The senior counsel was so provoked at what he called his client’s obstinacy, that he threw up his brief, and the junior took advantage of the circumstance to make a most eloquent speech, enlarging upon the singularity of no appeal having been previously made by the plaintiff—­of the extraordinary disappearance of the witnesses—­of the straight-forward, simple, and beautiful truthfulness of the defendant; in short, he moved the court to tears, and laid the foundation of his future fortune.  But after that day, Sarah Bond and her niece, Mabel, were homeless and houseless.  Yet I should not say that; for the gates of a jail gaped widely for the “miser’s daughter,” but only for a few days; after which society rang with praises, loud and repeated, of Mr. Alfred Bond’s liberality, who had discharged the defendant’s costs as well as his own.  In truth, people talked so much and so loudly about this, that they altogether forgot to inquire what had become of Sarah and Mabel.

CHAPTER IV.

The clergyman of the parish was their first visiter.  He assisted them to look into the future.  It was, he who conveyed to Sarah Bond Alfred’s determination that she should be held scatheless.  The good man delivered this information with the manner of a person who feels he comes with good news, and expects it will be so received; but Sarah Bond could only regard Alfred as the calumniator of her father’s memory, the despoiler of her rights.  The wild expression of joy in Mabel’s face, as she threw herself on her aunt’s bosom, gave her to understand that she ought to be thankful for what saved her from a prison.

Words struggled for utterance.  She who had borne so much and so bravely, was overcome.  Again and again she tried to speak, but for some hours she fell from one fainting fit into another.  She had borne up against all disasters, until the power of endurance was overwhelmed; and now, she was attacked by an illness so violent, that it threatened dissolution.  At this very time, when she needed so much sympathy, a stern and severe man, in whom there was no pity, a man who had received large sums of money from Miss Bond as a tradesman, and whose account had stood over from a particular request of his own, believing that all was gone, and that he should lose, took advantage of her illness to levy an execution upon the goods, and to demand a sale.

At this time her reason had quite deserted her, and poor Mabel was incapable of thought beyond her duty to her aunt, which made her remove her to a cottage-lodging from the turmoil of the town.  No one distinctly knew, except Mabel, why Sarah Bond was so attached to the old furniture, and few cared.  And yet more than one kind heart remembered how she had liked the “rubbishing things,” and bought in several, resolved that, if she recovered, and ever had “a place of her own again,” they would offer them for her acceptance.  Her illness was