"'Mr. Errington?' asked the coroner casually.

"And the question comes to this," observed the coroner, "what was this man doing at that place, and who was he likely to meet there?

May I ask, sir, if the person who is missing had anything peculiar about that finger?" "Nothing is stated to that effect in the written description," replied the coroner.

'I was,' said he, 'passing along the road near the burying-ground of the plantation, about nine o'clock at night, when I saw several lights gleaming through the woods; and as I approached, in order to see what was doing, I beheld the coroner of Natchez, with a number of men, standing around the body of a young female, which by the torches seemed almost perfectly white.

"You heard him tell the coroner how he fired and missed, didn't you?" "Oh, I heard, I heard," Racey answered.

He brought the coroners.

My wife had an independent fortune of her ownshe had no extravagant tastes' "'Nor any friend you at any time objected to?' insisted the coroner.

"Up?" queried the coroner, with an obvious shrinking from what he might encounter above.

" "Perhaps I can get a little more out of you, Mr. Ridley," remarked the coroner with a smile.

"I should think you would remember that I was a policeman," said the witness, looking the coroner straight in the eye.

He then notified a coroner, who came about ten o'clock and took charge of the body.

He did not say "Your Honor," and thereby offended the coroner.

Robert de Genneville's death?' still persisted the coroner.

"Very well," rejoined the coroner, and he proceeded to call the witnesses, of whom the first was the labourer who had discovered the bones in the watercress-bed.

"'But who is Mr. Errington?' repeated the coroner once more.

I'll give warning at Red Chief's Crossing, and send the coroner down here.

All counted the minutes and all showed reliefthe coroner by a loud sighwhen the door finally opened and an officer appeared, followed by the lounging form of Adelaide's brother.

The happy playwright, one may say, is he whose theme does not force upon him either a sanguinary or a tame last act, but enables him, without troubling the coroner, to sustain and increase the tension up to the very close.

The doctor grunted: "Instead of abolishing coroners we ought to double their salaries.

"Want the coroner?"

There remained still to be examined the surgeon who had accompanied the coroner, for the purpose of reporting upon the extent and nature of the injuries discoverable upon the person of the deceased.

In fact,' added the coroner, as if thankful that he had got over an unpleasant moment, 'can you give me the slightest indication which would tend to confirm the suspicion that the unfortunate lady, in a moment of mental anxiety or derangement, may have wished to take her own life?' "There was silence in the court for a few moments.

" "What statement?" demanded the coroner.

We're expecting the coroner almost any time.

"Nothing could shake James Terry's account of the facts he had placed before the jury, and when the police informed the coroner that they proposed to place George Higgins himself in the witness-box, as his evidence would prove, as it were, a complement and corollary of that of Terry, the jury very eagerly assented.