of pent-up feeling, "I told you that Lester was
a murderer condemned for life, Jenny, but there were extenuating
circumstances in connection with his crime. That is not his name we
call him by: I do not even know his real one, but I am convinced that
he belongs to educated and reputable people, and that he suffers the
keenest remorse for the wild life that led him so terribly astray. He
became desperately attached to a Spanish girl, who was married as a
child to a brutal fellow who deserted her, and she thought him dead.
She and Lester were to be married, I believe, when the missing husband
reappeared and tormented them both. The girl he treated shockingly,
and it was in a fit of rage at his abuse of her that Lester killed
him; but appearances were all against the deed, and he was convicted
of murder in the second degree and sentenced for life. Edward is kind
and discriminating, and he pitied him. Lester told his story freely,
and my husband gained his lasting gratitude by taking care of the
wretched girl and paying her passage in a vessel bound for her native
town in Mexico. The only favor we could show him here was to separate
him from the wretches in the common prison by making him a 'trusty'
or prison-servant. He understood our motive in doing so, and was very
thankful and most reliable. What we owe him to-day you know: he makes
light of it, protesting that he only picked up Nell from the gulch
where the escaped convicts had dropped her on their way to the hills;
but he cannot lessen the debt: it is too great to be calculated even."

The subsequent report proved that twenty-eight prisoners had conspired
to effect the break, and by secreting the tools they wrought with in
their sleeves passed in on Saturday from the wall-building to cut an
entrance through the ceiling of their own corridor into the loft above
Mr. Foster's room, through which they dropped while the family were at
dinner, choosing that hour so as to produce a surprise and secure the
child, who always went below with Lester to help carry up the coffee.
Of the whole number, five were killed outright and six wounded: twelve
escaped uninjured, but were nearly all afterward retaken; and five
repented their share in the movement or lacked courage to carry it
out, and so remained in the prison. The most interesting item of the
whole came to me at San Francisco in my friend's letter. It said: "We
are looking forward with great delight to your visit, and plannin