University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

Mrs. Southey.

As Dr. McBrain entered the room, the two young men and
Sarah, after saluting him like very familiar acquaintances, passed
out into what the niece called her “garden.” Here she immediately
set her scissors at work in clipping roses, violets, and
other early flowers, to make bouquets for her companions. That
of Michael was much the largest and most tasteful; but this her
brothe did not remark, as he was in a brown study, reflecting
on the singularity of the circumstance that the Constitution of
the United States should not be the “palladium of his political
and religious liberties.” Jack saw, for the first time in his life,
that a true knowledge of the constitution was not to be found
floating about in society, and that “there was more in the
nature of the great national compact than was dreamt of in his
philosophy.”

“Well, Ned,” said the lawyer, holding out his hand kindly,
but not rising from his chair, “what has brought you here so
early? Has old Martha spoilt your tea?”

“Not at all; I have paid this visit, as it might be, professionally.”

“Professionally! I never was better in my life; and set you

down as a false prophet, or no doctor, if you like that better, for
the gout has not even given a premonitory hint, this spring; and
I hope, now I have given up Sauterne altogether, and take but
four glasses of Madeira at dinner—”

“Two, too many.”

“I'll engage to drink nothing but sherry, Ned, if you'll consent
to four, and that without any of those forbidding looks.”

“Agreed; sherry has less acidity, and consequently less gout,
than Madeira. But my business here this morning, though
professional, does not relate to my craft, but to your own.'

“To the law? Now I take another look at you, I do see
trouble in your physiognomy; am I not to draw the marriage
settlements, after all?”

“There are to be none. The new law gives a woman the
entire control of all her property, they tell me, and I suppose
she will not expect the control of mine.”

“Umph! Yes, she ought to be satisfied with things as they
are, for she will remain mistress of all her cups and saucers,
even, — ay, and of her houses and lands, in the bargain. Hang
me, if I would ever marry, when the contract is so one-sided.”

“You never did, when the contract was t' other-sided. For
my part, Tom, I'm disposed to leave a woman mistress of her
own. The experiment is worth the trial, if it be only to see the
use she will make of her money.”

“You are always experimenting among the women, and are
about to try a third wife. Thank Heaven, I've got on sixty
years, quite comfortably, without even one.”

“You have only half lived your life. No old bachelor —
meaning a man after forty — knows anything of real happiness.
It is necessary to be married, in order to be truly happy.”

“I wonder you did not add, `two or three times.' But you
may make this new contract with greater confidence than either

of the others. I suppose you have seen this new divorce project
that is, or has been, before the legislature?”

“Divorce! I trust no such foolish law will pass. This calling
marriage a `contract,' too, is what I never liked. It is
something far more than a `contract,' in my view of the
matter.”

“Still, that is what the law considers it to be. Get out of
this new scrape, Ned, if you can with any honour, and remain
an independent freeman for the rest of your days. I dare say
the widow could soon find some other amorous youth to place
her affections on. It matters not much whom a woman loves,
provided she love. Of this, I'm certain, from seeing the sort
of animals so many do love.”

“Nonsense; a bachelor talking of love, or matrimony, usually
makes a zany of himself. It is terra incognita to you, my boy,
and the less you say about it, the better. You are the only
human being, Tom, I ever met with, who has not, some time or
other, been in love. I really believe you never knew what the
passion is.”

“I fell in love, early in life, with a certain my lord Coke, and
have remained true to my first attachment. Besides, I saw I
had an intimate friend who would do all the marrying that was
necessary for two, or even for three; so I determined, from the
first, to remain single. A man has only to be firm, and he may
set Cupid at defiance. It is not so with women, I do believe; it
is part of their nature to love, else would no woman admire you,
at your time of life.”

“I don't know that—I am by no means sure of that. Each
time I had the misfortune to become a widower, I was just as
determined to pass the remainder of my days in reflecting on the
worth of her I had lost, as you can be to remain a bachelor; but
somehow or other, I don't pretend to account for it, not a year
passed before I have found inducements to enter into new engagements.

It is a blessed thing, is matrimony, and I am
resolved not to continue single an hour longer than is necessary.”

Dunscomb laughed out, at the earnest manner in which his
friend spoke, though conversations, like this we have been relating,
were of frequent occurrence between them.

