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A NEW-ENGLAND TALE.
23

derstanding. But when Mrs. Harvey entered, just as I was concluding, and passed her arm around Jane, and said to her, 'My child, God does not willingly grieve nor afflict you,' the child sobbed out, 'Oh no! Mrs. Harvey, so my mother told me, and I am sure of it.'

"No, no," she added, after a moment's hesitation; "this does not look as if Jane had a hope. But, sister Daggett, I wonder you should mind any thing crazy Bet says. She is possessed with as many devils as were sent out of Mary Magdalen."

"I don't mind her, Mrs. Wilson; but I know some very good people who say, that many a thing she has foretold has come to pass; and especially in seasons of affliction, they say, she is very busy with the devil."

"I don't know how that may be," replied Mrs Wilson, "but as I mean to do my duty by this child, I don't feel myself touched by Bet's crazy ranting."

Mrs. Daggett, nettled by her sister's hint, rose and said, "that, as she was going in the afternoon to attend a meeting in a distant part of the town, (for," said she, "no one can say that distance or weather ever keeps me from my duties,) she had no more time to waste."

Mrs. Convers' husband drove to the door in a smart gig, and she took leave of her sisters, observing, she was glad the child was going to be so well provided for. As she drove away, crazy Bet, who was standing by the gate, apparently intently reading the destiny of a young girl, in the palm of her hand; fixed her eyes for a moment on