d, and he determined to try the Sortes Virgilianae. He shut the
volume, and opened it again at a venture.--The story of Laocoon!

He read with a strange feeling of unwilling fascination, from "Horresco
referees" to "Bis medium amplexi," and flung the book from him, as if its
leaves had been steeped in the subtle poisons that princes die of.

CHAPTER XIII.

CURIOSITY.

People will talk. 'Ciascun lo dice' is a tune that is played oftener
than the national air of this country or any other.

"That 's what they say. Means to marry her, if she is his cousin. Got
money himself,--that 's the story,--but wants to come and live in the old
place, and get the Dudley property by and by." "Mother's folks was
wealthy."--"Twenty-three to twenty-five year old."--"He a'n't more 'n
twenty, or twenty-one at the outside."--"Looks as if he knew too much to
be only twenty year old."--"Guess he's been through the mill,--don't look
so green, anyhow, hey? Did y' ever mind that cut over his left eyebrow?"

So they gossiped in Rockland. The young fellows could make nothing of
Dick Venner. He was shy and proud with the few who made advances to him.
The young ladies called him handsome and romantic, but he looked at them
like a many-tailed pacha who was in the habit of, ordering his wives by
the dozen.

"What do you think of the young man over there at the Veneers'?" said
Miss Arabella Thornton to her father.

"Handsome," said the Judge, "but dangerous-looking. His face is
indictable at common law. Do you know, my dear, I think there is a blank
at the Sheriff's office, with a place for his name in it?"

The Judge paused and looked grave, as if he had just listened to the
verdict of the jury and was going to pronounce sentence.

"Have you heard anything against him?" said the Judge's daughter.

"Nothing. But I don't like these mixed bloods and half-told stories.
Besides, I have seen a good many desperate fellows at the bar, and I have
a fancy they all have a look belonging to them. The worst one I ever
sentenced looked a good deal like this fellow. A wicked mouth. All our
other features are made for us; but a man makes his own mouth."

"Who was the person you sentenced?"

"He was a young fellow that undertook to garrote a man who had won his
money at cards. The same slender shape, the same cunning, fierce look,
smoothed over with a plausible air. Depend upon it, there is an
expression in all the sort of people who l