him, she looked into the trunk, and found a package of money marked 'J. Morse: two thousand dollars; but expressed doubts as to the propriety of her giving it up, and that she expressly declined to see Morse; and finally, that Mrs. Marshall had lived in a style of extravagance which the means she was known to possess could not justify, since the decease of her brother-in-law. The defendant's counsel, after finding that this was all the evidence that the plaintiff had to introduce, offered a little unimportant testimony, and then proceeded to harangue the jury in a very passionate manner. He battered down the plaintiff's evidence in the outset, with the bold assertion that it amounted to nothing, inasmuch as it did not show that the defendant ever made use of the money, or ever even had it in her possession : this he accompanied with a violent knock-down gesture, which of itself seemed sufficient to annihilate any thing of so intangible a nature as testimony. He then attempted an appeal to the feelings of the jury; and his allusion to the manner in which his fair client was dragged before them, to be stripped of the little property she possessed, to gratify the feelings of one of that class of miserly vampyres who have no regard to the distresses of the widow and the fatherless, if he could draw from them their last cent to add to his already useless wealth, was not without its effect. An occasional tear from a soft-hearted juryman was evidence of this, as he supposed; and he sat down, full of confidence that the cause was his. The argument of his opponent, however, was so sensible, that it was really a matter of doubt with some disinterested persons whether, if the defendant and her daughters had not been present, the jury would not have been very much inclined to favor the plaintiff.

After the charge of the judge, the jury retired. It was evident that a large majority of the spectators, from their lingering in the court-room, and watching every motion of the officer who had charge of the jury, expected an immediate verdict in favor of the defendant. As the time passed away, there was much uneasiness expressed by them; and at length they dropped off, one after another, until the room was vacated by all except those persons connected with the court. And the alteration in the air of the defendant's counsel, showed that he was not without some misgivings, when the court adjourned with the jury still out.

The next morning, upon the opening of the court, the jury were found in their seats; and what was the surprise of the friends of the defendant, when they heard the foreman say, in reply to the question of the clerk if they had agreed upon a verdict, 'We have not.' As the court were satisfied, on inquiry, that there was no possibility that the jury would agree, they discharged them from the farther consideration of the case, and continued it to the next term of the court. 'What was the cause of your not being able to agree?' inquired the defendant's attorney, privately, of a punning juryman.

The talesman,' he replied.

'Indeed! Why was he the cause?'

Because there is nothing agree-able in his composition. He is really the most dis-agreeable man I ever met with. He is made up entirely of obstinacy and self-conceit. Upon going into the jury

6

room, we ballotted, as usual, and found eleven votes in your favor; but he would not vote. When asked the reason, he said he was sworn to return a verdict according to the law and the evidence,' but he had not been able to get a knowledge of either. It was his opinion that the law was in favor of one party, and the evidence in favor of the other; and as he could not get these to agree, he could not agree with us. As to the parties themselves, it appeared to him that one must lose the two thousand dollars in the end, and it was immaterial to him who lost it, if justice was done, and he had heard no evidence showing on which side the justice of the case was. Having thus unburthened himself, he stretched himself upon a bench, and fell a-snoring, in order as I supposed, to give us time to consult on the best plan to make him agree. But we could agree upon nothing farther, except that he was the most unreasonable talesman we ever saw, and to give him a punch now and then, and ask the question whether he would r't agree now?' - thinking thereby to tire him into a somewhat more agree-able state of mind. But the operation of this was only to give additional zest to his sleep; for without waking, he invariably gave the answer, 'No, I wont ! Finding that he could live on sleep better than we could without food, we concluded to inform the court that there was no possibility of our agreeing.'

'Strange! strange!' ejaculated the counsellor, as he turned away, much chagrined that his wilfulness in insisting upon a talesman had been the only cause of his defeat.

At the next term of the court, the cause again came on for trial. After the same testimony had been introduced as at the former trial, the plaintiff's counsel informed the court he had another witness to examine, who had just come in. He then called:

'Mary Marshall!'

The call operated upon the defendant like an electric shock. Mary was the youngest of her daughters, and had not been in the court before. From certain circumstances, the plaintiff had reason to believe that her testimony would insure him the case, if it could be obtained, and he left no means untried to obtain it. At last he succeeded in getting her from a distant part of the state, whither her mother had sent her, as Morse supposed, to prevent her being made a witness in this trial, in season to have the benefit of her testimony. Its exact character he could not ascertain, for she would reveal it to no one; but he chose to put her on the stand, correctly supposing that it would be favorable to him. When she took the witnesses' stand, Mary appeared to be much agitated, but her beauty and the simplicity of her manners enlisted the whole assembly in her behalf. Miss Marshall,' inquired the counsel for the plaintiff, were you present when your uncle died?'

'I was,' she replied.

'Did you hear any conversation between him and your mother, respecting some money Mr. Morse had loaned him?'

I did.'

'Will you state what it was?'

