Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/287

Rh he had very much the same feeling of finality and sorrow that had been with him at his father's funeral. He was glad that Philip had planted more trees in the old spots—glad, and he hoped they would live and grow in spite of the spells against them that Aunt Peachy was making.

The old woman was too feeble and too fearful of the cold to go out on the lawn to do any damage to the trees, but she took a dry branch that was brought in with the fire wood, and wrapping it with carpet ravelings and smearing it with rancid fat, she mumbled over it inarticulate and cryptic words and then solemnly burned it. Afterwards she announced to her master that the trees Philip had planted would surely die. and now with March the sap had begun to rise in the young trees and a faint, almost imperceptible color on the tip ends of the branches gave promise of budding leaves. The old woman noted this with fury. Hers had been a religion of hate. Always had she worked charms for evil, for the undoing of her enemies, and when misfortune befell anyone she was quite confident that she was responsible for it. Her followers had believed in her power until lately. Every ill that flesh was heir to they had traced to the