Page:A New England Tale.djvu/146

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A NEW-ENGLAND TALE.
135

breath from ascending the steep bank where crazy Bet stood; "sit down, child; you may sit quiet. It is not time for her to rise yet."

"Oh, Bet," said Jane, "if you love me, take those greens off your head; they make you look so wild."

A stouter heart than Jane's would have quailed at Bet's appearance. She had taken off her old bonnet and tied it on a branch of the tree that shaded the grave, and twisted around her head a full leaved vine, by which she had confined bunches of wild flowers, that drooped around her pale brow and haggard face; her long hair was streaming over her shoulders; her little black mantle thrown back, leaving her throat and neck bare. The excitement of the scene, the purpose of the expedition, and the moonlight, gave to her large black eyes an unusual brightness.

To Jane's earnest entreaty she replied, "Child, you know not what you ask. Take off these greens, indeed! Every leaf of them has had a prayer said over it. There is a charm in every one of them. There is not an imp of the evil one that dares to touch me while I wear them. The toad with his glistening eye, springs far from me; and the big scaly snake, that's coiled and ready to dart, glides away from me."

"But," said Jane, in a tone of more timid expostulation, "what have I to guard me, Bet?"

"You!" and as she spoke she stroked Jane's hair back from her pure smooth brow; "have not you innocence? and know you not that is 'God's