of a Byron, for instance, such gentry reflect back from their foggy imaginations in exaggerated and distorted feebleness of whining versicles, and so on with other lights celestial or infernal.  This, however, by the way.  The only rational pursuit he ever followed, and that only by fits and starts, and to gratify his faculty of “wonder,” I fancy, was chemistry.  A small laboratory was fitted up for him in the little summer-house you may have observed at the further corner of the lawn.  This study of his, if study such desultory snatches at science may be called, led him, in his examination of vegetable bodies, to a smattering acquaintance with botany, a science of which Ellen Armitage is an enthusiastic student.  They were foolishly permitted to botanize together, and the result was, that Alfred Bourdon, acting upon the principle that genius—­whether sham or real—­levels all merely mundane distinctions, had the impudence to aspire to the hand of Miss Armitage.  His passion, sincere or simulated, has never been, I have reason to know, in the slightest degree reciprocated by its object; but so blind is vanity, that when, about six weeks ago, an eclaircissement took place, and the fellow’s dream was somewhat rudely dissipated, the untoward rejection of his preposterous suit was, there is every reason to believe, attributed by both mother and son to the repugnance of Mrs. Armitage alone; and to this idiotic hallucination she has, I fear, fallen a sacrifice.  Judging from the emaciated appearance of the body, and other phenomena communicated to me by her ordinary medical attendant—­a blundering ignoramus, who ought to have called in assistance long before—­she has been poisoned with iodine, which, administered in certain quantities, would produce precisely the same symptoms.  Happily there is no mode of destroying human life which so surely leads to the detection of the murderer as the use of such agents; and of this truth the post mortem examination of the body, which takes place to-morrow morning, will, if I am not grossly mistaken, supply another vivid illustration.  Legal assistance will no doubt be necessary, and I am sure I do not err in expecting that you will aid me in bringing to justice the murderer of Mary Rawdon?”

A pressure of his hand was my only answer.  “I shall call for you at ten o’clock” said he, as he put me down at my own door.  I bowed, and the carriage drove off.

“Well!” said I, as Dr. Curteis and Mr. ——­ the eminent surgeon entered the library at Mount Place the following morning after a long absence.

“As I anticipated,” replied the doctor with a choking voice:  “she has been poisoned!”

I started to my feet.  “And the murderer?”

“Our suspicions still point to young Bourdon; but the persons of both mother and son have been secured.”

“Apart?”

“Yes; and I have despatched a servant to request the presence of a neighbor—­a county magistrate.  I expect him momently.”