“The same old sixpence, Ned! A Benedict as a boy, a Benedict
as a man, and a Benedict as a dotard—”

“Dotard! My good fellow, let me tell you—”

“Poh! I don't desire to hear it. But as you came on business
connected with the law, and that business is not a marriage-settlement,
what is it? Does old Kingsborough maintain his
right to the Harlem lot?”

“No, he has given the claim up, at last. My business, Tom,
is of a very different nature. What are we coming to, and what
is to be the end of it all!”

As the doctor looked far more than he expressed, Dunscomb
was struck with his manner. The Siamese twins scarce understand
each other's impulses and wishes better than these two
men comprehended each other's feelings; and Tom saw at once
that Ned was now very much in earnest.

“Coming to?” repeated Dunscomb. “Do you mean the
new code, or the `Woman-hold-the-Purse Law,' as I call it? I
don't believe you look far enough ahead to foresee all the damnable
consequences of an elective judiciary.”

“It is not that—this, or that—I do not mean codes, constitutions,
or pin-money. What is the country coming to, Tom Dunscomb
— that is the question, I ask.”

“Well, and has the country nothing to do with constitutions,
codes, and elective judges? I can tell you, Master Ned McBrain,
M. D., that if the patient is to be saved at all, it must be by
means of the judiciary, and I do not like the advice that has just
been called in.”

“You are a croaker. They tell me the new judges are reasonably
good.”

“`Reasonably' is an expressive word. The new judges are
old judges, in part, and in so much they do pretty well, by
chance. Some of the new judges are excellent — but one of the
very best men on the whole bench was run against one of the
worst men who could have been put in his place. At the next
heat I fear the bad fellow will get the track. If you do not
mean what I have mentioned, what do you mean?”

“I mean the increase of crime — the murders, arsons, robberies,
and other abominations that seem to take root among us,
like so many exotics transplanted to a genial soil.”

“`Exoties' and `genial' be hanged! Men are alike everywhere.
No one but a fool ever supposed that a republic is to
stand, or fall, by its virtue.”

“Yet, the common opinion is that such must be the final test
of our institutions.”

“Jack has just been talking nonsense on this subject, and
now you must come to aid him. But, what has your business
with me, this morning, to do with the general depreciation in
morals?”

“A great deal, as you will allow, when you come to hear my
story.”

Dr. McBrain then proceeded forthwith to deliver himself of
the matter which weighed so heavily on his mind. He was the
owner of a small place in an adjoining county, where it was his
custom to pass as much time, during the pleasant months, as a
very extensive practice in town would allow. This was not
much, it is true, though the worthy physician so contrived
matters, that his visits to Timbully, as the place was called, if
not long, were tolerably numerous. A kind-hearted, as well as
a reasonably-affluent man, he never denied his professional services
to his country neighbours, who eagerly asked his advice

whenever there was need of it. This portion of the doctor's
practice flourished on two accounts, — one being his known skill,
and the other his known generosity. In a word, Dr. McBrain
never received any compensation for his advice, from any in the
immediate neighbourhood of his country residence. This rendered
him exceedingly popular; and he might have been sent to
Albany, but for a little cold water that was thrown on the project
by a shrewd patriot, who suggested that while the physician
was attending to affairs of state, he could not be administering
to the ailings of his Timbully neighbours. This may have
checked the doctor's advancement, but it did not impair his
popularity.

Now, it happened that the bridegroom-expectant had been out
to Timbully, a distance of less than fifteen miles from his house
in Bleecker street, with a view to order matters for the reception
of the bride, it being the intention of the couple that were soon
to be united to pass a few days there, immediately after the ceremony
was performed. It was while at his place, attending to
this most important duty, that an express came from the county
town, requiring his presence before the coroner, where he was
expected to give his evidence as a medical man. It seems that a
house had been burned, and its owners, an aged couple, had
been burnt in it. The remains of the bodies had been found,
and an inquest was about to be held on them. This was pretty
much all that the messenger could tell, though he rather thought
that it was suspected the house had been set on fire, and the old
people, consequently, murdered.

