While occupied in the agreeable manner I have described, our little group was joined by a gentleman whom the lady welcomed as if he were a brother or dear friend—and not too heartily, I thought, for his person and manner were engaging in the extreme, and such as to attract and hold the attention of any one. Of commanding presence, and full of the glow and fire of life, his years sat so lightly upon him that he seemed only to have reached manhood, though he was in reality quite thirty years of age. Calling him to take a place by her side, he responded with pleasure, his high and noble features lighting up in response to her salutation and those of her children with so much animation and kindness that I was at once captivated by him, as in the case of Mr. Lincoln. When he was seated Mrs. Singleton spoke up, without preface of any kind, as was her way: "Oh, Jefferson, I have had the queerest adventure! Something like a play at the theater, only a hundred times more exciting." "Indeed," he answered, encouragingly. "A play wherein a little tigerish lawyer sought to carry off a child. Without avail, though, for he was beaten off finally by a melancholy knight who appeared suddenly on the scene, to the great joy of those who were looking on," the lady concluded, with rising voice. "I am sure it must have been interesting," he answered. "Pray tell me about it." "Yes, it was interesting, and something more than that. I was shopping, you must know, while the boat waited at Quincy, and in the most accidental way ran across the trial. The quaintest thing it was, too, that any one ever heard of. It was before a little justice, in the back part of his store, and all about the possession of this young gentleman," she went on, laying her hand on mine, "who was being fought over by his Uncle Job, a fair-spoken young man, on one side, and a little dragon of a lawyer, who moved about like a hawk hovering over a brood of chickens. Oh, you should have seen him!" "He was put to rout, though, finally, as you say?" the gentleman responded, smilingly. "Yes; and in the end the good fairy carried off the child in triumph, as it does in the story-book." "It must have been a sight worth seeing," he answered. "Indeed it was. When the trial was going on you could have cried out with pain and rage, but not have laughed to save your life, it was so pitiable. It was grand, too; and what made it so was the presence of the sublime man who pleaded for the child—did he come on with you, Gilbert, the lawyer, I mean, who defended you?" the good lady stopped abruptly to inquire. "Yes, madam."