woman was
Carry Brattle. Her son and that young man had certainly been at her
house together; but she could not at all say whether they had been
there on that Sunday morning. Perhaps, of all who had been examined
Mrs. Burrows was the most capable witness, for the lawyer who
examined her on behalf of the Crown was able to extract absolutely
nothing from her. When she turned herself round with an air of
satisfaction, to face the questions of the burly barrister, she was
told that he had no question to ask her. "It's all as one to me,
sir," said Mrs. Burrows, as she smoothed her apron and went down.

And then it was poor Carry's turn. When the name of Caroline Brattle
was called she turned her eyes beseechingly to her father, as though
hoping that he would accompany her in this the dreaded moment of her
punishment. She caught him convulsively by the sleeve of the coat, as
she was partly dragged and partly shoved on towards the little box
in which she was to take her stand. He accompanied her to the foot
of the two or three steps which she was called on to ascend, but of
course he could go no further with her.

"I'll bide nigh thee, Carry," he said; and it was the only word which
he had spoken to comfort her that day. It did, however, serve to
lessen her present misery, and added something to her poor stock of
courage. "Your name is Caroline Brattle?" "And you were living on the
thirty-first of last August with Mrs. Burrows at Pycroft Common?" "Do
you remember Sunday the thirty-first of August?" These, and two or
three other questions like them were asked by a young barrister in
the mildest tone he could assume. "Speak out, Miss Brattle," he said,
"and then there will be nothing to trouble you." "Yes, sir," she
said, in answer to each of the questions, still almost in a whisper.

Nothing to trouble her, and all the eyes of that cruel world around
fixed upon her! Nothing to trouble her, and every ear on the alert
to hear her,--young and pretty as she was,--confess her own shame
in that public court! Nothing to trouble her, when she would so
willingly have died to escape the agony that was coming on her! For
she knew that it would come. Though she had never been in a court of
law before, and had had no one tell her what would happen, she knew
that the question would be asked. She was sure that she would be made
to say what she had been before all that crowd of men.

The evidence which she could give, though it was materi