Fashion and Famine

by Ann S. Stephens

"She is dead; I tell you it has killed her, poor thing! Poor darling, she is dead!" he repeated, and tears rolled heavily down his face. "Will no one see if she is quite, quite gone?"

As if in answer to this pathetic cry for aid, a young man forced his way up from a corner of the room, where he had stood all day regarding every stage of the trial with the keenest interest, and taking Julia in his arms, carried her to an open window.

"Give me water," he said to the officer; "there is some before the judge;" then turning toward Mrs. Gray, who, occupied by the prisoner, had been quite insensible to Julia's situation, he said, abruptly, "Have you no hartshorn?—nothing about you, aunt, that will be of use?"

"Dear me, yes," answered the good lady, producing a vial of camphor from the depths of her pocket, "I thought something of the kind might happen; here is the water too; there, her eyelids begin to move."

"She is better—she will soon be well," said Robert Otis, turning his face toward the prisoner, who stood up in the midst of the court, looking after his grandchild, with eyes that might have touched a heart of stone.

"Thank you, thank you!" said the old man; and without another word, he sat down, covered his face with both hands, and wept like a child.

After a little, Julia was led back to her seat, and Robert Otis withdrew into the crowd again. Another witness was examined and dismissed. Then there came a pause in the proceedings. The witnesses' stand was for a time unoccupied. The district attorney sat restlessly on his chair, casting anxious glances toward the door, as if waiting for some person important to his cause. The judge was just bending forward to desire the proceedings to go on, when a slight bustle near the door caused a movement through the whole crowd. Those persons near the entrance were pressed back against their neighbors by two officers in authority, who thus made a lane up to the witnesses' stand, through which a lady passed, with rapid footsteps, and evidently much excited by the position in which she found herself.

A whisper of surprise, not unmingled with admiration, ran through the crowd, as this lady took her place upon the stand. She hesitated an instant, then, with a graceful motion, swept the veil of heavy lace back upon her bonnet, and turned toward the judges. The face thus exposed had something far more striking in it than beauty. It was a haughty face, full of determination, and with a calmness upon the features that was too rigid not to have been forced. Notwithstanding this, you could see that the woman trembled in every limb, as she bared her features to the crowd.

It was not the bashful tremor which might have brought crimson to the brow of any female, while so many eyes were bent upon her, but a strong nervous excitement, which lifted her above all these considerations. The contrast of a black velvet dress flowing to her feet, and fitted high at the throat, might have added somewhat to the singular effect produced by a face at once so stern and so beautiful. Certain it is, that a thrill of that respect which strong feeling always carries with it, passed through the crowd; and though she was strikingly lovely, people forgot that, in sympathy for the emotions that she suppressed with such fortitude. The rapidity with which she had entered the court, and the position which she took on the stand, prevented a full view of her face to Mrs. Warren and Julia; but as she turned slowly toward them, in throwing back her veil, the effect upon these two persons was startling enough.

The old woman half rose from her chair, her lips moved, as if a smothered cry had died upon them, and she sat down again, grasping a fold of Mrs. Gray's gown in her hands. It was the face she had seen in the carriage that morning.