ther it should be brought near the head
by concealment in a pillow, or near the more vital portions of the body
itself through use of a bandage worn near the skin,--the effect would be
the same--insensible debilitation, decline, death! But the latter plan
would be much the more rapid; and in neither event, when the deed was
done, would there be one mark, perceptible even to the dissecting
surgeon, telling that other than natural decay had brought about
dissolution.

Ten minutes afterwards, Aunt Synchy was busy compounding a _black
paste_, from various preparations which she found among the vials on the
shelf and under one corner of the heap of rags which she called her
bed--crooning all the while a dismal attempt at a tune which made even
the not-over-sensitive lawyer shudder, and putting the mixture at last
into his hands with a "Lor' bress you, honey!" which might have made
_any one_ shudder if he had understood the connection. Fifteen minutes
later, the Tombs lawyer left Thomas Street, without the information of
which he had originally come in search, but his mind now full of other
things, and bearing in his mind the mental label of the prescription:
"to be used as directed."

So vice buds into crime whenever opportunity offers, and the Hazaels of
the world, who have believed that they never could be brought to "do
this thing," pursue it with an energy and determination shaming the
efforts of older offenders. Yesterday only an illicit lover: to-day the
destroyer of children unborn! Yesterday only an _ordinary_ scoundrel:
to-day the worst and most deadly of all murderers--the _poisoner_!

Three months later--to wit, toward the close of June--that state of
affairs was existing at the house of Richard Crawford, which has before
been indicated. What was it, indeed, that Josephine Harris had dimly
discovered?

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TWO RIVALS AT JUDGE OWEN'S--A COMBAT A LA OUTRANCE BETWEEN THE
BANCKER AND THE WALLACE--ALMOST A CHALLENGE, AND A TRIAL OF EVERY-DAY
COURAGE.

Return we now to the somewhat too-long neglected Miss Emily Owen and the
other inmates and intimates of Judge Owen's pleasant house near the
Harlem River.

Some days had elapsed after the conversation between Emily and Aunt
Martha, bringing the time to the first of July and the commencement of
that fire-cracker abomination that was to culminate on the Fourth in a
general distraction. Some days had elapsed--as has already been noted;
and ju