small creature comforts he craved, was an old and crippled woman, who had seen nearly eighty winters. Her pale, emaciated visage had worn so long the expression of craft, that it seemed to have wrinkled and stiffened into a grotesque mask of mildewed lead, but still she possessed, even at this great age, the power of removing all expression from her features, and giving them the fixedness of death. Her hair, bleached to the whiteness of snow, was drawn back under a hood of rusty black velvet; yet there was enough visible to form a striking contrast to bushy eyebrows as black as jet, and a slight mustache at each corner of her shrivelled lips, of the same color.

It was a dark and stormy evening, immediately after Naomi's trial, and befere the sentence had been pronounced; the hour was past nine, and the little shop was closed for the night; the old woman, whom we shall call Mother Bunyan, was seated by the chimney of the low, sloping room that formed the back part of this tenement. Her labors for the day were over, and she was solacing herself with a pipe, and preparing what she called her nightcap, a mug of strong beer, heated by quenching in the hissing liquor the red-hot tongs. A knock at the shop-door did not startle the old woman, for she was accustomed to nocturnal visits. The snow, as she saw by the one pane forming a light for her den, was falling fast, and had completely whitened the little window, and she bid the visitors enter. Two muffled figures came through the shop, enveloped in cloaks, under which one of them carried a dark lantern. The room was enlightened only partially by the glimmering embers of burnt-out logs, so that, when the slide was turned, a strong Rembrandt light was thrown upon the cloaked figures, bringing into relief the white wool that circled Sambo's dark features, and the brilliant eyes, but somewhat pale features, of his master's daughter, Ruth.

The old woman manifested no surprise ; she was accustomed to the visits of the young, even at these late hours, and without rising she called to Ruth, and pointed to a low seat. "Come here, my lamb," she said, " and warm your poor little hands"; for Ruth was shaking with cold and fear. She then signed to Sambo to put down his lantern and wait in the shop, for she inferred at once, and with truth, that Ruth's business was private. Poor Sambo obeyed; it had been the business of his life to obey, and, beside this instinct of obedience, he had no wish and no will to refuse any order whatever from mistress Ruth. When, therefore, she ordered him to come with her to-night, he only besought that it might be after prayers, lest he should be summoned, and his aid in what he knew would mortally offend, not his master, but Faith, betrayed. Ruth also was glad to put off her nocturnal walk till after prayers, lest they might be recognized in the street, perhaps detained, and missed at the appointed hour.

I have mentioned before, that Ruth was an intrepid and self-willed girl, but this walk through the snow, of a stormy night, after the bell had tolled nine, required all her courage. She was, however, now here at the confessional with the old sibyl, or the dark priestess of the future, and she was determined not to be balked of her object. She passed more than half an hour in secret conversation with the old woman, when she called to Sambo and bade him take the lantern to accompany her home. Upon the way home, Ruth leaned upon the arm of poor old Sambo, who tottered with age, and cold, and fear. Sambo ventured once to ask if old Witch Bunyan had promised her good luck; but Ruth was silent, and when she reached the door, she bade him good night in a whisper, and crept to her chamber. She need not have feared being shut out ; in these primitive times there were neither locks nor bolts; the latch was easily lifted, but the inmates were safe. Did Ruth sleep soundly ? Ah, yes! for the light-hearted and innocent, those who scarcely need the solace of "nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," easily "knit up the ravelled sleeve of care."

To return to her who I would fain hope has excited the interest of my readers. Naomi pined in her solitary cell, waiting for her sentence, passing wearily the dark and gloomy days of winter, and the long, long nights of the winter solstice, wearing away the heavy hours in short and broken slumbers, or in long seasons of wakefulness; for Naomi had been accustomed to a life of activity, and to pass much of the day in healthful exercise. The sudden and total change from a life of active and perpetual employment to one of sedentary and quiet indolence, to whole days, and weeks, and months of miserable pacing of the eight feet of her prison, had caused an unnatural activity of the mind, an extreme excitement of the nervous system, so that sleep was sometimes for whole nights long a stranger to her eyelids. It was in vain that she made every occupation of her day methodical and exact, that she attained a strict governance of her thoughts, so that no anxious nor exciting memories should haunt her pillow; in vain that she committed the purity of her soul to the guardianship of angels, and resigned the whole of her future to the love and wisdom of her Heavenly Father. Again and again would Naomi exclaim,

"O sleep, O gentle sleep,

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?"

The loss of sleep induced a general lassitude and irritability of the nervous system, harder to bear than real and dangerous illness. It was in vain that she strove against it. Naomi's heart was high and courageous, but the delicate structure of the nerves, weakened by this longcontinued wakefulness, was attenuated and wearied, and often Naomi found herself melted to tears, without any new or apparent cause for this weakness.

She had passed a long and gloomy evening without a light, for the jailer's wife had forgotten to bring it, in alternate efforts to keep back, and in momentary yieldings to, her tears, when suddenly the door was opened, and the little daughter of the jailer ushered in a bent and apparently crippled old woman, who supported herself with a crutch. Naomi started, and asked the child where were her parents, and how could any one gain admittance in defiance of the order of the magistrates, forbidding access to the prisoners in the jail.

Patience replied, that her parents had gone to church meeting, and that the old woman assured her she had permission from the governor himself to visit Naomi.

"Say no more," cried the old woman, "I come to give ye comfort"; and she signed to the girl to leave them.

Naomi now recognized the old woman of the sailors' shop, that she had seen at her step-father's door, and that Faith sometimes, in the severity of the winter, had visited, to inquire if she were starving or freezing. I did not inform my readers, at the time of Ruth's almost midnight visit, of the bad reputation she sustained in the colony. It was whispered about, although not in the ears of the ministers, that she made use of many vile and secret practices, but not to get her living, for at that time, in the little community of Boston, honest poverty was never allowed to suffer. This old woman was said to pretend to a knowledge of the secrets of futurity. It was said that she could restore lost articles, - reveal the inmost secrets of the soul to him who sought the hidden mystery, - that she could give the lover favor in the eyes of his mistress, and cause the expectant heir to rejoice in the death of the miser. In short, she was the Mrs. Turner of New England, ready for any nefarious and dirty work. It may seem strange to my readers that such a character should be permitted to exist in the little Puritan community of Boston. Human nature is the same ; and the desire to pry into the secrets of futurity, to believe in the agency of the Evil One, that belonged to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was not excluded from any spot on the globe. The ministers would not have permitted a witch to live; and this very old woman was, not many months after this period, banished from Boston on pain of death.

Naomi, in the weak and irritable state of her nerves, merely said, 一 "You come without permission, and I desire that you would immediately leave me."

"I come," she answered, "to give you freedom. Listen only to what I say, and before twenty-four hours you shall be in safety."

"What would you say?" asked Naomi.

"Look into your own heart," said the woman; "who fills it at this moment? Of whom were you thinking when I opened the door? Where do you turn your eyes whenever you go to that little window? Whose shadow do you follow in the sunlight and in the moonlight?"

"It is unnecessary for me to answer," said Naomi, "if you can thus read my heart."

"Well," said the old woman, "you can count the pulsations of your own heart, and I can tell you, that