Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/193

 think that you are blinded and deceived; you are my own brother in the flesh, and still more the dear brother of my affections, and I know your heart is a good and true one; it grieves me to differ from you—but I must bear my honest testimony to you that I think you are misled in this matter. I know something of these girls—these 'accusers,' as they are called: I have known Abigail Williams ever since she first came here, and I know her to be an artful, designing, false-hearted girl; I know, too, that Elizabeth Hubbard, the niece of Dr. Griggs his wife, and I know no good of her whatever; and Ann Putnam, too, she has always been known to be a mischievous, malicious girl; I know, too, a little about Mary Warren and Sarah Churchill—Sarah, indeed, lived with me a little while, and I dismissed her for lying. I believe they are both moved by revenge for fancied wrongs against their employers. I know also that for months past, indeed all through the winter, these girls have been practicing all manner of charms and enchantments, all sorts of sorceries and black arts, under the teaching of those Pagan