"I'll send one over," said Sam, eagerly; "we've got lots of 'em in the hot-house."

into the hall, which he did with a reproachful smile, fixed, unhappily, full upon Mr. Cameron, instead of his

"But that's three more days! I shan't know whether I'm standing on my head or my heels by that time. Why not say" but Miss Cameron had burst into full song, and his plea was unheeded.

As soon as she had concluded, she arose and remained standing, and Sam had nothing to do but to bow himself

unaware of the difference.

"WHEN, hereafter, some distinguished American lawyer shall retire from his practice to write the history of his country's jurisprudence, this case will be registered by him as the most remarkable in the records of its courts."

So said the Supreme Court of the United States, speaking in the person of Associate-Justice Wayne, when in 1860, for the sixth time, it decided upon an issue in the famous case of Myra Clark Gaines.

Justice Wayne's language was judicially careful. The subject of his reference justified him in terming it the "most remarkable" in all the records of American courts. When he thus spoke, it had been for twenty-six years threading the tortuous path of the law. Commenced in 1834, it had been in every Court of Louisiana, and six times in the Supreme Court of the United States. It had at times been represented by the ablest counsel in the country, and at other times by no counsel at all. It had enlisted on one side romantic and sympathetic enthusiasm, and on the other had incurred the opposition of most immense and perfectly honest private interests. It had divided the Court in the most irreconcilable and

antagonistic opinions. It had been decided upon the same issues of fact, by the same bench of judges, in the light of substantially the same testimony, in precisely opposite directions.

One woman had been the moving spirit of all this litigation.

Her suit was a most audacious one. She attacked that most sensitive, most carefully-guarded interest, the possession of real property, and threatened in her efforts the overthrow of all that was stable in the ideas of law and custom, in respect to it. Her claim was for houses, lands, and human property, which had passed into the hands of hundreds of different owners. Their title could be traced back for years previous to the commencement of this suit, without a blemish of irregularity. It had come through dozens of hands, all of whom had bought and sold in perfect good faith, and without the shadow of suspicion.

It was the one woman against five hundred men.

It was one resolute claim for Abstract Justice against five hundred apparent Rights, fortified in every tradition of law, and every selfish interest of organized society.

The evidence to support the claim was as remarkable as the demand itself. At the end of twenty-six years of law, when Justice Wayne pronounced his decision, he passed in review upon allegations of fact running back into the last century. He inquired into the most private life of individuals, and analyzed their most intimate relations, in the earliest five years of the present century. Upon the view which the Court took of the occurrence or otherwise of circumstances alleged to have happened in those years, depended the result of this case. And finally, they being determined favorably to the claims of Mrs. Gaines, her fortunes turned upon the established existence of a will, which even she did not pretend ever had an existence after the decease of the testator, and the purport of which had no other proof than the recollections, after the lapse of more than forty years, of aged and infirm persons who remembered hearing it read.

Such were some of the features which the learned justice pronounced "most remarkable."

Let us draw from this tangled skein of real life, the thread of romance, whose remote end, silvered by Time, has its origin seventy years ago in an atmosphere of society and under a system of government so foreign that we can now scarcely realize them.

We must go back to the commencement of the present century, and imagine ourselves in New Orleans, under the Spanish rule. The laws were a curious mixture of weak civil authority and decaying ecclesiastical control. The Spanish possessions, in America, were but an extra pawn upon the chessboard of European politics. New Orleans was a true tropical city; its population amalgamated from a dozen different races; its morals corrupted from as many different sources. Already it was the seat of luxury, for the great Mississippi rolled past its levées, then as now. Rich princes of landed estates, wealthy merchants and extensive traders, as well as proud grandees of an ancien régime, sipped sherbets under the magnolias.

Among the rich men of the city in this stage of its existence, whose ships were on many seas, and whose interests were recorded in the counting-houses of many cities, was Daniel Clark, a shipping-merchant and a politician. He stood at the head of his rank, a prince among a class whose luxurious and elegant life has seldom been surpassed. Born at Sligo, in Ireland, an uncle in New Orleans, a bachelor-as all the merchants of the city were-had invited him to come to the New World, engage with him in business, and become his heir. The estate thus inherited had been boldly and skilfully managed. Fortunate ventures had added to it, and illegitimate as well as strictly proper means had probably gone to swell the grand aggregate.

This merchant-prince was a man of strong character, restless and far-reaching ambition, whose imperious will little brooked opposition, and knew no control except the code which a society composed of such as himself rudely organized and often violently maintained. Justice Wayne, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court, at the term of 1847, described him as "a man of no ordinary character, or influence on those who were about him. His natural fitness to control became habitual, as his wealth and standing increased, and it was exercised, and involuntarily yielded to by all who associated or were in business with him. He was a man of high qualities, but of no rigor of virtue or self-control; energetic, enterprising, courageous, affectionate, and generous, but with a pride which had yielded to no mortification until his affection subdued it to a sense of justice in behalf of his child."

