which the lapse of nearly two generations has not wholly
eradicated from the memory of old inhabitants. In the opening remarks
of the opinion of the Supreme Court, in one of several cases growing
out of it, I find the following statement: "It would be inexpedient to
recapitulate the testimony in a transaction which was calculated to
call up exasperated feelings, which has apparently taxed ingenuity and
genius to criminate and recriminate, where a deep sense of injury is
evidently felt and expressed by the parties to the controversy, and
where this state of feeling has extended, as it was to be expected, to
all the immediate friends of the parties, who from their situation were
necessarily compelled to become witnesses and to testify in the case."

In the relation of this story I shall substitute Christian names for
the surnames of the parties outside of the Field family, although all
have become public property and the principals are dead. The scene is
laid in the adjoining counties of Windham and Windsor in the Green
Mountain State, and this is how it happened:

There lived at Windsor, in the county of the same name, a widow named
Susanna, and she was well-to-do according to the modest standard of the
times. She was blest with a goodly family of sons and daughters, among
whom was Mary Almira, a maiden fair to look upon and impressionable
withal. Now it befell that Mary Almira, while still very young, was
sent to school at the Academy in Leicester, Mass., where she met, and,
in the language of the law, formed "a natural and virtuous attachment"
with a student named Jeremiah, sent thither by his guardian from
Oxbridge in the state last before mentioned. They met, vowed eternal
devotion and parted, as many school-children have done before and will
do again.

After her return to Windsor, Jeremiah seemingly faded from the thoughts
of Mary Almira, so that when she subsequently accompanied her mother on
a visit to Montreal, she felt free to experience "a sincere and lively
affection" for a Canadian youth named Elder. So lively was this
affection that when Jeremiah next saw Mary Almira it had completely
effaced him from her memory. Nothing daunted, however, being then of
the mature age of eighteen years and eight months, and two years Mary's
senior, he resumed the siege of her heart, and in short order their
engagement was duly "promulgated and even notorious."

Before Mary succumbed to the second suit of Jeremiah, she wait