ere may possibly
be some mystery about the birth and parentage of the young girl. You may
have got her out of the house of Meggat's Land in the Canongate from a
man--not Mr. Napier, you admit--who may have been the father of it by
some mother residing in the house; and Mrs. Kemp may have been actuated,
by some unknown means, to remove the paternity from the right to the
wrong person. All this is possible; but that the child could be that one
which Mrs. Napier bore is impossible, for this reason--and I beg of you
to listen to it--that Mrs. Napier's child _was dead-born, and was,
according to good evidence, buried in the same coffin with the mother_."

A statement this, which, delivered in the solemn manner of an attorney
who was really honest, and who knew much of this history, appeared to
Mrs. Hislop so strange that her tongue was paralyzed; an effect which
had never before been produced by any one of all the five causes of the
metaphysicians. Even her eyes seemed to have lost their power of
movement; and as for her wits, they had, like those of the renowned
Astolpho, surely left, and taken refuge in the moon.

"If you are not satisfied with my words," continued the writer (no doubt
ironically, for where could he have found better evidence of the effect
of his statement?), "I will give you writing for the truth of what I
have said to you."

And rising and going towards a green tin box, he opened the same, and
taking therefrom a piece of paper, he resumed his seat.

"Now listen," said he, as he unfolded an old yellow-coloured sheet of
paper, and then he read these words: "'Your presence is requested at the
funeral of Henrietta Preston, my wife, and of a child still-born, from
my house, Meggat's Land, Canongate, to the burying-ground at St.
Cuthberts, on Friday the 19th of this month June, at one o'clock;' and
the name at this letter," continued Mr. Dallas, "is that of 'John Napier
of Eastleys.' Will that satisfy you?"

And the "doer" for Mr. Charles Napier, conceiving that he had at last
effectually "done" his client's opponent, seemed well pleased to sit and
witness the further effect of his evidence on the bewildered woman; but
we are to remember that a second stroke sometimes only takes away the
pain of the former, and a repetition of blows will quicken the reaction
which slumbered under the first. Whether this was so or not in our
present instance, or whether Mrs. Hislop had recovered her wits by a
process far s