Martha placed her hand in Lizzie's, and Lizzie's other hand stole forward, and imprisoned it. An eager light flashed into Martha's eyes as she looked down on the hand that lay uppermost.

"Lizzie! A wedding-ring!"

"We were married six months ago, mother. But Alfred made me promise solemnly to keep it secret until he gave me permission. He wanted to make his fortune first, poor dear! I have broken my promise; but I don't think he would blame me. Mother, will you kiss Alfred now? Will you kiss my husband?"

* * * * * *

It is so short a time since this last scene was acted, that there is but little more to tell. All those persons who have taken part in the story are living now. Alfred went through a very severe illness, but has almost recovered his strength. He is very humble; let us hope that the bitter experience he has undergone will make him a better man. His mind is filled with good resolves as he looks at Lizzie, who sits at his side with a baby at her breast.

Mr. David Sheldrake prospers. Will the law ever give him his proper position in society, and deprive him of the means of lawful wrong doing? Let us hope that it will--and soon.

The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell still reigns at Stapleton. The justices of the peace who are ruled by him, and who speak their sentences out of his mouth, pursue the crooked tenor of their way. Last week, a woman nearly eighty years of age, whose antecedents are good, was charged before them with damaging a fence to the amount of one penny. The owner of the fence, a farmer, would not appear against her, and a policeman was the only witness. The woman is nearly stone-deaf, and could not hear a word of the evidence. She and her aged husband depended upon parish relief for support, and between them would have found it difficult, after their long battle of life, to muster sufficient money to pay for one day's food. The policeman said he charged the woman with the terrible offence, and that she denied it, and said she had merely broken a bit of dead wood with her foot. The woman being deaf, could not examine the witness. The magistrates pronounced the sentence, as dictated by the clergyman. She was found guilty, and was condemned to pay one penny for the damage done to the property of a man who was too merciful to prosecute; was fined fivepence in addition to the penny; and was required to pay the cost of the trial, amounting to thirteen shillings and sixpence. In default of these payments, she was condemned to prison for seven days. The old deaf woman was sent to prison. And the clergyman, on the following Sabbath, preached God's love and mercy to his flock! Will the Government ever recognise that it belongs imperatively to its duty to be careful that only capable[[1]] men--men with hearts as well as heads--shall sit on the magisterial benches to dispense justice? Let us hope this, also.

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[Footnote 1]: In a disreputable gambling action which was tried at the Court of Queen's Bench in February, 1873, the Lord Chief-Justice of England, speaking of "the pernicious and fatal habit of gambling," declared "that the habit was one so demoralising and degrading that it would, like some foul leprosy, eat away the conscience, until a man comes to think that it is your duty to yourself to 'do your neighbour as your neighbour would do you!'" The defendant in this disreputable action was twenty-four years of age, and a magistrate! The case of the poor woman who was charged with committing a penny's worth of damage to a fence was tried before three magistrates, all of them clergymen. Are such men as these fit administrators of justice?

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