We are far from saying that any rumour expressed in the terms we have used, was circulating in Mrs. Horton’s bar-room; but one that contained all their essentials was. It is one of the curious effects of the upward tendency of truth that almost every effort to conceal it altogether fails; and this at the very time when idle and heartless gossip is filling the world with lies. The tongue does a thousand times more evil than the sword; destroys more happiness, inflicts more incurable wounds, leaves deeper and more indelible scars. Truth is rarely met with unalloyed by falsehood. “This or that unmix’d, no mortal e’er shall find”— Was the judgment of Pope a century since; nor has all the boasted progress of these later times induced a change. It is remarkable that a country which seems honestly devoted to improvement of every sort, that has a feverish desire to take the lead in the warfare against all sorts and species of falsehood, gives not the slightest heed to the necessity of keeping the channels of intelligence _pure_, as well as _open_! Such is the fact; and it is a melancholy but a just admission to acknowledge that with all the means of publicity preserved by America, there is no country in which it is more difficult to get unadulterated truth impressed on the common mind. The same wire that transmits a true account of the price of cotton from Halifax to New Orleans, carries a spark that imparts one that is false. The two arrive together; and it is not until each has done its work that the real fact is ascertained. Notwithstanding these undoubted obstacles to the circulation of unalloyed truth, that upward tendency to which we have alluded occasionally brings out clear and strong rays of the divine quality, that illumine the moral darkness on which they shine, as the sun touches the verge of the thunder-cloud. It is in this way that an occasional report is heard, coming from no one knows where; originating with, no one knows whom; circulating in a sort of under-current beneath the torrents of falsehood, that is singularly, if it be not absolutely correct. Of this character was the strange rumour that found its way into Biberry on the morning of Mary Monson’s trial, touching the history of that mysterious young woman’s past life. Wilmeter heard it, first, with a pang of disappointment, though Anna had nearly regained her power in his heart; and this pang was immediately succeeded by unbounded surprise. He told the tale to Millington; and together they endeavoured to trace the report to something like its source. All efforts of this nature were in vain. One had heard the story from another; but no one could say whence it came originally. The young men gave the pursuit up as useless, and proceeded together towards the room of Timms, where they knew Dunscomb was to be found, just at that time.