Year: 1870

staring al{ She's dead. Take her up
%, for Gods sake be gentle about i:
take her up, I tell you. There! Now
carry her along"


As the man moved on with the body
he turned to Bessie and said "Leaye
the lantern jaqt there. And don't you
touch those tracks. Go on into the
house"


With his own hands he aided to lay
out his daughter on a table, and drew
the cap from her temples so as to expose
the bloody cash to view There was a
little natural agony in the tremulous-
ness of his study and grizzly chin but
in the glitter Of his grey eyes which was
not so much sorrow as revenge.


"Thats pretty job" he said at last,
glaring at the mangled grey head. Il
should like 10 Farm who did it."


II was not known till the day follow
ing how he passed the next half hour,
1t seems that, some little time previous,
this man Of over ninety years had con-
ceiyed the idea Of repairing with his
own hands the cracked wall of his par.
lor, and had for that purpose bought q
quantity Of plaster of Paris aud COM
menced a series of patient experiments
in mixing and applying it. Furnished.
with basin Of his prepared material,
he stalked out to the arbor aud busted
himself with taking mould of the
strange footstep TO which he had called
Bessie's attention, succeeding in his la
Dor 80 well as to be able to show next
day an exact counterpart Of the sole
which had made the track.


Shortly after be had left the house,
and gIancing cautiously about as if to
make sure that he had left il, Ibis wife
entered the room where lay the dead
body. She came slowly up to the table,
and looked at the ghastly face for some
moments in silence, with precisely that
staid, slightly shuddering air which one
often sees at funerals, and without any
sign Of the excitement which one natu-
rally expects in the witnesses of mor-
tai tragedy. In any ordinary personSn
any one who was not, like her, denat-
uralized by the egotism of shattered
nerves, such mere wonder and repug-
nance would have appeared incompre-
hensihly brutal But Mrs. Lauson had
character of her own; she could be diff
ferent from others without exciting pro-
longed or specially severe commenti
people said to themselves, "Just like
her." and made no further criticism,
and almost certainly no renOnstrance.
Bessie herself, the moment she had ex-
claimed, 30 grandmother what shall
we dog felt how absurd it was to ad-
dress such an appeal to such person,
! Mrs Lauson replied by a glance
which expressed weakness, alarm, and
aversion, and which demanded, aS
plainly as words could say it, "HOw
can you ask meg' Then without st-
tempting to render any service or fune-
real courtesy, bearing herself like one
who had been mysteriously absolved
from the duties of sympathy and deco
rum, she turned her back on the body
of her step-daughter with start of dis
gust, and walked hastily from the
room.


Of course there was gathering of the
neighbors, hasty and useless search
after the murderer, a medical examins-
ton of the victim, and a legal inquest Gt
the earliest practicable moment, the ver-
dict being "death by the hand of some
person unknown" Even the funeral
passed, with its mighty crowd aud lis
solemn excitement; and still public sus-
picion had not dared to single out any
one as the criminal. 1t seemed for q
day or two as if the family life might
shortly settle into its old tenor, the same
narrow routine of quiet discomfort or
irrational chickering's, with no change
but the loss of such inflammation 40
formerly arose from Aunt Meroy's we'll
meant, but irritating sense of duty
The squire, however, was permanently
and greatly changed: not that he had
lost the spirit Of petty dictation which
led him to interfere in every household
act, even to the boiling of the pot, but
he had acquired new object in life, and
one which seemed to restore all his
youthful energy he was more restlessly
and distressingly vital than he had bsen
for years. No Indian was ever more in-
tent on avenging a debt of blood than
was he on hunting down the murderer
OF his daughter This terrible old man
has strong attraction for US: we feel
that we have not thus far done him JUS
tice; he impsriously demands further
description.


Squire Lauson was at this time nine
ty-three years of age. The fact ap-
peared incredible, because he had pre-.
served, almost unimpaired, not only his
moral energy and intellectual faculties,
but also his physical senses, and even
to an extraordinary degree his muscu.
lar strength. His long and carelessly
worn hair was not white, but merely
| gray; and his only badness was a shi-
ming hand's-breadth, prolonging the
height of bis forehead. His face was
deeply wrinkled, but more apparently
with thought and passion than from de-
cay, for the flesh was still we'll under
control of the muscles, and the express
sion was so vigorous that one was
tempted to call it robust. There was
nothing Of that insipid and almost ba-
ish tranquility which is commonly OBJ
| rnr..n IL. &. IL = En.,nn nf Tho nxfrnrnnlar