Mr. Beach's letter, quoted by Hutchinson, gives distinct indication that Mrs. Hibbins was endowed with faculties which were vastly more likely to out-work what her age deemed witchcraft, than was any amount of bad temper and crabbedness. She had "more wit than her neighbors;" she "unhappily guessed that two of her persecutors, whom she saw talking in the street, were talking of her, which, proving true, cost her her life." Here is indication of probability that this lady, as did Margaret Jones, possessed ability to comprehend the conversation of far distant parties, or to sense in the thoughts of some absent people with whom she came in rapport. Similar abilities are possessed and exercised by many persons in these days, who have constitutional endowments of a kind which were formerly believed to be diabolical acquisitions, and were then deemed proofs of witchcraft--proofs of compact with Satan. "It fared with her," says Hutchinson, "as it did with Joan of Arc in France. Some counted her a saint and some a witch." In these words the historian himself furnishes cause for distrusting the justice of ascribing to her a crabbed temper and habitual quarrelsomeness. For who, in any community, would ever count one _a saint_ who manifested such offensive qualities to any great extent as he ascribed to her? Surely no one would. And yet he states that very many persons did so count Mrs. Hibbins. Doubtless among her advocates was "your famous Mr. Norton," a very eminent, sagacious, and able minister in Boston. There was enough about her to draw out from Hutchinson the concession that the public here was divided in judgment concerning her character, as it formerly was in France concerning Joan of Arc, that Maid of Orleans, who heard and obeyed voices from out the unseen. Crabbedness of temper and quarrelsomeness were not grounds on which any portion of the people would count her a _saint_. The historian refutes his own position. A more recent searcher for causes of her fate perceived, and very clearly pointed out, the inaccuracy and obvious insufficiency of Hutchinson's grounds and reasons why Mrs. Hibbins was arraigned and convicted, but proceeded to assign others which are scarcely less inadequate and improbable. He writes as follows, vol. i. p. 422, _Hist. of Witchcraft_:--