Black Bess, his dell, is of us yet, but absent on the eastward tramp; a fine lass, of nice ways and orderly conduct, none ever seeing her drunk above four days in the seven." "She was ever strict--I remember it well--a goodly wench and worthy all commendation.

Her mother was more free and less particular; a troublesome and ugly-tempered beldame, but furnished with a wit above the common." "We lost her through it.

Her gift of palmistry and other sorts of fortune-telling begot for her at last a witch's name and fame.

The law roasted her to death at a slow fire.

It did touch me to a sort of tenderness to see the gallant way she met her lot--cursing and reviling all the crowd that gaped and gazed around her, whilst the flames licked upward toward her face and catched her thin locks and crackled about her old gray head--cursing them! why an' thou should'st live a thousand years thoud'st never hear so masterful a cursing.