the evidences of your
crime you hold in your hand, Miss Pettingill?"

"Yes," she answered, as she passed a written sheet to him; "I wrote them
before my eyes failed me. Perhaps you will find it hard to read them.
Which one is that?" she asked.

"It is headed, 'On the Banks of the Tallahassee,'" replied Quincy.

"Oh!" cried Alice, "I didn't write that song myself. A gentleman friend,
who is now dead, was the author of it. But he couldn't write a chorus
and he asked me to do it for him. The idea of the chorus is moonlight on
the river."

"Shall I read it?" asked Quincy.

"Only the chorus part, if you please," replied Alice, "and be as lenient
as you can, good Mr. Judge, for that was my first offence."

Quincy, in a smooth, even voice, read the following words:

The moon's bright rays,
In a silver maze,
Fall on the rushing river;
Each ray of light
Like an arrow white
Drawn from a crystal quiver.
They romp and play,
In a wond'rous way,
On tree and shrub and flower;
And fill the night
With a radiant light,
That falls like a silver shower.

"You do not say anything," said Alice, as Quincy finished reading and
remained silent.

He replied, "You have conferred judicial functions upon me and a judge
does not give his opinion until the evidence is all in."

"Ah! I see," said Alice. "My knowledge of metrical composition," she
continued, "is very limited. What I know of it I learned from an old
copy of Fowler's Grammar that I bought at Burnham's on School Street
soon after I went to Boston. I have always called what you just read a
poem. Is it one?" she asked, looking up with a smile.

"I think it is," replied Quincy, "and," he added inadvertently, "a very
pretty one, too."

"Oh! Mr. Judge," laughing outright "you have given aid and comfort to
the prisoner before the evidence was all in."

And Quincy was forced to laugh heartily at the acuteness she had shown
in forcing his opinion from him prematurely."

"Now, this one," said Alice, "I call a song. I know which one it is by
the size and thickness of the paper." And she handed him a foolscap
sheet.

Quincy took it and glanced over it a moment or two before he spoke,
Alice leaning forward and listening intently for the first sound of his
voice. Then Quincy uttered those ever pleasing words, "Sweet, Sweet
Home," and delivered, with great expression, the words of the song.

"You read it