l and individual purity, to what
shall we attribute the paradox presented in its administration, whereby
its temples become lairs of libel, their moral atmosphere defiled by
the monstrous vivisection of parental character by children, the
slaughter of family reputation, the exhaustive analysis of every
species of sin forbidden by the Decalogue, and floods of vulgar
vituperation dreadful as the Apocalyptic vials? Can this generation

"--in the foremost files of time--"

afford to believe that a grim significance lurks in the desuetude of
typical judicial ermine?

Traditions of ante bellum custom proclaimed that "good society" in the
town of X--, formerly considered the precincts of courts as unfit for
ladies as the fetid air of morgues, or the surgical instruments on
dissecting tables; but the vanguard of cosmopolitan freedom and
progress had pitched tents in the old-fashioned place, and recruited
rapidly from the ranks of the invaded; hence it came to pass, that on
the second day of the murder trial, when the preliminaries of jury
empanelling had been completed, and all were ready to launch the case,
X--announced its social emancipation from ancient canons of decorum, by
the unwonted spectacle of benches crowded with "ladies", whose silken
garments were crushed against the coarser fabrics of proletariat.
Despite the piercing cold of a morning late in February, the mass of
human furnaces had raised the temperature to a degree that encouraged
the fluttering of fans, and necessitated the order that no additional
spectators should be admitted.

Viewed through the leaden haze of fearful anticipation, the horror of
the impending trial had seemed unendurable to the proud and sensitive
girl, whom the Sheriff placed on a seat fronting the sea of curious
faces, the battery of scrutinizing eyes turned on her from the
jury-box. Four months of dread had unnerved her, yet now when the cruel
actuality seized her in its iron grasp, that superb strength which the
inevitable lends to conscious innocence, so steeled and fortified her,
that she felt lifted to some lonely height, where numbness eased her
aching wounds.

Pallid and motionless, she sat like a statue, save for the slow strokes
of her right hand upon the red gold of her mother's ring; and the sound
of a man's voice reading a formula, seemed to echo from an immeasurable
distance. She had consented to, had deliberately accepted the worst
possible fate, and realized the