Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1856-02-15


had we reached the outer door when we
saw them filing back to the courtroom.
Back returned the judge, with anything
but satisfaction on his face, and back
crowded lawyers, clients, and audience,
to learn the result.
had not judged wrongly as to the
relative effects of the two speeches on
the jury; but own was somewhat as
founded when the foreman, after declaring
that they found for the plaintiff, added,
in clear and distinct voice, "with dam
ages, five thousand dollars p
You have got a stunning verdict," T"
said to Sam, as we walked over to din
aner, "but how much viii you realize 1fom
it?"
" Nothing, now"
al see" was my rejoinder, " Bessie
viii be an heiress one of these days"
Squire Littleton's property would not
pay his own debts, if he died tomorrow" /"
replied Sam. "People here think he is
rich; l know him to be insolvent."
g In the name Of wonder, then,'' ex-
claimed, show do you ever expect to be
compensated for the time and money
spent in getting this verdict?"
"Do you remember the 443d page of
the first volume Of Blackstone?"
OF course I could not acknowledge to
my old fellow-student that ] didn't; but,
as I found it impossible to recall the pre-
else doctrine taught on that particular
page, l discreetly dropped the subject.
When Squire Littleton died, not six
months after the trial, all Pleasant Val
ley was astounded by discovering what
only Sam and few intimate friends had
known before; namely that his only child,
the supposed heiress, would be left nearly
penniless. Mingled with the expressions
Of pity for her, elected by this intelli-
gence, were many sly cuts and shrewd
jokes at the supposed failure of Sans
deep-laid scheme. The Ioungers at the
tavern, and the knot of evening gossipers
in the grocery and variety store reckoned
up the items of his expenditure in that
famous case, and chuckled at the thought
that the willy lawyers speculation would
foot up so largely on the wrong side
They were little surprised, afterwards,
to find that he made no effort to repay
himself out of the few hundreds saved
for Bessie from the wreck of her fathers
estate. One of the more charitable
among them even suggested, upon one
occasion, that Sam, though a lawyer, had
some little generosity left. But this no
ton was so instantly and generally secuted
by his wiser companions, he never broach-
ed the subject again and the only theory
that at all satisfied their minds was, that
in this, as in everything else connected
with Bessie LittIeton, Sam was fairly
non compos.
Bessie, with all her acknowledged
faults, had been favorite, and when her
fathers fine old house was sold under the
hammer, the homeless girl would have
been a welcome guest beneath many a
roof in the village. But she could not be
dependantwhere she had almost reigned
a queen; and, after few weeks of rest
less fitting from place to place, she ac-
cepted a situation as teacher in distant
city, and left Pleasant Valley, as she
then thought, forever.
But young lady can change her mind
many times in the course of years; and
the two years had brought her back
She had gone in orphans weeds, and with
eyes dimmed by sorrow. She came back,
more like the bright, bewitching Bessie
of her earlier days; and it soon came to
be whispered around that there was good
cause for her renewed spirits-that she
was going to make an excellent match.
These rumors soon we're reduced to
certainty; for on Saturday afternoon a
sprucely dressed gentleman was seen at
the door of the tavern, and the next NOR
ming that same sprucely dressed gentle
man walked into the village church with
Bessie on his arm. Oddly enough it hap
pened, that Sam Saunders had ridden
over that morning to hear an old school
fellow preach. The comparison between
the two lovers, as to the outward man.
/ was decidedly in the new comer's favor.
Grim old bachelorhood had settled down
prematurely on Sam, and stamped it,
mark on his careless attire, and his bushy
hair; and hard work, in a hard profes-
sion, had not improved a face which nev.
er was handsome. The stranger, on the
contrary, was eminently a handsome man
. and no little of a dandy. His face wa
a perennial smile, and when he smiled ht