As a matter of course, Dr. McBrain obeyed the summons. A
county town, in America, is often little more than a hamlet,
though in New York they are usually places of some greater pretensions.
The state has now near a dozen incorporated cities,
with their mayors and aldermen, and with one exception, we believe
these are all county towns. Then come the incorporated

villages, in which New York is fast getting to be rich, places
containing from one to six or seven thousand souls, and which,
as a rule, are steadily growing into respectable provincial towns.
The largest of these usually contain “the county buildings,” as
it is the custom to express it. But, in the older counties, immediately
around the great commercial capital of the entire republic,
these large villages do not always exist; or when they do exist,
are not sufficiently central to meet the transcendental justice of
democratic equality — a quality that is sometimes of as exacting
pretension, as of real imbecility; as witness the remarks of Mr.
Dunscomb, in our opening chapter.

The county buildings of — happen to stand in a small
village, or what is considered a small village, in the lower part of
the state. As the events of this tale are so recent, and the
localities so familiar to many persons, we choose to call this village
“Biberry,” and the county “Dukes.” Such was once the
name of a New York county, though the appellation has been
dropped, and this not from any particular distaste for the strawberry
leaves; “Kings,” “Queens,” and “Duchess” having been
wisely retained — wisely, as names should be as rarely changed
as public convenience will allow.

Dr. McBrain found the village of Biberry in a high state of
excitement; one, indeed, of so intense a nature as to be far from
favourable to the judicial enquiry that was then going on in the
court-house. The old couple who were the sufferers in this affair
had been much respected by all who knew them; he as a common-place,
well-meaning man, of no particular capacity, and she as
a managing, discreet, pious woman, whose greatest failing was a
neatness that was carried somewhat too near to ferocity. Nevertheless,
Mrs. Goodwin was, generally, even more respected than
her husband, for she had the most mind, transacted most of the
business of the family, and was habitually kind and attentive to
every one who entered her dwelling; provided, always, that they

wiped their feet on her mats, of which it was necessary to pass
no less than six, before the little parlour was reached, and did
not spit on her carpet, or did not want any of her money. This
popularity added greatly to the excitement; men, and women
also, commonly feeling a stronger desire to investigate wrongs
done to those they esteem, than to investigate wrongs done to
those concerning whom they are indifferent.

Doctor McBrain found the charred remains of this unfortunate
couple laid on a table in the court-house, the coroner in attendance,
and a jury empanelled. Much of the evidence concerning
the discovery of the fire had been gone through with, and was
of a very simple character. Some one who was stirring earlier
than common had seen the house in a bright blaze, had given
the alarm, and had preceded the crowd from the village, on the
road to the burning dwelling. The Goodwins had resided in a
neat, retired cottage, at the distance of near two miles from
Biberry, though in sight from the village; and by the time the
first man from the latter reached the spot, the roof had fallen in,
and the materials were mostly consumed. A dozen, or more, of
the nearest neighbours were collected around the ruins, and
some articles of household furniture had been saved; but, on the
whole, it was regarded as one of the most sudden and destructive
fires ever known in that part of the country. When the engine
arrived from the village, it played briskly on the fire, and was
the means of soon reducing all within the outer walls, which
were of stone, to a pile of blackened and smouldering wood. It
was owing to this circumstance that any portion of the remains
of the late owners of the house had been found, as was done in
the manner thus described, in his testimony, by Peter Bacon, the
person who had first given the alarm in Biberry.

“As soon as ever I seed it was Peter Goodwin's house that
made the light,” continued this intelligent witness, in the course
of his examination, — “I guv' the alarm, and started off on the

run, to see what I could do. By the time I got to the top of
Brudler's Hill, I was fairly out of breath, I can tell you, Mr.
Coroner and Gentlemen of the Jury, and so I was obliged to
pull up a bit. This guv' the fire a so much better sweep, and
when I reached the spot, there was little chance for doing much
good. We got out a chest of drawers, and the young woman
who boarded with the Goodwins was helped down out of the
window, and most of her clothes, I b'lieve, was saved, so far as I
know.”

“Stop,” interrupted the coroner; “there was a young woman
in the house, you say.”

“Yes; what I call a young woman, or a gal like; though
other some calls her a young woman. Waal, she was got out;
and her clothes was got out; but nobody could get out the old
folks. As soon as the ingyne come up we turned on the water,
and that put out the fire about the quickest. Arter that we went
to diggin', and soon found what folks call the remains, though
to my notion there is little enough on 'em that is left.”

“You dug out the remains,” said the coroner, writing; “in
what state did you find them?”

“In what I call a pretty poor state; much as you see 'em
there, on the table.”

“What has become of the young lady you have mentioned?”
enquired the coroner, who, as a public functionary, deemed it
prudent to put all of the sex into the same general category.

