"And coz," said Beresynth in the openness of his heart, "there was some truth in all this, was not there? innocent as you are. I at least must confess it as to myself, and perhaps it may lie in the family, that I have given in to more than one of the aforesaid practices. My amiable gossip, he who has once swallowed a titbit of dear witchcraft, can never keep his fingers from it afterward as long as he lives. The thing is just like dram-drinking: once get the taste for it, and tongue, and throat, and gums, and marry! even lungs and liver, will never let it go."
"You know human nature, I see, my dear cousin;" said the hag, with a grin that tried to be a simper. "Such trifles as a little murder and witchcraft, poisoning and stealing, run in the blood even of the innocentest. Bawding was a thing in which I could never hit the mark. And what shall one say when one has to endure thanklessness and woe from one's own children? My daughter, though she has seen how I suffer hunger and trouble, and how I have stinted and starved my old mouth, merely to put her into fine clothes, the graceless wench would never let me coax her into earning but a single half-crown. Some time since she might have made a good match of it! there was Ildefonso and Andrea, and many other brave fellows besides, who supported our whole house, herself among the rest; but she set up the paltry pretense that the gentry were robbers and murderers, and that she could not let them into her heart. The gallants were such generous spirits, they meant to have the baggage actually tied to them in church; but silly youth has neither sense nor truth. Now they are lying in their graves, those worthy men, and have been turned out of life's doors in a most scandalous way. But this does not move her a whit more than my sorrow and distress; so that I can't make her consent to live with a rich young noble cavalier, the nephew of a cardinal, who could floor this whole room with gold. The silly jade has run away, and they absolutely won't give her up to me again. Such is the respect shewn to a mother in these days."
"Let her go, the worthless trumpery!" cried Beresynth: "we shall live happily together without her, I warrant; our ways of thinking and feeling are so well paired."