idea, that idle tales of marvelous things are very common among that class of population; and that the stories we heard were mere gossip, as we whispered to ourselves, for fear of being overheard through the thin partition which divided us from the other tenant. But, 'No!' said one of our callers in a low voice--one of the Pearse girls (a young lady, by the way, about seventy, but Aunt Judith was of a certain age); 'I tell you it's as true as a sermon in the meetin'-house. You'll soon find out what she can do. Why, there's young Stout, as fine a lad as ever walked the streets, or stood by the helm of