Such a character filled a prominent place in the political and social life of New Orleans. In 1798 he had acted as consul on behalf of the interests of the United States. When, in 1802, he visited Paris, he was treated with marked respect by the French Government, which, having obtained the cession of Louisiana from Spain by the secret treaty of St. Ildefonso, was desirous of

learning its present condition and value. General Victor, on behalf of the First Consul, listened respectfully, in a confidential audience, to the statements of "the merchant from New Orleans," while Minister Livingston, charged by President Jefferson with the delicate duty of negotiating for the purchase66 outside the Constitution "-of Louisiana, at a price not too great for the necessitous economies of the American treasury, was full of alarm and watchfulness at these intimate communications. Active, and doubtless not especially scrupulous, Clark, at home, was a perpetual thorn in the side of worthy but nervous Claiborne, the first American Governor, who denounced him, at one time, as secretly an enemy of the United States, and who was consequently annoyed and mortified, when in the same year he was elected the first delegate from Louisiana to the National Congress.

In the heated atmosphere of a society ruled by passion, this proud chevalier "became acquainted," about 1802, with Madame Zulime De Granges, the wife of Monsieur Jerome, of that name. The latter was a Frenchman by birth, a "nobleman" of France, as was afterward testified of him, but in New Orleans, in the language of Judge Catron, only a humble shopkeeper." His wife, who had married him at the early age of thirteen, was a Creole of rare and voluptuous beauty. They had been wedded, when Clark made their acquaintance, for about eight years.

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The relationship that ensued between the merchant and Madame De Granges can better appear by the facts hereafter recited than by a too positive and circumstantial statement. We can hardly be charitable enough to disguise the truth as it must subsequently appear.

More than thirty years afterward Madame Caillaret, the sister of Madame De Granges, made her deposition in behalf of her niece, the heroine of this story. She affirmed that she knew Clark made to her family propositions of marriage with Zulime, "after it had become known" that her marriage with

De Granges was void, because a previous wife, to whom he had been married in France, was still living.

How and when did so startling a fact become known? What was the intimacy between Clark and Zulime when it was discovered? A multitude of suggestive questions arise, and must be dismissed.

Some time in the early summer of 1802, however, found Madame De Granges and another sister, Madame Despau, in Philadelphia. They had come, says the latter lady, by way of New York. In that city they had been diligently turning over old marriageregisters in the Catholic churches, hoping to find the record of De Granges' previous marriage. Nothing of the kind had rewarded their search, but they were told of a witness to the ceremony, Gardette by name, whom they would find in Philadelphia. Hence their presence in the latter city.

Mr. Gardette was found, and was explicit and satisfactory in his statements. He had been a witness to the alleged marriage. He knew the wife then wedded by De Granges to be still living.

Was more proof necessary? Apparently not. The wife of eight years felt convinced of her husband's perfidy. The bond between them had been a guilty dishonor, not an honorable wedlock. The rumors in New Orleans had their full confirmation. She was free.

At this juncture, who came upon the scene? The merchant-lover from New Orleans. The consequence is readily imagined. A private marriage was proposed, pressed, consented to, and according to Madame Despau, according to the Supreme Court, the ceremony was duly performed by a priest; the good Despau, M. Doisier, of Louisiana, and a friend of Mr. Clark, from New York, being witnesses.

At this point let us consider two facts established—the bigamy of De Granges, and consequent nullity of Zulime's union with him; and the performance of a legal marriage between herself and Daniel Clark. Both these have been

decided to be facts by the Supreme Court. Both were, at different times, vitally important in the decisions upon the claims of Mrs. Gaines.

But the testimony in regard to this Philadelphia visit is not without contradiction.

In the opinion pronounced by the Supreme Court, on the fourth appeal to it in this case-the only one decided explicitly against Mrs. Gaines-Judge Catron dwelt upon the testimony of Daniel W. Coxe. Mr. Coxe was the business partner and personal friend of Daniel Clark. They seem to have been congenial as well as familiar. Judge Catron described them as nearly of the same age, "both proud, intelligent, and ambitious of success, equals in rank, and intimate in their social relations as a common interest and constant intercourse could make them."

In April or August, 1802, said Mr. Coxe in his testimony, thirty-five years afterward, a lady came to him in Philadelphia. She presented, for introduction, a confidential letter from Mr. Clark. The latter in his note charged his friend with the performance of a delicate duty. In brief, the communication stated that the lady, whom Mr. Clark thus confided to his friend's care, was about to become a mother, her child was his,-care for her expected situation in the most tender and luxuri

ous manner.

