or was business wanting to occupy a due share, for the senhor
despatched many letters; and, having established a correspondence with
the foreign-office, the necessity for his own presence at the seat of
government next became manifest. This was no sooner made known to Mr.
C---- than ample means were placed at Senhor Mina's disposal; when, with
the best wishes of the whole family, he took a short farewell of
Pennsylvania.

The absence of the interesting stranger was signalized by a change in
the habits and condition of this household as sudden as that which had
attended his first introduction to it. Mrs. C---- grew gradually
fretful, restless, and anxious; which might well be, for her husband was
on a sudden laid up with sickness, and their only child studiously
shunned their society, locking herself within her chamber, or moping
about the grounds she had so lately bounded over in the buoyancy of
health and happy youth.

The sequel was not long in arriving: the sick man daily grew worse and
weaker; and his wife, as was perfectly natural, daily grew more wretched
and impatient. She was assiduous to a jealous degree in the performance
of her duties and close attendance on her husband's bed; she mixed his
medicines, prepared his food and such diluents as were considered best
calculated to allay the fever that for ever burned him up. With his hand
within her's, she watched his last agonies, which were protracted and
extreme; and received from his lips grateful acknowledgments of her
unwearied kindness, and his dying blessing.

So far all went unsuspectedly and well: for one month the widow lived
unseen and retired, as became a sorrowing woman; but about the end of
that period, to the great surprise of the neighbourhood, she was made
again a bride by the grateful stranger, Senhor Mina.

And now it was that men began to shake their heads and find their
tongues; comments upon the shameless precipitancy of this wedding were
everywhere heard, mixed up with strange surmises, and suspicions too
horrible to remain long suppressed.

Curious inquiries were next made amongst the domestics, and one servant
girl quickly called to mind having noticed a sediment in the remains of
a basin of soup prepared by her mistress for the sick man, which having
been thrown to the poultry, together with some of the rice, these had
all since withered and died; nay, a hardy hog even, whose portion had
been small, with difficulty weathered an attack