Dulcibel | Page 4

finger better than your whole
body with your Jezebel's bodice, and your fine lady's airs. You had
better go now and marry that conceited popinjay up at Jo Putnam's, if
you can get him."
With that he pushed off down the hill, and up the road, that he might
not be forced to accompany her back to the village.
Dulcibel was not prepared for such a burst of wrath, and such an
uncovering of the heart. Which of us has not been struck with wonder,
even far more than indignation, at such times? A sudden difference
occurs, and the man or the woman in whom you have had faith, and
whom you have believed noble and admirable, suddenly appears what
he or she really is, a very common and vulgar nature. It makes us sick
at heart that we could have been so deceived.
Such was the effect upon Dulcibel. What a chasm she had escaped. To
think she had really agreed to marry such a spirit as that! But
fortunately it was now all over.
She not only had lost a lover, but a friend. And one day before, this also
would have had its unpleasant side to her. But now she felt even a
sensation of relief. Was it because this very day a new vision had
entered into the charmed circle of her life? If it were so, she did not
acknowledge the fact to herself; or even wonder in her own mind, why
the sudden breaking of her troth-plight had not left her in a sadder
humor. For she put "Little Witch" into a brisk canter, and with a smile
upon her face rode into the main street of the village.
CHAPTER II.
In Which Some Necessary Information is Given.
Dulcibel Burton was an orphan. Her father becoming a little unsound in
doctrine, and being greatly pleased with the larger liberty of conscience
offered by William Penn to his colonists in Pennsylvania, had leased
his house and lands to a farmer by the name of Buckley, and departed
for Philadelphia. This was some ten years previous to the opening of

our story. After living happily in Philadelphia for about eight years he
died suddenly, and his wife decided to return to her old home in Salem
village, having arranged to board with Goodman Buckley, whose lease
had not yet expired. But in the course of the following winter she also
died, leaving this only child, Dulcibel, now a beautiful girl of eighteen
years. Dulcibel, as was natural, went on living with the Buckleys, who
had no children of their own, and were very good-hearted and
affectionate people.
Dulcibel therefore was an heiress, in a not very large way, besides
having wealthy relatives in England, from some of whom in the course
of years more or less might reasonably be expected. And as our Puritan
ancestors were by no means blind to their worldly interests, believing
that godliness had the promise of this world as well as that which is to
come--the bereaved maiden became quite an object of interest to the
young men of the vicinity.
I have called her beautiful, and not without good reason. With the old
manuscript volume--a family heirloom of some Quaker friends of
mine--from which I have drawn the facts of this narrative, came also an
old miniature, the work of a well-known English artist of that period.
The colors have faded considerably, but the general contour and the
features are well preserved. The face is oval, with a rather higher and
fuller forehead than usual; the hair, which was evidently of a rather
light brown, being parted in the center, and brought down with a little
variation from the strict Madonna fashion. The eyes are large, and blue.
The lips rather full. A snood or fillet of blue ribbon confined her
luxuriant hair. In form she was rather above the usual height of women,
and slender as became her age; though with a perceptible tendency
towards greater fullness with increasing years.
There is rather curiously a great resemblance between this miniature,
and a picture I have in my possession of the first wife of a celebrated
New England poet. He himself being named for one of the Judges who
sat in the Special Court appointed for the trial of the alleged witches, it
would be curious if the beautiful and angelic wife of his youth were
allied by blood to one of those who had the misfortune to come under

the ban of witchcraft.
Being both beautiful and an heiress, Dulcibel naturally attracted the
attention of her near neighbor in the village, Jethro Sands. Jethro was
quite a handsome young man after a certain style, though, as his life
proved, narrow minded, vindictive and avaricious. Still he had a high
reputation as