The court was crowded early the following morning, for it was not often that cases of such interest as the principal one to be brought forward on this occasion were provided by the inhabitants of ——, a town of the principality, in which it is well known, crime, comparatively speaking, is more rare than in other portions of the United Kingdom.
The prisoner had also been long known in the vicinity for her blameless career, and the patient industry with which, under disadvantages and discouragements (for she had been at an early age separated from both her parents, and thrown upon her own resources), she had pursued her laborious course for ten long years, her heart set on an ever receding hope, which she had in the end been doomed to see engulphed by the dark cloud which now overshadowed her fame.
The court, therefore, was crowded as we said before, when a few minor cases having been disposed of, the prisoner for the forgery case was summoned to the bar.
There was nothing in the appearance of the accused which could at first sight strike the vulgar gaze. Neither youth nor beauty to excite the feeling in her behalf; for though to adopt the loving language of the poet:
"Fair she was, and young, when in hope
She began the long journey;
Faded she was, and old, when in disappointment it ended;"
the age of care and trouble, rather than of years, for she was not more than one or two and thirty. Streaks of grey had already spread over her forehead, "and the furrows on her cheek spoke the course of bitter tears." Yet few there were amongst the intelligent and feeling part of her beholders who did not soon begin to have their interest strongly rivetted. And one amongst them, who felt her soul moved to its very depths by pity and womanly compassion the instant her eyes fell upon the pale meek face which bore such deep traces of sorrow—and patience as great as her sorrow.
And yet it was a passive sorrow it expressed, a subdued and passive suffering, which the careless might have attributed to dulness or insensibility, so little did the prisoner appear moved to wonder or self pity, by the sharp sense of unmerited misfortunes.
No—rather as one whose mind is all made up of submission and resignation; who, accustomed to the constant anguish of disappointment, considered as no strange thing this last great grief which had befallen her.
And yet, the indictment being read, the prisoner in a low quiet tone pleaded "Not guilty."