The hurts of Perkins did not, unhappily, delay the progress of my

uncle to that destruction to which his silly wife and knavish lawyer

had destined him. His business was brought before the court by the

claimants, Messrs. Banks & Tressell; and a brief period only was

left him for putting in his answer. When I thought of Julia, I

resolved, in spite of all previous difficulties--the sneers of the

father, and the more direct, coarse insults of the mother--to make

one more effort to rescue him from the fate which threatened him.

I felt sure that, for the reasons already given, the merchants

would still be willing to effect a compromise which would secure

them the principal of their claim, without incurring the delay and

risk of litigation. Accordingly, I penned a note to Mr. Clifford,

requesting permission to wait upon him at home, at a stated hour.

To this I received a cold, brief answer, covering the permission

which I sought. I went, but might as well have spared myself the

labor and annoyance of this visit. Mrs. Clifford was still in the

ascendant--still deaf to reason, and utterly blind to the base

position into which her meddlesome interference in the business

threw her husband. She had her answer ready; and did not merely

content herself with rejecting my overtures, but proceeded to speak

in the language of one who really regarded me as busily seeking,

by covert ways, to effect the ruin of her family. Her looks and

language equally expressed the indignation of a mind perfectly

convinced of the fraudulent and evil purposes of the person she

addressed. Those of my uncle were scarcely less offensive. A grin

of malicious self-gratulation mantled his lips as he thanked me

for my counsel, which, he yet remarked, "however wise and good,

and well-intended, he did not think it advisable to adopt. He had

every confidence in the judgment of Mr. Perkins, who, though without

the great legal knowledge of some of his youthful neighbors, had

enough for his purposes; and had persuaded him to see the matter

in a very different point of view from that in which I was pleased

to regard it."

There was no doing anything with or for these people. The fiat for

their overthrow had evidently been issued. The fatuity which leads

to self-destruction was fixed upon them; and, with a feeling rather

of commiseration than anger, I prepared to leave the house. In this

interview, I made a discovery, which tended still more to lessen

the hostility I might otherwise have felt toward my uncle. I

was constrained to perceive that he labored under an intellectual

feebleness and incertitude which disconcerted his expression, left

his thoughts seemingly without purpose, and altogether convinced

me that, if not positively imbecile in mind and memory, there were

yet some ugly symptoms of incapacity growing upon him which might

one day result in the loss of both. I had always known him to be a

weak-minded man, disposed to vanity and caprice, but the weakness

had expanded very much in a brief period, and now presented itself to

my view in sundry very salient aspects. It was easy now to divert

his attention from the business which he had in hand--a single casual

remark of courtesy or observation would have this effect--and then

his mind wandered from the subject with all the levity and caprice

of a thoughtless damsel. He seemed to entertain now no sort of

apprehension of his legal difficulties, and spoke of them as topics

already adjusted. Nay, for that matter, he seemed to have no serious

sense of any subject, whatever might be its personal or general

interest; but, passing from point to point, exhibited that

instability of mental vision which may not inaptly be compared to

that wandering glance which is usually supposed to distinguish and

denote, in the physical eye, the presence of insanity. It was not

often now that he indulged, while speaking to me, in that manner of

hostility--those sneers and sarcastic remarks--which had been his

common habit. This was another proof of the change which his mental

man had undergone. It was not that he was more prudent or more

tolerant than before. He was quite as little disposed to be generous

toward me. But he now appeared wholly incapable of that degree

of intellectual concentration which could enable him to examine

a subject to its close. He would begin to talk with me seriously

enough, and with a due solemnity, about the suit against him;

but, in a tangent, he would dart off to the consideration of some

trifle, some household matter, or petty affair, of which, at any

other time, he must have known that his hearers had no wish to hear.

Poor Julia confirmed the conjectures which I entertained, but did

not utter, by telling me that her father had changed very much in

his ways ever since this business had been begun.




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