ot death. As she spoke, tears moistened her burning eye,
and ran down her thin, pallid cheeks. She wished the ceremony over, as
an evil to be endured, and then fate must take its course, though she
feared the termination would be miserable, as well for her father as
for her. His life was hanging by a thread; hers was worn out by
watching, fainting, and suffering, till it was on the very eve of
leaving the body, which was no longer able to support or contain it.
These were the misfortunes in the inside of the house; but there were
others without-doors. The landlord had sequestrated the stock
belonging to her father--a circumstance that had plunged him deeper in
his despondency and misery, and explained the very altered state in
which I had found him. The attorney, a hard man, _laughed_ at the
_device_ of threatened self-murder, resorted to for the purpose of
exciting his sympathy, and robbing his client's pocket.

"Yes," she concluded, "he _laughed_"--and she repeated the word
"laughed" with a hysterical action of the throat, as if it choked her,
and next moment burst into tears.

Two days afterwards, a man on horseback arrived at my door, and rapped
with great violence; his horse was heated, and foaming at the mouth,
as if it had been hard pressed, and he himself was flushed and
excited. He told me, in a hurried manner, that I was wanted instantly
at George B----'s; he had been sent to me by another man, and could
tell me nothing beyond the fact that something very alarming had taken
place, and that, if I did not hasten thither on the instant, and with
my very greatest speed, I could be of no use. I took with me what I
conceived might be wanted, for my suspicions were more communicative
than the messenger, and proceeded, with all the expedition in my
power, to the house where I had lately seen so much suffering.

On my entering the house, a most extraordinary spectacle presented
itself. On the small truckle-bed that stood opposite the door in the
kitchen lay a female figure, dressed in white, with both her hands
wrapped up in cloth, from which issues of blood rolled on the bed; and
her face, not less pale than her dress, was spotted and besmeared with
the same element. It was Margaret B---- in her _marriage dress_. A
young woman, her bridesmaid, was beside her, looking in her face as if
to see whether life was still in her body. A young man, also dressed
as if for the marriage, hurried me to the apartment of George B-