duce a large red
pocketbook. Meantime, Dominicus Pike, being an extremely polite young
man, and also suspecting that a female tongue would tell the story as
glibly as a lawyer's, had handed the lady out of the coach. She was a
fine, smart girl, now wide awake and bright as a button, and had such
a sweet, pretty mouth that Dominicus would almost as lief have heard a
love-tale from it as a tale of murder.

"Gentlemen and ladies," said the lawyer to the shopkeepers, the
mill-men and the factory-girls, "I can assure you that some
unaccountable mistake--or, more probably, a wilful falsehood
maliciously contrived to injure Mr. Higginbotham's credit--has excited
this singular uproar. We passed through Kimballton at three o'clock
this morning, and most certainly should have been informed of the
murder had any been perpetrated. But I have proof nearly as strong as
Mr. Higginbotham's own oral testimony in the negative. Here is a note
relating to a suit of his in the Connecticut courts which was
delivered me from that gentleman himself. I find it dated at ten
o'clock last evening."

So saying, the lawyer, exhibited the date and signature of the note,
which irrefragably proved either that this perverse Mr. Higginbotham
was alive when he wrote it, or, as some deemed the more probable case
of two doubtful ones, that he was so absorbed in worldly business as
to continue to transact it even after his death. But unexpected
evidence was forthcoming. The young lady, after listening to the
pedler's explanation, merely seized a moment to smooth her gown and
put her curls in order, and then appeared at the tavern door, making a
modest signal to be heard.

"Good people," said she, "I am Mr. Higginbotham's niece."

A wondering murmur passed through the crowd on beholding her so rosy
and bright--that same unhappy niece whom they had supposed, on the
authority of the Parker's Falls _Gazette_, to be lying at death's
door in a fainting-fit. But some shrewd fellows had doubted all along
whether a young lady would be quite so desperate at the hanging of a
rich old uncle.

"You see," continued Miss Higginbotham, with a smile, "that this
strange story is quite unfounded as to myself, and I believe I may
affirm it to be equally so in regard to my dear uncle Higginbotham. He
has the kindness to give me a home in his house, though I contribute
to my own support by teaching a school. I left Kimballton this morning
to spend the vacation of commencem