Here she kissed the hand of Mistress Vines, which had been tenderly laid upon her head, and then once more threw herself into her father’s arms, and burst into a wild torrent of sobs and tears.
The family were used to these sudden transitions of feeling upon her part, but this seemed a mood so much more painful than ordinary, that all were shocked.
“Do not let my cold, still sisters look at me, papa,” whispered Hope. Then, lifting up her head, she added, solemnly:
“Papa, you will soon have no little Hope.”
The knight shuddered, and pressed the poor child more tenderly to his heart.
“Tell me why, little daughter!”
“Every little while, dear father, I see poor, pale-faced Hope standing before me, looking sad, and oh! so weary, and wringing her hands.”
Mr. Vines certainly felt a cold chill run over him at this description. She went on.
“This morning I saw Hope seated on the ledge yonder, her hands to her face, and she weeping, weeping. Mistress Bonyton, too, told me that this little purple spot upon my shoulder, which you used to kiss, papa, when I was a little girl, is the devil’s mark, and called me a witch.”
Sir Richard arose hastily from his seat and whispered a few words in the ear of his wife. A new cause for anxiety had been suggested by the words of Mistress Bonyton, for at that time the old world was convulsed by stories of possession and witchcraft, and it was no light thing to have the aspersion cast upon an individual that he or she might be a witch.