“I can't tell you, 'squire; I never see'd her arter she was got
out of the window.”

“Do you mean that she was the hired-girl of the family,—or
had the old lady no help?”

“I kinder think she was a boarder, like; one that paid her
keepin',” answered the witness, who was not a person to draw
very nice distinctions, as the reader will have no difficulty in
conceiving, from his dialect. “It seems to me I heer'n tell of

another help in the Goodwin family — a sorter Jarman, or Irish
lady.”

“Was any such woman seen about the house this morning,
when the ruins were searched?”

“Not as I'ner. We turned over the brands and sticks, until
we come across the old folks; then everybody seemed to think
the work was pretty much done.”

“In what state, or situation, were these remains found?”

“Burnt to a crisp, just as you see 'em, 'squire, as I said
afore; a pretty poor state for human beings to be in.”

“But where were they lying, and were they near each other?”

“Close together. Their heads, if a body can call them black
lookin' skulls heads, at all, almost touched, if they did n't quite
touch, each other; their feet lay further apart.”

“Do you think you could place the skeletons in the same
manner, as respects each other, as they were when you first saw
them? But let me first enquire, if any other person is present,
who saw these remains before they had been removed?”

Several men, and one or two women, who were in attendance
to be examined, now came forward, and stated that they had
seen the remains in the condition in which they had been originally
found. Selecting the most intelligent of the party, after
questioning them all round, the coroner desired that the skeletons
might be laid, as near as might be, in the same relative positions
as those in which they had been found. There was a difference
of opinion among the witnesses, as to several of the minor particulars,
though all admitted that the bodies, or what remained
of them, had been found quite close together; their heads touching,
and their feet some little distance apart. In this manner,
then, were the skeletons now disposed; the arrangement being
completed just as Dr. McBrain entered the court-room. The
coroner immediately directed the witnesses to stand aside, while
the physician made an examination of the crisped bones.

“This looks like foul play!” exclaimed the doctor, almost as
soon as his examination commenced. “The skulls of both these
persons have been fractured; and, if this be anything near the
positions in which the skeletons were found, as it would seem,
by the same blow.”

He then pointed out to the coroner and jury, a small fracture
in the frontal bone of each skull, and so nearly in a line as
to render his conjecture highly probable. This discovery gave
an entirely new colouring to the whole occurrence, and every one
present began to speculate on the probability of arson and murder
being connected with the unfortunate affair. The Goodwins
were known to have lived at their case, and the good woman, in
particular, had the reputation of being a little miserly. As
everything like order vanished temporarily from the court-room,
and tongues were going in all directions, many things were
related that were really of a suspicious character, especially by
the women. The coroner adjourned the investigation for the
convenience of irregular conversation, in order to obtain useful
clues to the succeeding enquiries.

“You say that old Mrs. Goodwin had a good deal of specie?”
enquired that functionary of a certain Mrs. Pope, a widow woman
who had been free with her communications, and who very well
might know more than the rest of the neighbours, from a very
active propensity she had ever manifested, to look into the affairs
of all around her. “Did I understand you, that you had seen
this money yourself.”

“Yes, sir; often and often. She kept it in a stocking of the
old gentleman's, that was nothing but darns; so darny, like, that
nobody could wear it. Miss Goodwin was n't a woman to put
away anything that was of use. A clusser body wasn't to be
found, anywhere near Biberry.'

“And some of this money was gold, I think I heard you say.
A stocking pretty well filled with gold and silver.”

“The foot was cramming full, when I saw it, and that wasn't
three months since. I can't say there was any great matter in
the leg. Yes, there was gold in it, too. She showed me the
stocking the last time I saw it, on purpose to ask me what might
be the valie of a piece of gold that was almost as big as half
a-dollar.”

“Should you know that piece of gold, were you to see it,
again?”

“That I should. I didn't know its name, or its valie, for I
never seed so big a piece afore, but I told Miss Goodwin I
thought it must be ra'al Californy. Them's about now, they
tell me, and I hope poor folks will come in for their share. Old
as I am — that is, not so very old neither — but such as I am, I
never had a piece of gold in my life.”

“You cannot tell, then, the name of this particular coin?”

“I couldn't; if I was to have it for the telling, I couldn't.
It wasn't a five dollar piece; that I know, for the old lady had
a good many of them, and this was much larger, and yellower,
too; better gold, I conclude.”

