aths of honor and virtue. There
were present also the gray-haired father and mother of Eugene Pearson,
broken and bowed with the grief and shame which had been brought upon
them by the crimes of their beloved son; the aged parents of Dr.
Johnson, who had come to witness, with saddened hearts, the doom of
their darling boy; the young wife of Newton Edwards, who in the moment
of her husband's ruin had, with true womanly devotion, forgotten his
past acts of cruelty and harshness, and now, with aching heart and
tear-stained eyes, was waiting, with fear and trembling, to hear the
dreaded judgment pronounced upon the man whom she had sworn to "love and
cherish" through "good and evil report."

Since his incarceration she had been a constant visitor to his cell, and
by her love and sympathy had sought to uphold the fallen man in the dark
hours of his shame and disgrace. Here also was the aged father of Thomas
Duncan, the only friend whom the young man had in all that vast
assembly. Though his face was stern and immovable, yet the quivering of
the lips and the nervous trembling of the wrinkled hands told too
plainly that he too was suffering beyond expression in the sorrow that
had been wrought by the boy who in his early years had been his pride
and joy.

When the judge had taken his seat, and the door opened to admit the four
youthful prisoners, all eyes were turned upon them. Slowly and with
downcast eyes they entered the chamber of justice, and amid an awe-like
stillness that pervaded the room, took their seats in the prisoners'
dock. In spite of all that had transpired, and with the full conviction
that these youthful offenders richly merited whatever judgment they were
to receive, there was not one in that entire audience, whose heart did
not throb with sympathy for the aged parents and relatives of the
accused, and even for the culprits themselves in this, the dreadful hour
of their humiliation and grief.

The trial was not a protracted one. A jury was speedily empaneled, the
low, stern tones of the judge were heard in timely admonition, and the
prosecution was commenced. Upon the prisoners being asked to plead to
the indictments which had been prepared against them, Mr. Kirkman, a
prominent attorney of Geneva, who had been retained to defend the
unfortunate young men, arose, and in impressive tones entered a plea of
guilty. With the keen perceptions of a true lawyer, he felt that the
proofs were too strong to be over