"Here was something in his favorite old poet for the youth to work out into beautiful visions of a pleasant race of supernatural beings; who lived by day in the acorn cups of Arden, and by moonlight held their revels on the greensward of Avon-side, the ringlets of their dance being duly seen, 'whereof the ewe not bites'; who tasted the honey-bag of the bee, and held counsel by the light of the glowworm; who kept the cankers from the rosebuds, and silenced the hootings of the owl.... Some day would William make a little play of Fairies, and Joan should be their Queen, and he would be the King; for he had talked with the Fairies, and he knew their language and their manners, and they were 'good people,' and would not mind a boy's sport with them. "But when the youth began to speak of witches there was fear and silence. For did not his mother recollect that in the year she was married Bishop Jewell had told the Queen that her subjects pined away, even unto the death, and that their affliction was owing to the increase of witches and sorcerers? Was it not known how there were three sorts of witches,--those that can hurt and not help, those that can help and not hurt, and those that can both help and hurt? It was unsafe even to talk of them. "But the youth had met with the history of the murder of Duncan King of Scotland, in a chronicler older than Holinshed; and he told softly, so that 'yon crickets shall not hear it,' that, as Macbeth and Banquo journeyed from Forres, sporting by the way together, when the warriors came in the midst of a laund, three weird sisters suddenly appeared to them, in strange and wild apparel, resembling creatures of an elder world, and prophesied that Macbeth should be King of Scotland; and Macbeth from that hour desired to be king, and so killed the good king his liege lord. "And then the story-teller would pass on to safer matters--to the calculations of learned men who could read the fates of mankind in the aspects of the stars; and of those more deeply learned, clothed in garments of white linen, who had command over the spirits of the earth, of the water, and of the air. Some of the children said that a horseshoe over the door, and vervain and dill, would preserve them, as they had been told, from the devices of sorcery. But their mother called to their mind that there was security far more to be relied on than charms of herb or horseshoe--that there was a Power that would preserve them from all evil, seen or unseen, if such were His gracious will, and if they humbly sought Him, and offered up their hearts to Him in all love and trust. And to that Power this household then addressed themselves; and the night was without fear, and their sleep was pleasant." CHRISTENINGS.