The

The lady was Madame De Granges. Mr. Coxe discharged the trust confided to him. His testimony concerning it is circumstantially full. babe was sent away to be nursed. Funds for her maintenance came from her father. She was comfortably reared, grew to womanhood, married respectably, and afterward appeared as a party in interest, in one of the many phases of the most remarkable" Gaines case. Judge Catron was the steady opponent, as Judge Wayne was the faithful friend, of Mrs. Gaines and her claims. Upon this testimony of Mr. Coxe, as showing the apparent motive of the visit to Philadelphia, he dwelt with terrible severity in his opinion. He

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declared that the wife fled from her husband's companionship to conceal her dishonor, and not to seek for proofs of his bigamy. He accepted Mr. Coxe's statements that these events occurred in 1802, and that in 1803, when Despau testified the wedding took place, Clark was not in Philadelphia at all.

Still, Mr. Coxe may readily have been right in his narration of circumstances, and wrong in his dates. Or there is nothing, indeed, to show that though Madame Despau did not apparently tell all that occurred during their Northern visit, what she testified to was true as far as it went, and the wedding did take place.

Right or wrong, it is useless now to speculate. Presumption must be upon the side of Virtue. The daughter of Zulime has crowned her life-time struggle with success, and part of that success is the vindication of her mother's fame, as well as the assertion of her own despoiled rights.

More than that, her theory is the theory of the highest courts in the land.

We go back to New Orleans. After the marriage, says Madame Despau, her sister and herself hurried home, on the receipt of intelligence that the French wife of De Granges had made her appearance, and claimed her rights.

Other witnesses afterward testified that they remembered some scandal of this sort.

And then, it is said, De Granges was regularly prosecuted. The evidence of his bigamy was fully established. He was convicted and imprisoned. Zulime had been waiting impatiently for this. No acknowledgment of her marriage had yet been published by Clark, and though they lived in the most intimate relations, she did not occupy his house. But with the judicial proof of De Granges' bigamy, she anticipated her justification before the world, and her accession to her proper rank in society, as the wife of such a husband as Clark.

Foul accident! Just at this moment, when so much of happiness depended, De Granges escaped from his prison.

Treachery inside the walls had assisted him. The Spanish Governor, himself, was charged with connivance. He was hurried down the Mississippi, placed upon a ship lying in the pass, just ready to sail, and fled to France, never to return.

Zulime was not acknowledged. She was never known to the world as the wife of Daniel Clark, during his lifetime.

Afterward, this prosecution and conviction were questioned by the opponents of Mrs. Gaines. They produced in court the record of an ecclesiastical court-proceeding, in which a certain Jerome De Granges was charged with bigamy, but where the evidence failed to show his guilt, and he was discharged. This, they said, is the trial of De Granges. It proves innocence. It proves there could have been no legal marriage between Zulime and Daniel Clark, for she was already the lawful wife of a living man. It proves that the claimant of this property, the child of Daniel Clark and Zulime, was not a lawful child and not an heir to her father's estate.

All admitted that De Granges fled from the country. But Judge Catron intimated that persecution by powerful and wealthy enemies drove him away.

The decisions of the Court, however, are written. They leave it to be inferred that there was another prosecution in the civil courts, and though the record of it was never found, upon the most diligent search in every depository of records in New Orleans, still this was not conclusive against its possible existence, for the official papers of the French and Spanish Governments had been widely scattered and lost, upon the transfer of the Territory to the United States.

The confidential agent of Daniel Clark, in the control of several of his large estates, was M. Boisfontaine, a refugee from St. Domingo, and apparently a gentleman of culture and honor. His relations with Mr. Clark were intimate. In his house, in New Orleans, in July, 1805, MYRA, the daughter of

Zulime and Daniel Clark, the MYRA CLARK GAINES of the great lawsuit, was born. She was placed, immediately after her birth, in the family of Col. S. B. Davis, the brother-in-law of M. Boisfontaine, and spent her childhood in his household.

In these years, it would appear, she never knew her mother. It was long, long after, and under very changed circumstances, when the infant had grown to be a mature woman, before the mother and daughter met in recognition. Her father she did not know as such. Perhaps in the dim memories of her childhood there is still associated the appearance of a tall and handsome man, who smiled upon her, kissed her, and filled her arms with pretty presents. But beyond this fading photograph on these delicate recollections of her earliest years, Myra never knew her father.

His election to Congress, in 1806, took Clark to Washington. He parted from his wife, and sailed for Philadel phia. Letters reached her, bringing news of his arrival. Then communication ceased. Zulime waited patiently, but no word came from him. He may have written; it is said that the business partners of Clark, through whom his correspondence passed, suppressed the letters to his wife, and destroyed those which she gave them to be forwarded to him.

At any rate, the relationship between the two ceased forever. Husband and wife, or lover and mistress; bound in law and purity, or led by license and passion; their association dissolved, and was never renewed. They barely saw each other again, years after; and when they did, Zulime was the wife-truly and formally wedded-of another man!

Her sisters say she was "hurt" by the refusal of Clark to acknowledge her as his wife. She may have felt that her relation to him was a pure and proper one. Licentious New Orleans might lightly regard the marriage-tie, or little care for its absence, but she was truly a wife.*

These were days of loose morality in New