The band was thus again supplied with resources, and the consequence was an increase of extravagance and riot--the former exhibiting itself in a still more inconsistent style of dress on the part of the females, and the latter in more frequent disturbances of the neighbours. Even questions began to be put to Helen M'Dougal, which were parried by the intelligence that she communicated,--that she had fallen heir to some house property about her place of birth, and that it was only right that decent people should rise in the world, and take the use of their own. Nor was Mary Hare less adroit in her fences. But the explanations thus given of what appeared to be a mystery were not deemed satisfactory, though no theory could be formed by the remonstrants. On the part of the _fortunate_ crew, the sums they received seemed only to stimulate their avidity. Not now waiting for the dispersion of the earnings, they aimed at a store, perhaps apprised by some looming suspicion that their fortune was too good to last, and a strange circumstance soon threw another temptation in their way. Young Mary Haldane, the daughter of her whom we have seen so easily and suddenly removed from the world and life, with all those sins on her head which had accumulated from the day of her seduction, had been brought up by the mother to ways as shameless as her own. As yet, however, it was the morning of life to the girl, and it is not always or often that wayward affections spent upon men more profligate than themselves, diminish the love of such creatures to their parents, even if the latter ought, by their neglect, to have earned nothing but hatred. We have seen one daughter cast into inconsolable grief, another was to be a wanderer and inquirer for her parent, with another and even more terrible issue. Having ascertained, on the morning subsequent to that evening when the burden was conveyed to Surgeon's Square, that her mother had not been seen on the previous night, Mary occupied the day in searching. The woman was a ken-speckle, the familiar object of all in the neighbourhood, as well as the game of the urchins; and much curiosity was added to the sympathy for the orphan, who, unfortunately, was scarcely less notorious. Many aided in the inquiry, but with no more success, of course, than that which attended the efforts of the daughter. It is still remembered how she went about in her decayed finery, with swollen eyes, and the tears on her cheeks, sobbing out her grief, amidst the fruitless question, "Had any one seen Mary Haldane?" At length, one of the neighbours was told by a grocer in Portsburgh, that the woman had been seen going towards Log's lodgings in the company of William Hare--a trace which, as no suspicions as yet attached to the man, held out some hope of success.