These shapeless members, forever covered from the world, wrought fearful images in the minds of the children, and their youthful imaginations conjured up all sorts of uses to which such strange members might be applied.  Upon one point they were agreed.  There was no doubt in any little head among them that Aunt Hannah had at some time sold herself to Satan, and that he had placed this deformity upon her as a mark of ownership.  Then she had a humped back, poor woman, the result of the cruel weight of many weary years; and she leaned upon an old-fashioned staff with a curved and crutch-like handle; and her bleared eyes were bent forever on the ground; and her thin lips twitched convulsively, and she muttered to herself as she crawled about the village streets; and it was said by those who knew, that she was nearly a hundred years of age.  So the youngsters called her the ‘Black Witch,’ and sometimes hooted after her in the streets, or hobbled on before her with bowed heads and ridiculous affectation of infirmity.  Thanks to her evil name, none of them ever ventured to actually assault the poor old creature, and their taunts she bore with patient meekness, going ever quietly upon her accustomed, peaceful way.

The older villagers regarded her with a pity that was half pity and half disgust.  Those fearful hands they never could forget, nor the bowed figure, nor the strange working of the lips.  Therefore, they held her in a sort of dreading, but still her lonely life, and her patient, uncomplaining spirit, moved their hearts.  Then a vague tradition—­nothing more, for neither kith nor kin had ancient Hannah—­a vague tradition said that she had once been very beautiful; that when she was in her fresh and lovely youth, some strange misfortune had fallen upon her, and that she had worn since then—­most innocently—­the mark of a direful tragedy.  One lady, old, nearly, as Aunt Hannah, but upon whom there had never fallen any blight of poverty or wrong, loved the poor creature well, and she only, of all the inhabitants of the village, frequently entered the cottage where the ‘Black Witch’ dwelt.  This lady, it was said, had known her when both were young, and carried forever locked in her heart the story of that saddened youth.  None called good Mrs. Marjoram a witch. Her face was clear, her smile bright, her eyes sparkling, and she bore her years with an upright and cheerful carriage.

The little, one-storied house where Aunt Hannah dwelt was situated in a hollow just out of the village, in the shadow of a grove of tangled hemlocks and pines.  It consisted of two rooms only, with an unfinished attic overhead; and before her door the poor old soul might be seen any pleasant day, sitting meekly in the sun.  She could neither knit nor sew as other old women do, but she sat there waiting patiently for the time when her kind Father should call her home, to lose forever the blackness that clung to her in this weary world.