xt moment like a
mighty and rugged rock, a stronghold of security and protection, on
which he presently smote, Moses-like, and the brook of which I spoke
gushed out again.

"You know already, gentlemen," said he, "my view of this case. I think
that by this time it must be yours also."

Mrs. Stiles moaned. Then Mr. Pope proved to the jury that it was utter
nonsense for Mrs. Stiles's witnesses to pretend that they had seen the
accident, because the ordinary pedestrian looks at his nose when he is
walking, and not at the car-track. The jury smiled, the room grew hotter
and hotter, and the judge whiter and whiter.

"Mr. Mecutchen?" cried Mr. Pope. "Mr. Mecutchen never laid eyes on Mrs.
Stiles until he saw her lying in the middle of the street. I don't say
he is intentionally prevaricating. Of course he thinks he saw all that
he says he did. I grew up in the firm conviction that I had known Judas
Iscariot. I was ten years old before I could be persuaded that it was
only a sweet delusion,--a dazzling dream of childhood, too bright to
last."

The jury roared.

Then Mr. Pope talked of his own witnesses, and the virtues with which he
didn't invest those remarkable beings may exist in heaven, but are
certainly not to be found on earth, nor even in any of the intermediate
planetary paradises known to the Spiritualists.

And then--then he descended on Mrs. Stiles herself.

"What," he cried, suddenly, turning with an outburst of indignant
impatience from the petty arguments into which his love for the
exhibition of the whole truth in all its details had led him, "what are
you told by the most respectable and conscientious witness who has
appeared here to-day? What is the testimony of the one person who ought
to know _everything_ about this case? What does Mrs. Stiles say?
Nothing. She says nothing. She doesn't know what happened. If this were
a strong case, she would describe to you with minute particularity the
manner in which she put her hand upon the rail of the car, stepped on,
was jolted, tried to save herself, was thrown off. But not a word of
this have you heard from her. All that she remembers, as she confesses,
is that the car was in motion when she got on it."

Oh, where was Celandine? Had she gone out only to get ice-cream, or
because Georgiana was so hot that she couldn't stand it any longer? Mrs.
Stiles could not remember. Maybe it was Mr. Mecutchen that had spoken of
the ice-cream, and Celandine was going to