"I live! I live! and shall see him again!"
A voice called forth her name, commanding her to stand up and hear the sentence of the court.
She arose, supporting herself by the railing, for the last few moments had left her very weak. Her eyes were full of tears. She saw the judge through a mist, and his words sounded from a great distance.
"Condemned to sit upon a gallows, erected on the public common of New Haven, for one hour, with a halter around your neck; and, after that, to be confined in the State's Prison, at Simsbury Mines, during eight years."
She heard words of kindly encouragement and entreaty to use the mercy extended by the court as a means of repentance. Her great sin, unnatural cruelty. Time for reformation—fragments like these floated by her, but they left no impression. She only comprehended one thing—they had given her life! life! life! life!
She sunk on her knees as the judge ceased, buried her face on the criminal's seat—and thanked God that he had permitted her to live. The old widow had sat through it all quiet—as great suffering most frequently is—pale as death, but with a certain stern fortitude which a Spartan mother might have felt without shame. When the jury came in she arose with slow unconsciousness, and stood upright in the presence of the court, her gray eyes heavy with anguish, her white lips parted in an agony of suspense. Guilty, but not unto death. She lifted her clasped hands feebly upward, and fell back, sobbing like a little child.
CHAPTER LV.
THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT.
No more brilliant house than that of Mrs. Nelson could be found in the city of New York. This woman had flashed upon society like a meteor. Her dress—her style so original that they were taken to be foreign. Her quick wit and sumptuous beauty won hosts of admirers. Her carriage was the most splendid and nobly appointed of any that appeared in the fashionable thoroughfares. Every thing rich and unique that a prodigal taste could imagine or money obtain, was to be found in her home. All the costly adornments which her husband had prepared for her, with so much solicitude, were crowded into side rooms and entrance halls, while she filled the principal apartments after a fancy entirely her own. The great joy of her life was in spending money, and in parading the result before the world. To defy emulation and excite envy was her crowning desire. Yet, with all this prodigality, she was never generous, never felt the sweet impulses of charity, or knew the gentle bliss of self-sacrifice.
It sometimes, nay, often happens, that those who rise from poverty to sudden wealth, are more hard-hearted than persons born to affluence. This may arise from a reluctance to review painful or humiliating associations; or it may be that, with some characters, poverty has a hardening process, and, when lifted above it, they feel a sort of pleasure in seeing others suffer as they have done. This is a bad phase of human nature—but who can say that it seldom presents itself in society.