But it was not merely the aged who fell victims to this strange superstition: the young and the beautiful were sometimes burned at the stake, upon the charge of having dealt in magic. Such was the fate of the high-souled maid of Orleans. The duchess de Conchini, being summoned before the judges, and asked by what arts she had bewitched the queen of France, calmly replied, “Merely by that ascendency which great minds must have over little ones.” In England, the duchess of Gloster was accused of making a wax figure of Henry the Sixth, and causing it to melt before the fire with certain incantations, intended to produce his death. For this offence, charged upon her by political enemies of her husband, she was condemned to walk through the streets barefoot, dressed in a white sheet, with papers pinned on her back, and a burning taper in her hand; and after performing this humiliating penance three days, followed by an insulting rabble, she was banished from the realm. Richard the Third pretended that his withered arm was produced by the sorcery of his brother’s widow and Jane Shore. Fortune-telling was a power supposed to be universally possessed by witches; and the most common method was by studying the lines of the hand. A cup containing tea or coffee grounds was sometimes chosen in preference; the person whirled it round three times toward herself, accompanying each motion with a wish; then the sorceress examined the cup, and pretended to find destiny inscribed there. On the evening of the thirty-first of October, called Allhallow Even, or Hallow E’en, witches, devils, and fairies were supposed to be peculiarly busy. On this occasion it was common for young girls to try tricks to ascertain whom they were to marry. The burning of nuts or apple-seeds in a shovel was a favorite charm; the nuts were named, and accordingly as they burned quietly together, or bounced away from each other, it was supposed the issue of the courtship would be. Burns describes this ceremony: “Jean slips in twa wi tentie e’e; Wha ’twas she wadna tell: But this is _Jock_, and this is _me_, She says in to hersel: He bleezed owre her, an she owre him, As they wad never mair part! Till luff! he started up the lum, And Jean had e’en a sair heart To see ’t that night.”