"A ghost!" cried the Doctor. "Any one here seen a ghost? I wish I
could have such a chance! What was it like?"
"I did not see it myself; I do but believe what my uncle told me,"
said Pasqualina, with a gravity that had a shade of resentment.
"If one is only to speak of what one has seen," urged the prompter of
the uncle's ghost-story, "tell the Padrone of the witch that bewitched
your sister."
"Ah! and so we have witches too?" groaned the Doctor.
"As to that," resumed Pasqualina, with a dignified look, "I can't help
believing my own eyes, and those of all the people of our village."
"Well," exclaimed Doctor Morani, "let us hear all about the witch."
"You know, all of you," said Pasqualina, "what bad fits my sister had,
and how she was cured by the miraculous Madonna del Laghetto. So my
sister had no more fits, till Madalena, a spiteful old woman, and whom
everybody in the village knows to be a witch, mumbled some of her
spells and----"
"Hallo!" cried the Doctor, "do you mean that witches have more power
than the Madonna?"
"Oh! Signor Dottore, you put things so strangely! just listen to the
truth.
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