Unit 1: Selection Vocabulary 2

In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on the part of the spectators, as befitted a people among whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful...

If the hussy stood up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded?

This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender.

She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquaintance only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison.

On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.

I took a special dislike to Anne Putnam, and the little servant girl, Mercy Lewis, who was about the same age and accompanied her everywhere.

Sarah Osborne was an old woman, not a beggar like the other Sarah, but well-off, the owner of a lovely oak-paneled house, who in her youth had committed some fault or other to her discredit.

I took a deep breath and pretended to think hard, letting them stew in their curiosity, before solemnly declaring: “Perhaps!”

She looked straight at me and a shadow that I tried to dispel was dancing in the back of her eyes.

The roof rafters are exposed, and the wood colors are raw and unmellowed.

Now she is all worry and apprehension and propriety.

But if you trafficked with spirits in the forest I must know it now, for surely my enemies will, and they will ruin me with it.

A former Salem minister, George Burroughs, had had to borrow money to pay for his wife's funeral, and, since the parish was remiss in his salary, he was soon bankrupt.

Goody Ann, it is a formidable sin to conjure up the dead!