was sure to give her
pain. She could not help it; her very feet dragged her to that fatal
spot.

When she drew near the fatal bridge, she observed a number of persons
collected on it, looking down in the river at some distance.

At the same time people began to hurry past her, making for the bridge.

She asked one of them what it was.

"Summut in the river," was the reply, but in a tone so full of meaning,
that at these simple words she ran forward, though her knees almost gave
way under her.

The bridge was not so crowded yet, but that she contrived to push in
between two women, and look.

All the people were speaking in low murmurs. The hot weather had dried
the river up to a stream in the middle, and, in midstream, about fifty
yards from the foot of the bridge, was a pile of broken masonry, which
had once been the upper part of Bolt and Little's chimney. It had fallen
into water twelve feet deep; but now the water was not above five feet,
and a portion of the broken bricks and tiles were visible, some just
above, some just under the water.

At one side of this wreck jutted out the object on which all eyes were
now fastened. At first sight it looked a crooked log of wood sticking
out from among the bricks. Thousands, indeed, had passed the bridge,
and noticed nothing particular about it; but one, more observant or less
hurried, had peered, and then pointed, and collected the crowd.

It needed but a second look to show that this was not a log of wood but
the sleeve of a man's coat. A closer inspection revealed that the sleeve
was not empty.

There was an arm inside that sleeve, and a little more under the water
one could see distinctly a hand white and sodden by the water.

The dark stream just rippled over this hand, half veiling it at times,
though never hiding it.

"The body will be jammed among the bricks," said a by-stander; and all
assented with awe.

"Eh! to think of its sticking out an arm like that!" said a young girl.

"Dead folk have done more than that, sooner than want Christian burial,"
replied an old woman.

"I warrant ye they have. I can't look at it."

"Is it cloth, or what?" inquired another.

"It's a kind of tweed, I think."

"What's that glittering on its finger?"

"It's a ring--a gold ring."

At this last revelation there was a fearful scream, and Grace Carden
fell senseless on the pavement.

A gentleman who had been hanging about and listening to the comments now
darted