Page:The pilgrim's progress by John Bunyan every child can read (1909).djvu/393

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STAND-FAST REPULSES MADAM
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help. So, just as you came up, the gentlewoman went her way. Then I continued to give thanks for this my great deliverance; for I verily believe she intended no good, but rather sought to make stop of me in my journey.

Hon. Without doubt her designs were bad. But stay: now you talk of her, methinks I either have seen her, or have read some story of her.

Stand. Perhaps you have done both.

Hon. Madam Bubble? Is she not a tall, comely dame, somewhat of a swarthy complexion?

Stand. Right, you hit it: she is just such a one.

Hon. Does she not speak very smoothly, and give you a smile at the end of a sentence?

Stand. You fall right upon it again, for these are her very actions.

Hon. Doth she not wear a great purse by her side, and is not her hand often in it, fingering her money, as if that was her heart's delight?

Stand. 'Tis just so. Had she stood by all this while, you could not more amply have set her forth before me, nor have better described her features.

Hon. Then he that drew her picture was a good artist, and he that wrote of her said true.

Great. This woman is a witch, and it is by virtue of her witchcraft that this ground is enchanted. Whoever doth lay his head down in her lap, had as good lay it down upon that block over which the axe doth hang; and whoever lay their