Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/188

 at the closed windows. Then resuming her seat by her brother's side, she spoke in low tones, but in a voice of deep feeling:

"You say my children are well posted up in the news of the day, Jonathan, and I regret to confess it is so. It is a solemn and a fearful thing to have children as young as these listening to all the details of the horrors that are going on around us. It is a fearful thing to have their young ears contaminated, and their innocent hearts hardened by such things as are the common topics of conversation; and, situated as I am, I am powerless to prevent it. They hear it on every hand. I went into the garden only this very week, and there I found John Indian and Tituba in close and earnest confabulation with my own servant; and close by them stood my innocent children, eagerly listening with open mouths and ears to the pestilent communications—swallowing all they heard, and doubtless with their imaginations all at work, conjecturing even worse than they heard from hints and gestures, and wild, suggestive grimaces; and yet what can I do to prevent it?"