was makin' faces as if he'd got a herrin' bone in
his teeth, sez I, 'I'm nort but an ostler in a little country inn,
and it's not to be supposed I've much savin's. Nor is Matabel any
relation, only she wos maid in the inn whilst I wos ostlin', so I
feels a sort o' a likin' for the girl, and I don't mind standin'
five and twenty pound to get her off. More I can't give.' That,
Matabel, was gammon. The master wouldn't stick at five and twenty,
but he told me to try on this little game. He's deep is the master,
for, all the innercence he puts on. I said to the ostler I'd give
him half-a-crown for the gal as washes, as she introduced me to the
lawyer. That there turnkey, as he calls himself, he sez he must get
the counsel, and I sez, that, of course, and it comes out of the
five and twenty. Then he made more faces, but I stuck to it, and I
believe he'll do it. He axed me about particulars, and I sed he wos
to consult you. The master sed that durin' the trial I wos to be
nigh the lawyer, and if he seemed to flag at all I wos to say,
'Another five pound, old ginger, if you gets her off.' So I think
we shall manage it, and Polly be never the wiser."

The Assizes began. Mehetabel, in her prison, could hear the church
bells ring merry peals to welcome the judge. She was in sore anxiety
about the child, that had failed greatly of late. The trouble in
which its mother had been involved had told on its never strong
constitution. Even had she been occupied with her own defence and
ultimate fate, the condition of the babe imperiously demanded that
the main solicitude of its mother should be devoted to it, to still
its cries, to relieve its pains, to lull it to necessary sleep.

When Mahetabel knew that she was in a few minutes to be summoned to
answer in court for her life, she hung over the little sufferer,
clasped it and its crib in her arms, and laid her cheek beside its
fevered face on the pillow. She could rest in no other position. If
she left the child, it was to pace the cell--if she turned her
thoughts to her defence, she was called back by a peevish cry to
consider the infant.

When finally summoned to the court she committed the babe to the
friendly and worthy jaileress, who undertook to care for it to the
best of her abilities. The appearance of Mehetabel in the court
produced at once a favorable impression. Her beauty, her youth, the
sweetness and pathos of expression in her intelligent face, and the
modesty with whi