Barbara was a woman strong to suffer, to endure, and to act; but a woman still, timid like her sex, shrinking from pain, and afraid of violence, as true womanhood is. Though full of that gentle courage which is so beautiful when blended with softer qualities, she was sensitive to blame and easily wounded in her personal dignity. This abrupt charge of witchcraft shocked her to the soul. Was she to give up every thing, to suffer a martyrdom of affection, and go down to her grave branded as a demon? Barbara knew well the importance of a charge like that denounced against her by the lips of Samuel Parris. There did not exist a person in the colonies whose power of character would give more crushing force to an accusation of this kind, both in the courts and in the congregation. She felt that the good old man was convinced of her evil power against his own wishes--that, added to his natural fanaticism, a solemn belief in witchcraft, which had spread from the old country into the colonies, had seized upon his quick imagination, and he would pursue her to death from an honest sense of duty. She felt the danger to be imminent. But where could she fly? to whom appeal? A stranger, without history, with a name utterly unknown in the colonies, with no ostensible motive for leaving her own land, or remaining an hour in this, who would step forward in her defence? Norman Lovel? Alas! he was young and entirely dependent on Gov. Phipps, the tried and bosom friend of Samuel Parris. What hope could lie in that direction? There was no shelter--no help. A feeling of strange desolation crept over her. She had thought herself lonely, and her life dreary before, but her heart was full of gentle sympathies that would put forth their fibres and search for something to cling to, even in her worst hours. Now she was literally driven forth to the wilderness, branded by a horrible accusation, which must turn all compassion into hate wherever she approached. She had gold about her person, but even that all potent metal was valueless here. Who would touch coin that came from a denounced witch? Who would believe in its validity, or dare to receive money which might turn to some poisonous drug in the handling? In her distress, Barbara bethought herself of the broken tribe of Indians that she had seen only a few nights before mustering with such solemn purpose around the man whom she had so signally befriended. She remembered that promise to protect her, which had stirred the very heart of the wilderness as with a single voice. She was ready to trust these savages, and without a pang accept protection from their chief. But how could she find their hiding-places in a forest so deep, and without a guide?