On the following day the suit for breach of promise of marriage was tried. As men seldom make promises of marriage in the presence of witnesses, in actions of this sort much of the proof is inferential. It was proved that Pate was in constant attendance on the young lady; that every evening he was seated by her side in her father's parlor, or taking romantic walks in her company, by moonlight, with her arm locked in his own; that in the morning he would walk with her to gather wild flowers in the forest; that in the afternoon he would be seen riding with her in lonely and unfrequented roads; and several witnesses swore that they had seen him on his knees before her, apparently making a most tender appeal. The Irishwoman testified to the scene in the rocking-chair, and said that he was praying to her, and asking her "if she had no heart at all, at all." The woman was asked if she could recollect what day it was on which she had witnessed the scene in the rocking-chair. She said it was the twenty-first day of May, because on that day the bantam hen had hatched a brood of chickens, and she had marked the date of the successful incubation on the top of the hen-coop. A letter, from Pate to Juliet, was then produced, dated the twenty-fifth of May, in which he spoke of the promise he had made her, and which he would never forget. The nature of this promise was not explained by the context; but so powerful was the impression made on the minds of the jury, that, after the closing argument of the counsel for the plaintiff, in which the character of M. T. Pate was torn to tatters, they retired, and soon returned with a verdict awarding damages to the injured lady to the amount of twenty thousand dollars. In each case a motion for a new trial failed, and the judgments were soon followed by executions, under which the whole of Pate's property was seized and sold. He bore his reverses with fortitude until he saw old Whitey under the auctioneer's hammer, when his firmness forsook him, and he was seen to shed tears. When the judgments were satisfied but a small sum remained. Pate was compelled to remove from his beautiful residence, and obtained lodgings in the boarding-house where the Professor and the five respectable maiden ladies had dwelt for many months. Not long afterwards he was informed by one of the respectable maiden ladies that Juliet, with the proceeds arising from the sale of his real and personal estate in her possession, had been married to Romeo, to whom she had become reconciled. M. T. Pate had no ill feelings towards this young man, and could not help pitying him. He predicted, in the presence of the Professor and the five respectable maiden ladies, that Romeo would be murdered by Juliet, in cold blood, before the end of the honeymoon.