The coroner was accustomed to garrulous, sight-seeing females,
and knew how to humour them.

“Where did Mrs. Goodwin keep her specie?” he enquired.
“If you saw her put the stocking away, you must know its usual
place of deposit.”

“In her chest of drawers,” answered the woman eagerly.
“That very chest of drawers which was got out of the house, as
sound as the day it went into it, and has been brought down into
the village for safe keeping.”

All this was so, and measures were taken to push the investigation
further, and in that direction. Three or four young men,
willing volunteers in such a cause, brought the burean into the
court-room, and the coroner directed that each of the drawers
should be publicly opened, in the presence of the jurors. The

widow was first sworn, however, and testified regularly to the
matter of the stocking, the money, and the place of usual deposit.

“Ah! you'll not find it there,” observed Mrs. Pope, as the
village cabinet-maker applied a key, the wards of which happened
to fit those of the locks in question. “She kept her money in
the lowest draw of all. I've seen her take the stocking out,
first and last, at least a dozen times.”

The lower draw was opened, accordingly. It contained female
apparel, and a goodly store of such articles as were suited to the
wants of a respectable woman in the fourth or fifth of the gradations
into which all society so naturally, and unavoidably, divides
itself. But there was no stocking full of darns, no silver, no
gold. Mrs. Pope's busy and nimble fingers were thrust hastily
into an inner corner of the drawer, and a silk dress was unceremoniously
opened, that having been the precise receptacle of the
treasure as she had seen it last bestowed.

“It's gone!” exclaimed the woman. “Somebody must have
taken it!”

A great deal was now thought to be established. The broken
skulls, and the missing money, went near to establish a case of
murder and robbery, in addition to the high crime of arson.
Men, who had worn solemn and grave countenances all that
morning, now looked excited and earnest. The desire for a
requiting justice was general and active, and the dead became
doubly dear, by means of their wrongs.

All this time Dr. McBrain had been attending, exclusively, to
the part of the subject that most referred to his own profession.
Of the fractures in the two skulls, he was well assured, though
the appearance of the remains was such as almost to baffle investigation.
Of another important fact he was less certain. While
all he heard prepared him to meet with the skeletons of a man
and his wife, so far as he could judge, in the imperfect state in
which they were laid before him, the bones were those of two
females.

“Did you know this Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Coroner?” enquired
the physician, breaking into the more regular examination with
very little ceremony; “or was he well known to any here?”

The coroner had no very accurate knowledge of the deceased,
though every one of the jurors had been well acquainted with
him. Several had known him all their lives.

“Was he a man of ordinary size?” asked the doctor.

“Very small. Not taller than his wife, who might be set
down as quite a tall old lady.”

It often happens in Europe, especially in England, that the
man and his wife are so nearly of a height as to leave very little
sensible difference in their statures; but it is a rare occurrence
in this country. In America, the female is usually delicate, and
of a comparatively small frame, while the average height of man
is something beyond that of the European standard. It was a
little out of the common way, therefore, to meet with a couple
so nearly of a size, as these remains would make Goodwin and
his wife to have been.

“These skeletons are very nearly of the same length,” resumed
the doctor, after measuring them for the fifth time. “The
man could not have been much, if any, taller than his wife.”

“He was not,” answered a juror. “Old Peter Goodwin
could not have been more than five feet five, and Dorothy was all
of that, I should think. When they came to meeting together,
they looked much of a muchness.”

Now, there is nothing on which a prudent and regular physician
is more cautious than in committing himself on unknown
and uncertain ground. He has his theories, and his standard
of opinions, usually well settled in his mind, and he is ever on
the alert to protect and bolster them; seldom making any admission
that may contravene either. He is apt to denounce the
water cure, however surprising may have been its effects; and
there is commonly but one of the “opathies” to which he is in

