the murderers apprehended? Is Mr. Higginbotham's niece come out of her
fainting-fits? Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham!"

The coachman said not a word except to swear awfully at the hostler
for not bringing him a fresh team of horses. The lawyer inside had
generally his wits about him even when asleep; the first thing he did
after learning the cause of the excitement was to produce a large red
pocketbook. Meantime, Dominicus Pike, being an extremely polite young
man, and also suspecting that a female tongue would tell the story as
glibly as a lawyer's, had handed the lady out of the coach. She was a
fine, smart girl, now wide awake and bright as a button, and had such
a sweet, pretty mouth that Dominicus would almost as lief have heard a
love-tale from it as a tale of murder.

"Gentlemen and ladies," said the lawyer to the shopkeepers, the
mill-men and the factory-girls, "I can assure you that some
unaccountable mistake--or, more probably, a wilful falsehood
maliciously contrived to injure Mr. Higginbotham's credit--has excited
this singular uproar. We passed through Kimballton at three o'clock
this morning, and most certainly should have been informed of the
murder had any been perpetrated. But I have proof nearly as strong as
Mr. Higginbotham's own oral testimony in the negative. Here is a note
relating to a suit of his in the Connecticut courts which was
delivered me from that gentleman himself. I find it dated at ten
o'clock last evening."

So saying, the lawyer, exhibited the date and signature of the note,
which irrefragably proved either that this perverse Mr. Higginbotham
was alive when he wrote it, or, as some deemed the more probable case
of two doubtful ones, that he was so absorbed in worldly business as