"Yes. I thought I'd keep them to look at till her hair gets growed out again. It was such a pity!" The stranger took from his breast a small miniature on ivory, and handed it to Mrs. Wyman, at the same time asking her if she saw any resemblance between that picture and Alicia. Newcome when she was in health.
"The dear Lord!" exclaimed the good woman, in admiring wonder. "Was there anybody ever so handsome as that? Why it's just like a picture! To be sure it is a picture—but I mean it don't look like any human creature—only this poor child—and it's handsomer than she is, though I thought nobody could be."
"Then you think Miss Newcome resembles this picture?"
"Oh, yes, she's mightily like it; same sweet eyes, and yellowish curls, and pleasaut smile, but not quite so handsome about the mouth and chin, and not so proud-looking in the way she holds her head."
The sick girl began to move about restlessly, and to repeat her one cry of—"Oh, my father, pity your child!"
"That's the way she goes on," said Mrs. Wyman; "she's so troubled about some things she had to say in court that offended her father."
"Perhaps our voices disturb her," said the stranger, withdrawing from the room. "Here is a purse I wish you to use for her; and let her have whatever she may need, or can be procured for her comfort."
"But, sir, we do not wish for help in providing for this child. We intend to take her for our own if ever the need should come." Mrs. Wyman spoke tremulously, and with a half-offended manner.
"I know it; at least, I heard your husband say as much. But sometimes money is a great power, and Miss Newcome may need it. I give it to her, not you!"
"Mr. Wyman said, sir, that you said you might have something to tell her for her advantage. Will you come again, sir, or will you trust us to tell her for you, when she is better?"
"It is nothing I can impart to any one at present. Say nothing about it to her. I can wait, and she must wait."
The stranger then took leave of the constable's wife, and of the constable himself, whom he found outside the door, and returned to his quarters at the log-tavern.
Here a crowd had been gathered in the last hour, who magnanimously voted themselves "the people" of the territory, and were unanimous in declaring that so vile a wretch as the murderer of Dr. Edwards ought not to be left to the uncertain execution of territorial justice. Doubtless he would find some means of escaping from the sheriff's house, though he was ironed. Irons could be taken off without much trouble in several ways; especially where a man was confined in a room accessible to all who chose to go and see him, as Newcome was. It was trifling with the public safety to run the risk of letting such desperadoes escape. The man had shown a brutal na-
