“Look here, Mr Bayne,” said the lady in a whispering way, as if she were to reveal something wonderously mysterious, “look here, sir,”—
And taking off Martha’s cloak and turning up the kerchief that covered her neck and the top of her shoulders, she said, “Do you see that?”
The writer complied by a pretty narrow inspection of a very pretty neck of (a strawberry being in question) the appropriate colour of cream.
“A very decided mark of a strawberry,” said he; “and, really if it were a proof that Martha has the right to succeed to Gorthley, it might be said to be the most beautiful beauty spot that a young lady could bear. How comes that mark to be there?”
“Why,” replied the lady, “Gorthley threw a strawberry at me when I was in the way, you know, and thus made a mother’s mark, as they call it, just as if he had intended to point out the true heir; and you know the Scotch say that these marks are lucky.”
“But you forget, madam,” replied the man of the law, who did not believe in special providences, except in special cases, when he received payment of his accounts. “You forget that Gorthley was against Martha, so that if he had had any intention in the matter, it must rather have been to make a blot; besides, our judges might probably say that the mark, for aught they knew, was intended to show that Martha was not the heir; in short, unless we can identify the mark as having been seen on the first-born, I fear, though it is very pretty, it will do us no good.”
“But Mrs Macintosh can do that,” replied the lady.
“Ah! you have hit the mark now,” said he; “and I will see Mrs Macintosh, and any other witnesses who can speak to the point.”
And so having, after some more conversation, despatched his two clients, Mr Bayne proceeded that same evening to the residence of Mrs Peggy Macintosh, whom he found very busy spinning, little prepared for a visit from a man of the law, with a powdered wig on his head, and a gold-headed cane in his hand,—an apparition which even the wheel could not resist, for it stopt its birr instantly, as if through fear.
“Mrs Macintosh,” said Mr Bayne, as he took a seat alongside of Peggy, “do you remember having been present at the birth of Mrs Bruce’s twins?”