CHAPTER VI.
ON the third appearance of my mistress and myself before the
justice, I noticed some faces in the room which I had not seen
there before. Greatly to my astonishment--for the previous
examinations had been conducted as privately as possible--I
remarked the presence of two of the servants from the Hall, and
of three or four of the tenants on the Darrock estate, who lived
nearest to the house. They all sat together on one side of the
justice-room. Opposite to them and close at the side of a door,
stood my old acquaintance, Mr. Dark, with his big snuff-box, his
jolly face, and his winking eye. He nodded to me, when I looked
at him, as jauntily as if we were meeting at a party of pleasure.
The quadroon woman, who had been summoned to the examination, had
a chair placed opposite to the witness-box, and in a line with
the seat occupied by my poor mistress, whose looks, as I was
grieved to see, were not altered for the better. The lawyer from
London was with her, and I stood behind her chair.
We were all quietly disposed in the room in this way, when the
justice, Mr. Robert Nicholson, came in with his brother. It might
have been only fancy, but I thought I could see in both their
faces that something remarkable had happened since we had met at
the last examination.
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