n 1885.
When I called upon Dr. Mercier in his office in Girod street in the summer
of 1883, to appeal to his remembrance of this long-forgotten matter, I
found a very noble-looking, fair old gentleman whose abundant waving hair
had gone all to a white silken floss with age. He sat at his desk in
persistent silence with his strong blue eyes fixed steadfastly upon me
while I slowly and carefully recounted the story. Two or three times I
paused inquiringly; but he faintly shook his head in the negative, a
slight frown of mental effort gathering for a moment between the eyes that
never left mine. But suddenly he leaned forward and drew his breath as if
to speak. I ceased, and he said:

"My sister, the wife of Pierre Soule, refused to become the owner of that
woman and her three children because they were so white!" He pressed me
eagerly with an enlargement of his statement, and when he paused I said
nothing or very little; for, sad to say, he had only made it perfectly
plain that it was not the girl Mary Bridget whom he was recollecting, but
_another case_.

He did finally, though dimly, call to mind having served with Dr. Stone
in such a matter as I had described. But later I was made independent of
his powers of recollection, when the original documents of the court were
laid before me. There was the certificate of the two physicians. And
there, over their signatures, "Mercier d.m.p." standing first, in a bold
heavy hand underscored by a single broad quill-stroke, was this
"Conclusion":

"1. These marks ought to be considered as _noevi materni_.

"2. They are congenital; or, in other words, the person was born with
them.

"3. There is no process by means of which artificial spots bearing all the
character of the marks can be produced."

[Illustration: Handwritten conclusion number 3 and signatures of Mercier
dmp and Dr. Stone.]

XI.

JUDGMENT.

On the 11th of June the case of Sally Miller _versus_ Louis Belmonti was
called up again and the report of the medical experts received. Could
anything be offered by Mr. Grymes and his associates to offset that? Yes;
they had one last strong card, and now they played it.

It was, first, a certificate of baptism of a certain Mary's child John,
offered in evidence to prove that this child was born at a time when
Salome Mueller, according to the testimony of her own kindred, was too
young by a year or two to become a mother; and secondly, the testimony of
a free