kes a dagger to the heart of Mr.
Smith. Though not a death-blow, the torture was extreme.

The exhibition proceeded. One after another Fancy displayed her
pictures, all of which appeared to have been painted by some malicious
artist on purpose to vex Mr. Smith. Not a shadow of proof could have
been adduced in any earthly court that he was guilty of the slightest
of those sins which were thus made to stare him in the face. In one
scene there was a table set out, with several bottles and glasses half
filled with wine, which threw back the dull ray of an expiring lamp.
There had been mirth and revelry until the hand of the clock stood
just at midnight, when Murder stepped between the boon-companions. A
young man had fallen on the floor, and lay stone dead with a ghastly
wound crushed into his temple, while over him, with a delirium of
mingled rage and horror in his countenance, stood the youthful
likeness of Mr. Smith. The murdered youth wore the features of Edward
Spencer. "What does this rascal of a painter mean?" cries Mr. Smith,
provoked beyond all patience. "Edward Spencer was my earliest and
dearest friend, true to me as I to him through more than half a
century. Neither I nor any other ever murdered him. Was he not alive
within five years, and did he not, in token of our long friendship,
bequeath me his gold-headed cane and a mourning-ring?"

Again had Memory been turning over her volume, and fixed at length
upon so confused a page that she surely must have scribbled it when
she was tipsy. The purport was, however, that while Mr. Smith and
Edward Spencer were heating their young blood with wine a quarrel had
flashed up between them, and Mr. Smith, in deadly wrath, had flung a
bottle at Spencer's head. True, it missed its aim and merely smashed a
looking-glass; and the next morning, when the incident was imperfectly
remembered, they had shaken hands with a hearty laugh. Yet, again,
while Memory was reading, Conscience unveiled her face, struck a
dagger to the heart of Mr. Smith and quelled his remonstrance with her
iron frown. The pain was quite excruciating.

Some of the pictures had been painted with so doubtful a touch, and
in colors so faint and pale, that the subjects could barely be
conjectured. A dull, semi-transparent mist had been thrown over the
surface of the canvas, into which the figures seemed to vanish while
the eye sought most earnestly to fix them. But in every scene, however
dubiously portrayed,