“Leely, I met a witch, a real hag, in a cottage of turf and heather—a witch with wrinkled skin, and with forest snakes twining round her arms and chest. And Leely, she told me of thee, and bade me bring thee to her hut that she might read our fortunes.”
And so on, and so forth—a pretty scene, and rather pretty the language. Then, with promise to meet in the moonlight to visit the witch, they part just as the thunder (stage) begins to rattle over their heads and the lightning plays around them. Curtain.
There is more appropriate music, and, in due time, the scene changes.
I need not say that Leely is Peggy herself, nor that Adolphus the forester is bold, handsome Johnnie Fitzroy.
The scene changes. It is the witch’s hut we now see, the interior of—but I suppose I must not tell you any more, reader. You say I must.
Very well, I’ll take my breath and open a new chapter.
CHAPTER IV.
So Ends the Play.
THE curtain rises next on the interior of the witch’s hut in the darkest woodland depths. The witch (who is none other than old Molly herself, with a few more wrinkles, put in with kohl, and bushy eyebrows, beneath which fierce, cruel eyes glare like those of the basilisk. N.B.—I have never seen a basilisk, but I am told its eyes do shine fearfully and ferociously!) the witch has snakes around her arms that raise their heads now and then to hiss vengefully. They do so now as the Forest Maiden enters, hand in hand with Adolphus, and followed by the blood-hound. The witch raises her head also—she has been spinning—and smooths back her elfin locks. The young lovers play their parts well, Leely looking timid and sweet, Adolphus bold and handsome.
“What wouldst thou with me, young sir?”
“I would, mother, have my fortune told me, and that of this fair maiden by my side.”