who still retained some trace of former good looks, not wholly defaced by self-evident evil habits. He introduced himself to me as her husband, and said he had come down, having heard of her death, to claim his rights as he called them. He brought with him a smooth-faced man, whom he introduced to me as a lawyer from London; and such he may possibly have been, for London pro duces many curious types of the profession. They tried bluff and bullying, but found they had mistaken their man. I showed them at once that I was master of the situation, and told them straight out that I was then en gaged in applying for probate of a recently executed will. The London lawyer slunk off crestfallen. I confess I so far departed from strict professional etiquette as to sug gest to the husband that he should call on me a little later on without his lawyer; and that I bribed the latter to leave the town at once by a promise that if he would accom pany my clerk to the railway station he should be repaid the cost of his journey, and
a nominal fee for himself, on the train start ing with him inside, but not otherwise; and he accepted the bribe eagerly. The subsequent interview between the husband and myself was a long one. I do not aspire to be called eloquent, but such a touching story of faithful love un requited as I had to relate to him made me, I dare say, speak solemnly from my heart, which is after all, I venture to think, the mother of true eloquence; before I had ended my story he was on his knees sob bing like a child. A few flowers were found on her grave in the cemetery, placed by an unknown hand; and the world at large never knew that the self-possessed and self-willed old lady, whom all imagined to be a lonely widow, left be hind her a husband whom she had loved to the last in spite of all his sins, and who mourned her loss in penitence. Verily the love of woman is as far beyond the compre hension of man as are some of the other secrets of Dame Nature.
CHAPTERS FROM THE BIBLICAL LAW. III. THE "CORONER'S" INQUEST AND THE CEREMONY OF EXPIATION. BY DAVID WERNER AMRAM. IN the twenty-first chapter of Deuteron omy, from the first to the ninth verses, will be found a record of an ancient proced ure, which I have entitled, The " Coroner's" Inquest and the Ceremony of Expiation. It describes the procedure in cases when a dead body is found lying in the fields; how in vestigation is made and how, finally, the town elders within whose jurisdiction the crime has been committed must make expiation. Be fore considering the record, a few words con cerning the judicial system of those days may
assist the reader in forming a clearer concep tion of the nature of the procedure. Before the establishment of the monarchy and the organization of royal courts of law by the appointment of royal judges, the judicial system of the Hebrews was not organized on a national plan. Each community was in dependent, and its affairs were administered by its council of elders, who were the execu tive and judicial officers. Judges, so-called, do not appear in Jewish history until after the beginning of the kingdom; in the old
