“Mrs. Hislop,” said he, “if it had not been that I have always taken you for an honest woman, I would say that you are art and part in fabricating a story without a particle of foundation.  There may possibly be some mystery about the birth and parentage of the young girl.  You may have got her out of the house of Meggat’s Land in the Canongate from a man—­not Mr. Napier, you admit—­who may have been the father of it by some mother residing in the house; and Mrs. Kemp may have been actuated, by some unknown means, to remove the paternity from the right to the wrong person.  All this is possible; but that the child could be that one which Mrs. Napier bore is impossible, for this reason—­and I beg of you to listen to it—­that Mrs. Napier’s child was dead-born, and was, according to good evidence, buried in the same coffin with the mother.”

A statement this, which, delivered in the solemn manner of an attorney who was really honest, and who knew much of this history, appeared to Mrs. Hislop so strange that her tongue was paralyzed; an effect which had never before been produced by any one of all the five causes of the metaphysicians.  Even her eyes seemed to have lost their power of movement; and as for her wits, they had, like those of the renowned Astolpho, surely left, and taken refuge in the moon.

“If you are not satisfied with my words,” continued the writer (no doubt ironically, for where could he have found better evidence of the effect of his statement?), “I will give you writing for the truth of what I have said to you.”

And rising and going towards a green tin box, he opened the same, and taking therefrom a piece of paper, he resumed his seat.

“Now listen,” said he, as he unfolded an old yellow-coloured sheet of paper, and then he read these words:  “’Your presence is requested at the funeral of Henrietta Preston, my wife, and of a child still-born, from my house, Meggat’s Land, Canongate, to the burying-ground at St. Cuthberts, on Friday the 19th of this month June, at one o’clock;’ and the name at this letter,” continued Mr. Dallas, “is that of ’John Napier of Eastleys.’  Will that satisfy you?”

And the “doer” for Mr. Charles Napier, conceiving that he had at last effectually “done” his client’s opponent, seemed well pleased to sit and witness the further effect of his evidence on the bewildered woman; but we are to remember that a second stroke sometimes only takes away the pain of the former, and a repetition of blows will quicken the reaction which slumbered under the first.  Whether this was so or not in our present instance, or whether Mrs. Hislop had recovered her wits by a process far shorter than that followed by the foresaid Astolpho, we know not; but certain it is, that she recovered the powers of both her eyes and her tongue in much less time than the writer expected, and in a manner, too, very different from that for which he was probably prepared.