Hires a lawyer to present the arguments
in favor of the view that she was another man's daughter.
There used to be lawyers in Rome that would do such things.--All right.
There are two sides to everything. _Audi alteram partem_. The legal
gentleman has no opinion,--he only states the evidence.--A doubtful
case. Let the young lady be under the protection of the Honorable
Decemvir until it can be looked up thoroughly.--Father thinks it best,
on the whole, to give in. Will explain the matter, if the young lady and
her maid will step this way. _That_ is the explanation,--a stab with a
butcher's knife, snatched from a stall, meant for other lambs than this
poor bleeding Virginia!
The old man thought over the story. Then he must have one look at the
original. So he took down the first volume and read it over. When he
came to that part where it tells how the young gentleman she was engaged
to and a friend of his took up the poor girl's bloodless shape and
carried it through the street, and how all the women followed, wailing,
and asking if that was what their daughters were coming to,--if that was
what they were to get for being good girls,--he melted down into his
accustomed tears of pity and grief, and, through them all, of delight at
the charming Latin of the narrative.
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