’Twas a hovel all wretched, forlorn and poor,
With crumbling eves and a hingeless door,
And windows where pitiless midnight rains
Beat fiercely in through the broken panes,
And tottering chimneys, and moss-grown roof,
From the heart of the city far aloof,
Where Nanny, a hideous, wrinkled hag,
Dwelt with her grandchild, “Little Mag.”
The neighbors called old Nanny a witch.
The story went that she’d once been rich—