careful analysis, are based entirely
upon circumstantial evidence; and is not the solution I offer less
repugnant to the canons of credibility, and infinitely less revolting
to every instinct of honor able manhood, than the horrible hypothesis
that a refined, cultivated, noble Christian woman, a devoted daughter,
irreproachable in antecedent life, bearing the fiery ordeal of the past
four months with a noble heroism that commands the involuntary
admiration of all who have watched her--that such a perfect type of
beautiful womanhood as the prisoner presents, could deliberately plan
and execute the vile scheme of theft and murder? Gentlemen, she is
guilty of but one sin against the peace and order of this community:
the sin of withholding the name of one for whose bloody crime she is
not responsible. Does not her invincible loyalty, her unwavering
devotion to the craven for whom she suffers, in vest her with the halo
of a martyrdom, that appeals most powerfully to the noblest impulses of
your nature, that enlists the warmest, holiest sympathies lying deep in
your manly hearts? Analyze her statement; every utterance bears the
stamp of innocence; and where she cannot explain truthfully, she
declines to make any explanation. Hers is the sin of silence, the
grievous evasion of justice by non-responsion, whereby the danger she
will not avert by confession recoils upon her innocent head. Bravely
she took on her reluctant shoulders the galling burden of parental
command, and stifling her proud repugnance, obediently came--a fair
young stranger to 'Elm Bluff.' Receiving as a loan the money she came
to beg for, she hurries away to fulfil another solemnly imposed
injunction.

"Gentlemen, is there any spot out yonder in God's Acre, where violets,
blue as the eyes that once smiled upon you, now shed their fragrance
above the sacred dust of your dead darlings; and the thought of which
melts your hearts and dims your vision? Look at this mournful, touching
witness, which comes from that holy cemetery to whisper to your souls,
that the hands of the prisoner are as pure as those of your idols,
folded under the sod. Only a little bunch of withered brown flowers,
tied with a faded blue ribbon, that a poor girl bought with her hard
earned pennies, and carried to a sick mother, to brighten a dreary
attic; only a dead nosegay, which that mother requested should be laid
as a penitential tribute on the tomb of the mother whom she had
disobey