The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin by Robert J. Begiebing

to no one. I think you will soon understand why. Consider this private journal rather as a gift; learn from my own misfortunes, Mr. Browne.”
    â€œFelix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum!"
Browne said and smiled.
    â€œAh! Indeed, Mr. Browne, indeed. Fortunate is he who thus learns caution.” He smiled. “Now about your trip up into the country. You met the aborigines? Would you be so kind as to amuse me with some tales? They have a certain wisdom too, do they not?”
    â€œYes, Mr. Coffin. But my mind is full of your astonishing gift. I fear I’m at a loss at the moment for tales of aborigines. Another time perhaps?”
    â€œCertainly.”
    â€œMy house is underway now. I’ll be leaving for London at summer’s end. It will take time for me to understand what you have given. May I take this with me wherever I go?”
    â€œIt is yours. I have given it to you. In confidence.”
    â€œPlease accept my apologies if my earlier questions have offended you. I thank you again for your generosity and frankness whenever we have met.”
    â€œAll I ask in return, my young friend, is that you press me no further on the contents of the journal after you’ve read it. Everything related to Kathrin is too painful for me now. I look for some release from that pain; I have long felt the need to impart these contents to another. But I can discuss it no further.”
    â€œIt can be only as you choose, Mr. Coffin.”
    Browne soon discovered that he had indeed been tendered a gift, but he was never to thank Coffin again or to discuss it with him, nor with Coffin to follow justice, conscience, or duty. For he never again saw Balthazar Coffin. And by the time all the journal’s secrets had been studied, puzzled out, and searched so that he began to understand them, he had too many entanglements and secrets of his own.

Part II
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    Mr. Hopkins, the governor of Hartford upon Connecticut, came to Boston, and brought his wife with him (a godly young woman, and of special parts) who was fallen into a sad infirmity, the loss of her understanding and reason, which had been growing upon her divers years, by occasion of her giving herself wholly to reading and writing, and had written many books. Her husband, being very loving and tender of her, was loath to grieve her; but he saw his error, when it was too late. For if she had attended her household affairs, and such things as belong to women, and not gone out of her way calling to meddle in such things as are proper for men, whose minds are stronger, etc., she had kept her wits, and might have improved them usefully and honorably in the place God had set her. He brought her to Boston, and left her with her brother, one Mr. Yale, a merchant, to try what means there might be had here for her. But no help could be had.
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    â€”John Winthrop, 1645

KATHRIN COFFIN HER PRIVATE JOURNAL
    I, Kathrin Coffin, daughter of Deacon William Bunting of Plymouth, County Devon, undertake to record some of the dealings of the allwise God with me, in events, which I ought solemnly to remember as long as I live.
    I was ever treated with the greatest tenderness by my family—my parents, brothers, sisters—from my infancy and during my continuance in my father’s house. So that I passed the morning of my years in peace and contentment. My father loved all his children, and saw to the education of every one of us, taking on much of the burden himself for my and my sisters’ schooling.
    I was married to my first husband, Mr. Joshua Pincheon, a vintner of London, in June of my 20th year, A.D. 1640: a restless time. Our marriage was a happy one, for my husband was my constant friend. Yet because he delighted in taking upon himself the travels associated with affairs of the wine trade, we were separated more than either of us had wished. Being without the blessing of children about the third year of our marriage, I began to travel on