But I select one that was told by Mr.Coventry, and told with a certain easy grace that gave it no little interest.
MR.

COVENTRY'S TALE.
"When I was quite a child, there was a very old woman living in our village, that used to frighten me with her goggle eyes, and muttering.
She passed for a witch, I think; and when she died--I was eight years old then--old people put their heads together, and told strange stories about her early life.

It seems that this Molly Slater was away in service at Bollington, a village half way between our place and Hillsborough, and her fellow-servants used to quiz her because she had no sweetheart.

At last, she told them to wait till next Hilisboro' fair, and they should see.

And just before the fair, she reminded them of their sneers, and said she would not come home without a sweetheart, though she took the Evil one himself.