had seen portions of _debris_,--leaves, covers,
brazen bosses, and other _membra disjecta_; in one of these I might very
probably find the missing pages.

I fumbled through half a dozen; did not find what I sought, but did
find the aforesaid MS. I was interested at once by the close but clear
penmanship, and by the date, February 29, 1651/2; for this day, by
its numeral, would be in leap-year, according to old style, but not
according to new. How did they settle it? I asked; and what was to
determine for lovelorn maidens, whether they might or might not use the
privilege of the year?

I returned to my desk, and sat down to read; and, as I remember, the
heavy bell of the First Church, close by, just then struck eleven, and I
listened with pleasure to the long, mellow cadence of the reverberations
after each deliberate and solid stroke.

Beginning at the beginning, I read until past midnight. The contents,
after all, were not remarkable. It was a collection of copies of papers
relating to various matters of accounts and law, all pertaining to a
certain Beardsley family, of high and ancient fame in the Colony, and
afterwards in the State. Somewhat beyond the middle, however, I lighted
upon a document which attracted my more particular attention. It was a
transcript from the State Records, and, as the date showed, from a very
early volume of them, now missing from the office of the Secretary of
State. It immediately occurred to me that this volume was strongly
suspected to have been purloined by one Isaac Beardsley, an unscrupulous
man, of some influence, who used, for amusement, to potter about in
various antiquarian enterprises of no moment, but who had now been dead
for some fifteen years. I then also recollected that he had an only
child, a graceless gallows-bird of a son, who broke his father's heart,
then wasted his substance in riotous living, and, after being long a
disgrace and nuisance at home, had sunk out of sight amid the lowest
strata of vice and crime in New York.

The document was a complaint to the "Generall Court" against "Goodman
Joab Brice"--the complainant being designated by the honorable prefix of
"Mr."--"for y't hee, the s'd Goodman Brice, had sayd in y'e hearing of"
various persons mentioned, "and to the verry face of y'e s'd Mr. Isaac
Beardslie, y't y'e s'd Mr. Beardslie did grind y'e faces of the poor,
and had served him, the s'd Brice, worse than anie Turk w'd serve his
slaves; and this with