O change!—stupendous change!
There lies the soulless clod;
The sun eternal breaks—
The new immortal wakes—
Wakes with his God.
_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 brother 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.”
“‘Exotics’ 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 didn’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
ease, 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 wasn’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 bureau 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 to-morrow 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.