“Will your honor hear argument on that!”
“Certainly.”
And argument his honor did hear, or pretend to, for two whole days, from all the counsel in turn, in the course of which the lawyers read contradictory decisions enough to perfectly establish both sides, from volume after volume, whole libraries in fact, until no mortal man could say what the rules were. The question of insanity in all its legal aspects was of course drawn into the discussion, and its application affirmed and denied. The case was felt to turn upon the admission or rejection of this evidence. It was a sort of test trial of strength between the lawyers. At the end the judge decided to admit the testimony, as the judge usually does in such cases, after a sufficient waste of time in what are called arguments.
Mrs. Hawkins was allowed to go on.
CHAPTER LVI.
Mrs. Hawkins slowly and conscientiously, as if every detail of her family history was important, told the story of the steamboat explosion, of the finding and adoption of Laura. Silas, that is Mr. Hawkins, and she always loved Laura, as if she had been their own child.
She then narrated the circumstances of Laura’s supposed marriage, her abandonment and long illness, in a manner that touched all hearts. Laura had been a different woman since then.
Cross-examined. At the time of first finding Laura on the steamboat, did she notice that Laura’s mind was at all deranged? She couldn’t say that she did. After the recovery of Laura from her long illness, did Mrs. Hawkins think there were any signs of insanity about her? Witness confessed that she did not think of it then.
Re-Direct examination. “But she was different after that?”