overcame his apprehensions, approached the Court
House.

Meantime the advocate, tortured by increasing
alarm, and with his imagination filling with tragic
touches the picture of the possible fate of Amanda,
had lost both recollection and temper; and for the
first time when conducting a cross-examination,
had been not merely baffled, but successfully bearded
and insulted by an irritated witness, to relieve him-
self from whom, he was obliged abruptly to bid him
leave the box. The occurrence stung him to the
quick, though he strove to hide his chagrin; -- no
wonder. Taken at disadvantage, and in a moment
of weakness, the old pleader was obliged to perceive
that the wager of mental duel between himself and
the witness had been decided against him; and to
feel that, in an unsought encounter and fair affray,
he had been publicly worsted. To add to his morti-
fication, the witness walked from the box with the
air of a conqueror, and cast an insolent look of
triumph around the court and upon his antagonist,
whose discomfiture was so signal as to be evident to
judge, jurors, witnesses, spectators, all. Still more
to increase the advocate's perturbation, the heat of
the court had become excessive, and the rebuff --
which, at an earlier period of his career, and with
an unwounded heart, would have provoked only
such a grim and threatening smile as a powerful
wrestler might wear, when, in the careless security
of proud contempt, he had been thrown by a boy --
now, in the self-esteem of age and the anguish of
bereavement, moved him almost to madness. Seizing
his gown, he half cast it from his form, regardless of

[[115]]

p114 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p115w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p116

v?