CHAPTER XXVIII.
WORKING OF THE EVIL SPELL.
Elizabeth Parris was in her own little chamber, in the gable end of her father's log house; the window looked out toward the sea, and a beautiful glow of sunshine lay upon the pasture land which stretched between it and the shore, turning the water to sparkling sapphires, and the green of the land to a richer emerald tint, as the day drew toward its noon.
There was something very pretty and picturesque about Elizabeth's room. Though a tiny little place compared to that she had just left in the gubernatorial mansion, it possessed a score of dainty trifles, that, at first sight, awoke in her heart a sweet home-feeling, which went rippling like a trill of music through her whole being. So she went from object to object, arranging one, displacing another, and fluttering to and fro like a bird that returns to its cage, after a long, pleasant flight in the open air.
"Ah, how white and nice everything is!" she said, addressing old Tituba, who stood by the door, watching her with a glow of satisfaction in her sharp, black eyes. "This curtain is soft and pure as the clouds that hang over the sea out yonder. As for the bed, I shouldn't think it had been slept in since I went away, the pillow-cases shine like snow crust."
"The bed hasn't been slept in since we knew you were coming right away home, child," said old Tituba, casting a well-pleased look on the pillow-cases, polished by her own deftly urged smoothing-irons. "I put every thing on fresh, yesterday: all for yourself."
"Not used, Tituba, not used! Then where has cousin Abby slept? Where did she sleep last night?"
"She's gone into the back room, at t'other end of the house; the night we heard you were coming she went in there."
"What? The store-room, where you kept herbs and dried apples, and all sorts of things—where the old chest of drawers stands? What does this mean, Tituba?"
"I s'pose Abby was lonesome."