Ailsie Gourlay was not indeed fool enough to acknowledge a compact with
the Evil One, which would have been a swift and ready road to the stake
and tar-barrel. Her fairy, she said, like Caliban's, was a harmless
fairy. Nevertheless, she "spaed fortunes," read dreams, composed
philtres, discovered stolen goods, and made and dissolved matches as
successfully as if, according to the belief of the whole neighbourhood,
she had been aided in those arts by Beelzebub himself. The worst of the
pretenders to these sciences was, that they were generally persons who,
feeling themselves odious to humanity, were careless of what they did
to deserve the public hatred. Real crimes were often committed under
pretence of magical imposture; and it somewhat relieves the disgust
with which we read, in the criminal records, the conviction of
these wretches, to be aware that many of them merited, as poisoners,
suborners, and diabolical agents in secret domestic crimes, the severe
fate to which they were condemned for the imaginary guilt of witchcraft.

Such was Aislie Gourlay, whom, in order to attain the absolute
subjugation of Lucy Ashton's mind, her mother thought it fitting to
place near her person. A woman of less consequence than Lady Ashton
had not dared to take such a step; but her high rank and strength of
character set her above the censure of the world, and she was allowed to
have selected for her daughter's attendant the best and most experienced
sick-nurse and "mediciner" in the neighbourhood, where an inferior
person would have fallen under the reproach of calling in the assistance
of a partner and ally of the great Enemy of mankind.