marks of thumbs and greasy sooty fingers
dimly disfiguring the rich textures? That
to me, is Russian civilisation.

TWO DIFFICULT CASES.
CASE THE SECOND.*

*For the first case see page 385 of the present volume.

MR. FRANCIS BLANDY was an attorney-at-
law, resident at Henley in the county of
Oxfordshire; a gentleman sixty-two years old; a
widower, with but a single child, a daughter,
to whom he was devotedly attached. Mr.
Blandy lived in a good house, and his
household consisted of himself, Mary his
daughter, his clerk, two maid-servants, and a
man-servant. There were also an old nurse,
a charwoman, and an old man-servant, who
had become sexton of the parish, every week
about the house, engaged in sundry acts of
service. Mr. Blandy was a man in fair
health, who had been for years troubled with
heartburn, and such twinges as belong
naturally to one who is found after death with a
stone in his gall-bladder. Mr. Blandy and
his daughter had lived very happily together;
and the father, when the child came to be of
marriageable age, was desirous to procure
for her what he would consider a good match.
To attract wealthy suitors, the attorney gave
out that his daughter would have a fortune
of ten thousand pounds.

Among the persons who were attracted to
Miss Blandy by the prospect of ten thousand
pounds was a captain in the army, who by
chance came to Henley to recruit. This was
the Hon. William Henry Cranstoun, a man
of good address, whose mother was a titled
lady living in a Scotch castle. Mr. Cranstoun,
however, was a person of base character; who,
having children in sundry places and a wife
in one place, nevertheless insinuated himself
into Miss Blandy's affections, and offered her
marriage for the sake of being master of her
money. The father saw great reason for
distrusting Mr. Cranstoun's honesty, and
therefore discouraged his attentions to the
daughter. Mary, however, was enamoured
of the captain, and the old gentleman was
too indulgent to put any strong check upon
her inclinations. Mr. Cranstoun was a guest
at the lawyer's house from August to
November in the year seventeen hundred and
fifty, but the master of the house took no
pains to disguise the fact that his visitor
was there on sufferance; and, upon this topic,
little quarrels frequently arose between father
and daughter.

In the next turn of the story the whole
difficulty lies. Cranstoun said, one morning,
he had seen Mr. Blandy's ghost; which must
portend his death. Miss Blandy also said
she had heard strange music in the house,
which was a sign of death to some one of its
inmates, and she was afraid her father would
not live another year. At the same time a
white powder was for the first time put into
the old man's tea.

Let us say at once, as a guide to the
readers of the case, that Miss Blandy declared
throughout, and with an awful solemnity
affirmed with her last breath that she at no
time suspected the white powder (of which we
shall presently find her making habitual use)
to be a poison; but that it was given her by
Cranstoun as a charm able to make her
father favourable to his suit. Cranstoun, she
said, while he was staying at their house, put
a white powder into her father's cup of tea,
which had been poured out before he came
to breakfast. She averted her face while
he did so; but observed that no ill effects
followed, and therefore accepted the assurance
of her lover and trusted in his honour, when
he said that the charm would do no hurt.
He left this assurance with her when he went
away for a time, to the North. A hundred
years ago credulity was common enough, and
in all times girls have been credulous of the
assertions of their lovers.

The facts proved in evidence make it,
however, very difficult (though not impossible)
to accept this solution of the case.
Soon after Mr. Cranstoun's departure, Miss
Blandy began to receive from the captain in
Scotland letters and presents. Among the
presents were occasional boxes of Scotch
pebbles; and, with the pebbles, a small paper
containing what was, according to its label,
powder to clean the pebbles. This powder
was habitually mixed by Miss Blandy with
her father's tea. The invalid complained of
his stomach, and was sick. He lost health
so much, that a neighbour said to his
wife, "I fear my old friend Blandy is breaking
up." Still there was an occasional exchange
of hard words between father and child,
on the subject of the captain; varying a
course of life that was on the whole affectionate.
A servant who was proved to bear
her no good-will, and who deposed that she
had in coarse language, during a talk about
young girls kept out of their portions, asked
who would not kill a father for ten thousand
pounds?—this servant admitted that she was
attentive and careful on her father's behalf,
throughout his illness, and did for him what
she might have done for herself or any other
person.

Mr. Blandy was often sick after his breakfast.
A servant, who once finished tea left
by him at breakfast-time, was taken ill,
but not immediately after it: she attributed
her illness to beans eaten heartily at dinner-
time. After a time Miss Blandy wrote a
letter to the captain which obtained this
answer: "I am sorry there are such occasions
to clean your pebbles; you must make
use of the powder to them, by putting it in
anything of substance, wherein it will not
swim atop of the water, of which I wrote to
you in one of my last. I am afraid it will be
too weak to take off their rust, or at least it
will take too long a time." In the same
letter he talked of the beauties of Scotland,