rave No. 2 which the Lensmand had found--the
grave in which Axel had buried the body after its removal from the
first.

"True, that is true. I stand corrected," said the advocate, with
all proper respect for the president of the court. Perfectly true.
But--Axel had himself stated that he had only carried the body from
one grave and laid it in the other. And there could be no doubt but
that a woman was better able to wrap up a child than was a man--and
who best of all? Surely a mother's tender hand?

The presiding justice nods.

In any case--could not this girl--if she had been of another
sort--have buried the child naked? One might even go so far as to say
that she might have thrown it into a dustbin. She might have left it
out under a tree in the open, to freeze to death--that is to say, of
course, if it had not been dead already. She might have put it in the
oven when left alone, and burnt it up. She might have taken it up to
the river at Sellanraa and thrown it in there. But this mother did
none of these things; she wrapped the dead child neatly in a cloth
and buried it. And if the body had been found wrapped neatly when the
grave was opened, it must be a woman and not a man who had so wrapped
it.

And now, the advocate for the defence went on, it lay with the court
to determine what measure of guilt could properly be attributed to the
girl Barbro in the matter. There was but little remaining for which
she could be blamed at all--indeed, in his, counsel's, opinion, there
was nothing. Unless the court found reason to convict on the charge
of having failed to notify the death. But here, again--the child was
dead, and nothing could alter that; the place was far out in the
wilds, many miles from either priest or Lensmand; natural enough,
surely, to let it sleep the eternal sleep in a neat grave in the
woods. And if it were a crime to have buried it thus, then the accused
was not more guilty than the father of the child--as it was, the
misdemeanour was surely slight enough to be overlooked. Modern
practice was growing more and more disposed to lay more stress
on reforming the criminal than on punishing the crime. It was an
antiquated system which sought to inflict punishment for every mortal
thing--it was the _lex talionis_ of the Old Testament, an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth. There was no longer the spirit of the law
in modern times. The law of the present day was more humane, seeking
to adjust itself ac