That a mole grows on the spot she kissed is but a fable (for how do the women know where her kiss fell save by where the mole grows ?--and that is to reason poorly), or at the most the purest chance.
Nay, if it were more, I am content; for the mole does me no harm, and the kiss, as I hope, did Betty some good; off she went straight to the Vicar (who was living then in the cottage of my Lord Quinton's gardener and exercising his sacred functions in a secrecy to which the whole parish was privy) and prayed him to let her partake of the Lord's Supper: a request that caused great scandal to the neighbours and sore embarrassment to the Vicar himself, who, being a learned man and deeply read in demonology, grieved from his heart that the witch did not play her part better.
"It is," said he to my father, "a monstrous lapse." "Nay, it is a sign of grace," urged my mother.
"It is," said my father (and I do not know whether he spoke perversely or in earnest), "a matter of no moment." Now, being steadfastly determined that my boyhood shall be less tedious in the telling than it was in the living--for I always longed to be a man, and hated my green and petticoat-governed days--I will pass forthwith to the hour when I reached the age of eighteen years.

My dear father was then in Heaven, and old Betty had found, as was believed, another billet.

But my mother lived, and the Vicar, like the King, had come to his own again: and I was five feet eleven in my stockings, and there was urgent need that I should set about pushing my way and putting money in my purse; for our lands had not returned with the King, and there was no more incoming than would serve to keep my mother and sisters in the style of gentlewomen.
"And on that matter," observed the Vicar, stroking his nose with his forefinger, as his habit was in moments of perplexity, "Betty Nasroth's prophecy is of small service.

For the doings on which she touches are likely to be occasions of expense rather than sources of gain." "They would be money wasted," said my mother gently, "one and all of them." The Vicar looked a little doubtful.
"I will write a sermon on that theme," said he; for this was with him a favourite way out of an argument.

In truth the Vicar loved the prophecy, as a quiet student often loves a thing that echoes of the world which he has shunned.
"You must write down for me what the King says to you, Simon," he told me once.
"Suppose, sir," I suggested mischievously, "that it should not be fit for your eye ?" "Then write it, Simon," he answered, pinching my ear, "for my understanding." It was well enough for the Vicar's whimsical fancy to busy itself with Betty Nasroth's prophecy, half-believing, half-mocking, never forgetting nor disregarding; but I, who am, after all, the most concerned, doubt whether such a dark utterance be a wholesome thing to hang round a young man's neck.