When he was told by the physician that he could not live, he called my mother to the bed-side, and said to her that there was a package of money in his trunk, belonging to Mr. Morse, with his

name on it, and he wished her to hand it to him when he called for it. He said something more, but in so inaudible a tone, that I could not hear what it was.'

Did you see this money the next day? - if so, where did you see it, and what became of it?'

There appeared to be a struggle going on in the bosom of Mary, when this question was asked. She glanced at her mother, and the blood rushed suddenly into her face, then as suddenly deserted it; her head fell a little forward, and she continued silent.

'Miss Marshall,' said the counsel, 'I do not wish to give you unnecessary pain, but justice requires that you should answer the question, and your duty will compel you to do so, however your inclination may be to the contrary.'

'I am aware of it, Sir; and in answer to your question, must say, that the next day I saw my mother take it from my uncle's trunk, and put it into her desk.'

'Did you see any writing on the back of the package, and what was it?'

'It was marked 'J. Morse: $2000,' in figures.'

Had your mother any other money than this, to your knowledge ?'

'She told me she had but twenty-five dollars.'

'Where did she obtain this?'

. Of my

uncle.'

'Did she not obtain all the money she had of him?'

'She said, when he died, that she did not know how she could support her family, for all her means were now gone. From this I inferred that he supported the family wholly, and I did not know of any other means she had, than through him.'

This testimony gave the case altogether a different aspect; and although the defendant's counsel exerted all his skill in the cross-examination of the witness, to impair her testimony, and in his argument to change its bearing, he could not do away the conviction from the minds of the jury that Mrs. Marshall had appropriated the money to her own use; neither could he persuade them that the plaintiff should have resorted to the estate of Mr. Marshall, instead of the defendant, for his remedy. Their verdict was, that Morse should recover the amount of his claim.

NOT many months after this trial, Mr. Morse, as was his custom in the evening, was reading his 'daily,' when his eye accidentally fell upon the marriage of Mary Marshall. No sooner had he read it, than the fair form of his gentle witness, and her whole demeanor in court, were present in his imagination; and a resolution he had once made, occurred to him, which was, that if an opportunity ever offered, the money he had recovered of the mother should be appropriated to the benefit of her family. Upon inquiry he found that Mary had married a man of industrious habits, and otherwise exemplary character, but poor; and being satisfied that his money would be properly appropriated, he called upon him and insisted upon loaning him, until he should call for it, the sum of two thousand dollars, without interest. The young man offered him security; but this he re

fused, saying that he had no fear that it would not be paid when it was required. And he left him, gratified that he had had it in his power to benefit the family of his lamented friend, by assisting the husband of his niece, who, gentle reader, was no less a personage than the son of THE TALESMAN.

G.

THE HISTORY OF

DRUSILLA DARRACOTT.

BY THE AUTHOR OF HARRY FRANCO.

DRUSILLA DARRACOTT was born in one of those thriving wooden villages on the sea-coast of Massachusetts, where the poverty of the soil compels its inhabitants to seek for wealth on the ocean, or in distant lands, where the earth yields a generous increase of the seed of the planter, and the enervated inhabitants lack energy to avail themselves of the rich bounties of heaven. But her father was one of the few whom the wants of the little community in which he lived could enable to remain at home. Happy man! he could hope to lie by the side of his fathers, when he died; and the last looks that should gaze upon him here, would resemble those that should first greet him hereafter. He was a lawyer; and Drusilla being an only child, he educated her mainly himself: and being a young lady of quick perceptions and generous, she gained an amount of bookish learning before she reached her eighteenth year, which rarely falls to the lot of one of her sex and condition.

But there are disadvantages as well as advantages in being elevated by education above those with whom it is our destiny to mingle, and Drusilla experienced them in no small degree. Her mother had died when she was an infant, and her father's occupation often called him away from home, so that she was left with no other companions than her books and her flowers; and these are but cheerless companions for the young and tender-hearted. Objects of charity there were none in the village, and hence she was denied that noble employment, so grateful to benevolent and active minds, of visiting the distressed, and ministering to their necessities. Although Drusilla could take no pleasure in the society of the young women of her own age in the village, yet she could not but envy them; for their education was just suited to the sphere in which they were appointed to move; and even their jealousies and disappointments, their rivalries and heart-burnings, were all sources of pleasure to them. All these things were denied to Drusilla, and she was unhappy because there were none to sympathize with her hopes and her fears.

Young ladies, and particularly those whose opportunities enable them to read romances and poems, have a painful lesson to learn as they advance in years, and all the gay colors in which their views of life were painted, fade away, and leave nothing but a dull, cold outline of sober gray behind. But it must be so. The bright and beautiful iris which hangs suspended over our heads, although a bow of glorious promise, is nothing in itself but gilded mist, the most unreal yet enchanting of all the objects that cheat our senses in this world of delusions. So with the bright visions of youth and innocence; although giving assurance that there must be a world of purity and love, for there can be no shadow without a substance, yet they are the falsest but most enticing of all the unrealities which perplex the human soul. The dreams of ambition may be realized; the artist's wild wish for fame may be granted, and the miser's base efforts to ac