“Oh, speaking broadly, I suppose so. But in this particular instance, no. That woman is no more crazy than you are.”
“Now,” said the prosecutor, “now, as to my lady’s alleged good character?”
A score of witnesses proceeded to demolish it. Miss Emily Millard had acted as music teacher to the prisoner when she was a little girl. Miss Millard related a dozen anecdotes illustrative of the prisoner’s ungovernable temper. Misses Sophie Dedold, Florentine Worch, and Esther Steinbaum had gone to school with the prisoner. If their accounts were to be believed, she was a “flirt,” and a “doubleface.” At length, Mrs. George Washington Shapiro took the stand.
“Mrs. Shapiro, were you acquainted with Mr. Bernard Peixada, the decedent?”
“Well acquainted with him—an old friend of his family.”
“And with his wife, the prisoner?
“I made her acquaintance shortly before Mr. Peixada married her. After that I saw her as often as once a week.”
“Will you please give us your estimate of her character?”
“Bad, very bad. She is false, she is treacherous, but above all, she is spiteful and ill-humored.”
“For example?”