She had a kind of faith that the Doctor
was a mighty conjuror, who, if he would, could bewitch any of them. She
had relieved her feelings by her long talk with the minister, but the
Doctor was the immediate adviser of the family, and had watched them
through all their troubles. Perhaps he could tell them what to do. She
had but one real object of affection in the world,--this child that she
had tended from infancy to womanhood. Troubles were gathering thick
round her; how soon they would break upon her, and blight or destroy
her, no one could tell; but there was nothing in all the catalogue of
terrors that might not come upon the household at any moment. Her own
wits had sharpened themselves in keeping watch by day and night, and her
face had forgotten its age in the excitement which gave life to
its features.
"Doctor," Old Sophy said, "there's strange things goin' on here by night
and by day. I don' like that man,--that Dick,--I never liked him. He
giv' me some o' these things I' got on; I take 'em 'cos I know it make
him mad, if I no take 'em; I wear 'em, so that he needn' feel as if I
didn' like him; but, Doctor, I hate him,--jes' as much as a member o'
the church has the Lord's leave to hate anybody.
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