"Alice, are you afraid of the witches, which seem to disturb Mr. Parris and Cotton Mather?" asked Adelpha.
"There are no witches," Alice Corey answered with a shudder. "Father and mother both deny that there are any witches, and it is wrong to cry out against my aunt, Goody Nurse."
"I dare say it is. The evening grows chill. Let us go home."
As the four wended their way across the fields and meadows, Charles Stevens, who walked between Cora and Adelpha, cast alternately furtive glances at each, sorely troubled to decide which he liked best.
"Both are beautiful," he thought. "Ere long I must wed, and which of the twain shall it be? Both are beautiful, and both are good; but, unfortunately, they are two, and I am one."
The child, who had lingered behind to pluck a wild flower, at this moment came running after them, calling:
"Wait! wait! I implore you, wait for me!"
"What have you seen, Alice?"
"A black woman."
The girls were almost ready to faint; but Charles, who was above superstition, bade them be calm and hurried through the deepening shades of twilight to the trees on the hill where the woman had been seen. He came in sight of the figure of a woman clothed in black, sitting at the root of an oak.