Hardly had Perpetua ceased speaking, when Orion took up the emerald, which was lying on the table before him, exclaiming excitedly, nay, angrily: "And the stone which is recognized by the man who sold it--an expert in gems--as being that which was taken from the hanging, and unique of its kind, is supposed, by some miracle of nature, to have suddenly appeared in duplicate ?--Malignant spirits still wander through the world, but would hardly dare to play their tricks in this Christian house.

You all know what 'old women's tales' are; and the tale that old woman has told us is one of the most improbable of its class.

'Tell that to Apelles the Jew,' said Horace the Roman; but his fellow-Israelite, Gamaliel'-- and he turned to the jeweller who was sitting with the other witnesses will certainly not believe it; still less I, who see through this tissue of falsehood.

The daughter of the noble Thomas has condescended to weave it with the help of that woman--a skilled weaver, she--to spread it before us in order to mislead us, and so to save her faithful servant from imprisonment, from the mines, or from death.

These are the facts .-- Do I err, woman, or do you still adhere to your statement ?" The nurse, who had hoped to find in Orion her mistress' advocate, had listened to his speech with growing horror.