Parris. Why put the maid to this needless agony?

Corwin. Put the cape over her shoulders.

[Widow Hutchins approaches Ann hesitatingly, and throws the cape over her shoulders. Ann sinks upon the floor, shrieking.

Ann. Take it off!  Take it off!  It burns!  It burns!  Take it off!  Have mercy!  I shall die!  I shall die!

Hathorne. Take off the cape; that is enough.  Olive Corey, what say you to this?  This is the cape you gave Ann Hutchins.

Olive. Oh, mother! mother!

Martha (pushing forward).  Nay, I will speak again.  Ye shall not keep me from it; ye shall not send me out of the meeting-house! (The afflicted cry out.) Peace, or I will afflict ye in earnest!  I will speak!  If I be a witch, as ye say, then ye have some reason to fear me, even ye most worshipful magistrates and ministers.  It might happen to ye even to fall upon the floor in torment, and it would ill accord with your offices.  Ye shall hear me.  I speak no more for myself—­ye may go hang me—­I speak for my child.  Ye shall not hang her, or judgment will come upon ye.  Ye know there is no guile in her; it were monstrous to call her a witch.  It were less blasphemy to call her an angel than a witch, and ye know it.  Ye know it, all ye maids she hath played with and done her little kindnesses to, ye who would now go hang her.  That cape—­that cape, most worshipful magistrates, did the dear child earn with her own little hands, that she might give it to Ann, whom she loved so much.  Knowing, as she did, that Ann was poor, and able to have but little bravery of apparel, it was often on her mind to give her somewhat of her own, albeit that was but scanty; and she hath toiled overtimes at her wheel all winter, and sold the yarn in Salem, and so gained a penny at a time wherewithal to buy that cape for Ann.  And now will it hang her, the dear child?

Dear Ann, dost thou not remember how thou and my Olive have spent days together, and slept together many a night, and lain awake till dawn talking?  Dost thou not remember how thou couldst go nowhere without Olive, nor she without thee, and how no little junketing were complete to the one were the other not there?  Dost thou not remember how Olive wept when thy father died?  Mercy Lewis, dost thou not remember how my Olive came over and helped thee in thy work that time thou wert ailing, and how she lent thee her shoes to walk to Salem?

Oh, dear children, oh, maids, who have been playmates and friends with my dear child, ye will not do her this harm!  Do ye not know that she hath never harmed ye, and would die first?  Think of the time when this sickness, that is nigh to madness, shall have passed over, and all is quiet again.  Then will ye sit in the meeting-house of a Lord’s day, and look over at the place where my poor child was wont to sit listening in her little Sabbath best,