There he sat, and as he clutched, with his long, thin, bony fingers, at the papers which lay spread out upon the table before him, as if they were the stout line which was to draw unto him the gold he coveted, I thought of the story of the Rich Man and the Lamb, told in the olden writ. My client was also beside me. Still habited in black—she might well mourn the wrong she had suffered, if not the man she had loved—the veil lifted from her face, a little pale with hope and sorrow, and a womanly modesty possessing in quick turn all her features. She won the favor of the court; and the jury, as each was sworn and took his seat within the box, whispered compassion. SECTION VI. My adversaries saw, clearly enough, the ground upon which I stood, and the able junior counsel, in opening the case, with great art alluded to it, and fully shadowed forth the position in the defense which was to be most strenuously attacked. “The plaintiff’s mortgage was undoubted; I had myself acknowledged it in the answer on file in the record; neither was the amount alleged by the defendant to have been received by her late husband from the succession of her mother to be disputed, the evidence was conclusive; but the marriage was illegal; that would hardly be questioned. Was the defendant in good faith at the time of its celebration? Was she in good faith when her late husband took possession of her mother’s succession? Was she in such good faith as would secure to her the rights of a legal marriage? These were the questions to be answered, and he believed that the evidence which he was about to bring home to the knowledge of the jury, would answer them most emphatically in the negative. He then spoke of Andrews’ long residence in New Orleans; of his many acquaintances there; of his well-known marriage with the daughter of a French Jew; of his desertion of his wife; of her return, with her aged father, to France; of the second marriage, hastily made up; of the plaintiff’s sudden appearance in that city, claiming a position due alone to honesty, while Andrews spoke of her to his associates as his concubine; of the hints which she had received of the imposition she was striving to practice upon others, or which had been in reality practiced upon herself; and of the deaf ear which she ever turned to such warnings; of her feigned incredulity; and of the mystery which hung over and covered, with impenetrable darkness, the history of her birth. He closed with an appeal to the judgment of the jury—cautioned them against the blinding influence of the passions—spoke of the dangerous eloquence of a woman in weeds—besought them to keep their reason unclouded, and not suffer sympathy to work a wrong—and asked for justice, sheer justice, the justice of the law, that right might be vindicated without respect of persons.”