441
XXXVIII. VIRGIE'S FLIGHT 456
XXXIX. VIRGIE'S FLIGHT--CONTINUED 468
XL. HULDA BELEAGUERED 486
XLI. AUNT PATTY'S LAST TRICK 496
XLII. BEAKS 510
XLIII. PLEASURE DRAINED 515
XLIV. THE DEATH OF PATTY CANNON 524
XLV. THE JUDGE REMARRIED 542
XLVI. THE CURSE OF THE HAT 554
XLVII. FAILURE AND RESTITUTION 558

* * * * *

A picture of Joe Johnson's Kidnapper's Tavern, as it stood in the
year 1883, is given on the title-page.

THE ENTAILED HAT.

CHAPTER I.

TWO HAT WEARERS.

Princess Anne, as its royal name implies, is an old seat of justice, and
gentle-minded town on the Eastern Shore. The ancient county of Somerset
having been divided many years before the revolutionary war, and its
courts separated, the original court-house faded from the world, and the
forest pines have concealed its site. Two new towns arose, and flourish
yet, around the original records gathered into their plain brick
offices, and he would be a forgetful visitor in Princess Anne who would
not say it had the better society. He would get assurances of this from
"the best people" living there; and yet more solemn assurances from the
two venerable churches, Presbyterian and Episcopalian, whose
grave-stones, upright or recumbent, or in family rows, say, in epitaphs
Latinized, poetical, or pious, "_We_ belonged to the society of Princess
Anne." That, at least, is the impression left on the visitor as he
wanders amid their myrtle and creeper, or receives, on the wide, loamy
streets, the bows of the lawyers and their clients.

There were but two eccentric men living in Princess Anne in the early
half of our century, and both of them were identified by their hats.

The first was Jack Wonnell, a poor fellow of some remote origin who had
once attended an auction, and bought a quarter gross of beaver hats.
Although that happened years before our story opens, and the fashions
had changed, Jack produced a new hat from the stock no oftener than when
he had well worn its predecessor, and