His Other Wife: A Novel — page 355: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. 347 my having acceded to the demands of the woman, Rachel Croft, in the matter of receiving her daughter into my house as my maid. ‘‘ Let it be remembered that I came to this community a stranger, ftom that section most obnoxious to the senti- ments of this. My speech, manners, opinions, and habits all attested too plainly that I was a Northener, even had I desired to conceal the fact, which I candidly declare I did not wish to do. I brought with me no credentials, save my professional ability. Despite a bitter opposition, I won for myself a place of distinction at this bar, and finally had the happiness of marrying a woman unsur- passed for her beauty and social consequence in this or any State in the Union. ‘“«Scarcely were these nuptials consummated, when a mad woman, or a fiend with libelous intent, appears upon the scene, and urges the monstrous charges and claims that have this day been published in this house, having first been circulated for weeks through the press, to the vital prejudice of the prisoner whom they attacked. Had I been one of this people, instead of the alien adventurer upon whom all looked with coldness and disaffection, if not absolute suspicion, because of his birthplace and principles, I might boldly have flung the viper from me, and defied her to do her worst, relying upon my estab- lished position in your midst and my claim upon the unprejudiced sympathy of my judges, “But, alas! gentlemen, ‘a stranger in a strange land’ Eomicbooks: (E(@) m ~ 9)