ce of Elsie Venner, looking motionless into the reptile's eyes,
which had shrunk and faded under the stronger enchantment of her own.

CHAPTER XIV.

FAMILY SECRETS.

It was commonly understood in the town of Rockland that Dudley Venner
had had a great deal of trouble with that daughter of his, so
handsome, yet so peculiar, about whom there were so many strange
stories. There was no end to the tales that were told of her
extraordinary doings. Yet her name was never coupled with that of any
youth or man, until this cousin had provoked remark by his visit; and
even then it was rather in the shape of wondering conjectures whether
he would dare to make love to her, than in any pretended knowledge of
their relations to each other, that the public tongue exercised its
village-prerogative of tattle.

The more common version of the trouble at the mansion-house was
this:--Elsie was not exactly in her right mind. Her temper was
singular, her tastes were anomalous, her habits were lawless, her
antipathies were many and intense, and she was liable to explosions
of ungovernable anger. Some said that was not the worst of it. At
nearly fifteen years old, when she was growing fast, and in an
irritable state of mind and body, she had had a governess placed over
her for whom she had conceived an aversion. It was whispered among a
few who knew more of the family secrets than others, that, worried
and exasperated by the presence and jealous oversight of this person,
Elsie had attempted to get finally rid of her by unlawful means, such
as young girls have been known to employ in their straits, and to
which the sex at all ages has a certain instinctive tendency, in
preference to more palpable instruments for the righting of its
wrongs. At any rate, this governess had been taken suddenly ill, and
the Doctor had been sent for at midnight. Old Sophy had taken her
master into a room apart, and said a few words to him which turned
him as white as a sheet. As soon as he recovered himself, he sent
Sophy out, called in the old Doctor, and gave him some few hints, on
which he acted at once, and had the satisfaction of seeing his
patient out of danger before he left in the morning. It is proper to
say, that, during the following days, the most thorough search was
made in every nook and cranny of those parts of the house which Elsie
chiefly haunted, but nothing was found which might be accused of
having been the intentional cause of the probably ac