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'Yes, mistress, you can smile now that the danger is over,' said my maid, much aggrieved, 'but I can tell you we have had a narrow escape, a very narrow escape indeed. The people here say that we might have been all killed, as likely as not, by the highwaymen whom Sir Claudius consorts with and leads. They say that he got knighted by mistake, and that he is to be unknighted again—the knowledge of which makes him desperate. And they say, too, which indeed our men and I think also, that you brought all our misfortunes upon us, mistress, by interposing to save those witches, which was directly interfering with Providence that was about to send them back to where they came from.'

'I never did think you were wise, Betsy,' said I, 'but now I know you are most foolish. And I will not listen to you any more.' And with that I turned my back upon her, and took my food looking the other way, with the vague feeling that I would not cast the pearls of my wiser thoughts before the swine of Betsy's foolishness.