the least disposed to defer, and that is the particular “opathy”
on which he has moulded his practice. As for Dr. McBrain, he
belonged strictly to the alapathic school, and might be termed
almost an ultra in his adherence to its laws, while the number
of the new schools that were springing up around him, taught
him caution, as well as great prudence, in the expression of his
opinions. Give him a patient, and he went to work boldly, and
with the decision and nerve of a physician accustomed to practise
in an exaggerated climate; but place him before the public, as a
theoretical man, and he was timid and wary. His friend Dunscomb
had observed this peculiarity, thirty years before the commencement
of our tale, and had quite recently told him, “You
are bold in the only thing in which I am timid, Ned, and that
is in making up to the women. If Mrs. Updyke were a newfangled
theory, now, instead of an old-fashioned widow, as she
is, hang me if I think you would have ever had the spirit to
propose.” This peculiarity of temperament, and, perhaps, we
might add of character, rendered Dr. McBrain, now, very averse
to saying, in the face of so much probability, and the statements
of so many witnesses, that the mutilated and charred skeletons
that lay on the court-house table were those of two females, and
not those of a man and his wife. It was certainly possible he
might be mistaken; for the conflagration had made sad work of
these poor emblems of mortality; but science has a clear eye,
and the doctor was a skilful and practised anatomist. In his
own mind, there were very few doubts on the subject.

As soon as the thoughtful physician found time to turn his
attention on the countenances of those who composed the crowd
in the court-room, he observed that nearly all eyes were bent on
the person of one particular female, who sat apart, and was
seemingly labouring under a shock of some sort or other, that
materially affected her nerves. McBrain saw, at a glance, that
this person belonged to a class every way superior to that of

even the highest of those who pressed around the table. The
face was concealed in a handkerchief, but the form was not only
youthful but highly attractive. Small, delicate hands and feet
could be seen; such hands and feet as we are all accustomed to
see in an American girl, who has been delicately brought up.
Her dress was simple, and of studied modesty; but there was
an air about that, which a little surprised the kind-hearted individual,
who was now so closely observing her.

The doctor had little difficulty in learning from those near
him that this “young woman,” so all in the crowd styled her,
though it was their practice to term most girls, however humble
their condition, “ladies,” had been residing with the Goodwins
for a few weeks, in the character of a boarder, as some asserted,
while others affirmed it was as a friend. At all events, there
was a mystery about her; and most of the girls of Biberry had
called her proud, because she did not join in their frivolities,
flirtations and visits. It was true, no one had ever thought of
discharging the duties of social life by calling on her, or in
making the advances usual to well-bred people; but this makes
little difference where there is a secret consciousness of inferiority,
and of an inferiority that is felt, while it is denied. Such things
are of every-day occurrence, in country-life in particular, while
American town-life is far from being exempt from the weakness.
In older countries, the laws of society are better respected.

It was now plain that the blight of suspicion had fallen on
this unknown, and seemingly friendless girl. If the fire had
been communicated intentionally, who so likely to be guilty as
she? if the money was gone, who had so many means of securing
it as herself? These were questions that passed from one to
another, until distrust gathered so much head, that the coroner
deemed it expedient to adjourn the inquest, while the proof
might be collected, and offered in proper form.

Dr. McBrain was, by nature, kind-hearted; then he could not

easily get over that stubborn scientific fact, of both the skeletons
having belonged to females. It is true that, admitting this to
be the case, it threw very little light on the matter, and in no
degree lessened any grounds of suspicion that might properly
rest on the “young woman”; but it separated him from the
throng, and placed his mind in a sort of middle condition, in
which he fancied it might be prudent, as well as charitable, to
doubt. Perceiving that the crowd was dispersing, though not
without much animated discussion in under tones, and that the
subject of all this conversation still remained in her solitary
corner, apparently unconscious of what was going on, the worthy
doctor approached the immovable figure, and spoke.

“You have come here as a witness, I presume,” he said, in a
gentle tone; “if so, your attendance just now will no longer be
necessary, the coroner having adjourned the inquest until tomorrow
afternoon.”

At the first sound of his voice, the solitary female removed a
fine cambric handkerchief from her face, and permitted her new
companion to look upon it. We shall say nothing, here, touching
that countenance or any other personal peculiarity, as a sufficiently
minute description will be given in the next chapter,
through the communications made by Dr. McBrain to Dunscomb.
Thanking her informant for his information, and exchanging
a few brief sentences on the melancholy business which
had brought both there, the young woman arose, made a slight
but very graceful inclination of her body, and withdrew.

Dr. McBrain's purpose was made up on the spot. He saw
very plainly that a fierce current of suspicion was setting against
this pleasing, and, as it seemed to him, friendless young creature;
and he determined at once to hasten back to town, and get his
friend to go out to Biberry, without a moment's delay, that he
might appear there that very afternoon in the character of
counsel to the helpless.