woman till her last hour--twice a year since her husband's death. But
matrimony had been a bitter medicine for Mary after her imagination had
ceased to sweeten it, and her invariable answer to her several suitors
was the disquieting assertion that if ever she was so rash as to take
another husband, she certainly should kill him. Archibald was not the
man to conquer her prejudices, although she loved the sterling in him
and attached him to her by every hook of friendship. He was a dark
nervous little man, spare as most West Indians, used a deal of snuff,
and had a habit of pushing back his wig with a jerking forearm when in
heated controversy with Dr. Hamilton, or expounding matrimony to the
widow.

Dr. Hamilton, for whose arrival Mr. Hamn was kept waiting,--Mistress
Fawcett tarried until her daughter fell asleep,--was a large square man,
albeit lean, and only less nervous than the widow's suitor. His white
locks were worn in a queue, a few escaping to soften his big powerful
face. Both men wore white linen, but Dr. Hamilton was rarely seen
without his riding-boots, his advent, except in Mistress Fawcett's
house, heralded by the clanking of spurs. Mary would have none of his
spurs on her mahogany floors, and the doctor never yet had been able to
dodge the darkey who stood guard at her doorstep.

The two men exchanged mild surmises as to the cause of the summons; but
as similar summons occurred when newly wedded blacks were pounding each
other's heads, provoked thereto by the galling chain of decency, or an
obeah doctor had tied a sinister warning to Mistress Fawcett's knocker,
neither of the gentlemen anticipated serious work. When Mary Fawcett
entered the long room, however, both forgot the dignity of their years
and position, and ran forward.