of the same being laid across it; that having satisfied himself of these
facts, the commissioner caused the coffin to be again closed and the
grave covered with all decency and care. And he accordingly made this
report to their lordships."

The fact thus ascertained, in opposition to the expectation of those who
favoured the orphan, was viewed by the court as depriving, to a great
extent, the case of that aspect of a riddle by which it had been so
unfortunately distinguished; and as the case had been hung up even
beyond the time generally occupied by cases at that period, when, as it
was sometimes remarked, law-suits were as often settled by the old rule,
_Romanus sedendo vincit_--by the death of one or other of the
parties--as by a judgment, the case was again put to the Roll for a
hearing on the effect of the new evidence. It was contended for the
nephew by Mr. Wight, that the question was now virtually settled,
insomuch that the court was not bound to solve riddles, but to find to
whom pertained a certain right of inheritance. The birth of the child
had been sworn to by the nurse, as well as its death, and the final
placing of it in the coffin; and now the court had, as it were, ocular
demonstration of these facts by the body having been seen by their own
commissioner, placed on the breast of the mother in that very peculiar
way described by Mrs. Temple. All claim on the part of the girl was thus
virtually excluded, for the proceedings which took place that evening in
another room, under circumstances of suspicion, were sworn to only by
Mrs. Hislop herself, an interested witness, and were only partially
confirmed by an eavesdropper, who, as eavesdroppers generally do (except
when their own characters are concerned), perhaps heard according as
foregone prejudices induced her to wish. These suspicious proceedings
might be explained by as many hypotheses as had been devised by the wise
judges of the taverns, among which was the theory of the living child