“This is something like the course of proceeding, I believe; though I never sat on a trial for this offence. It is of no great moment what the district attorney does, so that he do not prove that Miss Monson is guilty; and this, my kind-hearted Mrs. Gott, you and I do not believe he _can_ do.” “In that we are agreed, sir. I no more think that Mary Monson did these things, than I think I did them myself.” Jack expressed his thanks in a most grateful look, and there the interview terminated. [Illustration] CHAPTER X. “In peace, Love tunes the shepherd’s reed; In war he mounts the warrior’s steed; In halls, in gay attire is seen; In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love.” _Scott._ “It is the ways of the land,” said good Mrs. Gott, in one of her remarks in the conversation just related. Other usages prevail, in connection with other interests; and the time is come when we must refer to one of them. In a word, Dr. McBrain and Mrs. Updyke were about to be united in the bands of matrimony. As yet we have said very little of the intended bride; but the incidents of our tale render it now necessary to bring her more prominently on the stage, and to give some account of herself and family. Anna Wade was the only child of very respectable and somewhat affluent parents. At nineteen she married a lawyer of suitable years, and became Mrs. Updyke. This union lasted but eight years, when the wife was left a widow with two children; a son and a daughter. In the course of time these children grew up, the mother devoting herself to their care, education and well-being. In all this there was nothing remarkable, widowed mothers doing as much daily, with a self-devotion that allies them to the angels. Frank Updyke, the son, had finished his education, and was daily expected to arrive from a tour of three years in Europe. Anna, her mother’s namesake, was at the sweet age of nineteen, and the very counterpart of what the elder Anna had been at the same period in life. The intended bride was far from being unattractive, though fully five-and-forty. In the eyes of Dr. McBrain, she was even charming; although she did not exactly answer those celebrated conditions of female influence that have been handed down to us in the familiar toast of a voluptuous English prince. Though forty, Mrs. Updyke was neither ‘fat’ nor ‘fair;’ being a brunette of a well-preserved and still agreeable person.