“They tell me you are a good lawyer?” he whispered.
“I am a lawyer,” I answered.
“Then—oh!—save her! You can certainly do it, for she is innocent.”
“Has she no counsel?” I asked.
“None that’s good for anything—nobody that’ll do anything for her. Oh, save her, and I’ll pay you all I’ve got. I can’t pay you much, but I can raise something.”
I reflected for a moment. I cast my eyes toward the prisoner, and she was at that moment looking at me. She caught my eye, and the volume of humble, prayerful entreaty I read in those large, tearful orbs, resolved me in a moment. I arose and went to the girl, and asked her if she wished me to defend her. She said yes. Then I informed the court that I was ready to enter into the case, and I was admitted at once.
I asked for a moment’s cessation, that I might speak with my client. I went and sat down by her side, and asked her to state candidly the whole case. She told me she had lived with Mrs. Naseby nearly two years, and that during all that time she had never had any trouble before. About two weeks ago, she said, her mistress lost a hundred dollars.
“She missed it from her drawer,” the girl told me, “and she asked me about it, but I knew nothing of it. The next thing I knew, Nancy Luther told Mrs. Naseby that she saw me take the money from her drawer—that she watched me through the keyhole. Then they went to my trunk, and they found twenty-five dollars of the missing money there. But, oh, sir, I never took it—and somebody else put that money there!”
I then asked her if she suspected any one.
“I don’t know,” she said, “who could have done it but Nancy. She has never liked me, because she thought I was treated better than she was. She is the cook, and I was the chamber-maid.”