"If, then, I must be plain,--she is leading the life of an outcast. Yes, sir, the story is that she has fallen, and from necessity. I will say this, though," he adds, by way of relief, "that I know nothing of it myself." The words fall like a death-knell on his thoughts and feelings. He stammers out a few words, but his tongue refuses to give utterance to his thoughts. His whole nature seems changed; his emotions have filled the cup of his sorrow; an abyss, deep, dark, and terrible, has opened to his excited imagination. All the dark scenes of his life, all the struggles he has had to gain his manliness, rise up before him like a gloomy panorama, and pointing him back to that goal of dissipation in which his mind had once found relief. He seeks his stateroom in silence, and there invokes the aid of Him who never refuses to protect the right. And here again we must return to another scene. Morning has come, the guard-roll has been called, and Judge Sleepyhorn is about to hold high court. Maria and the companions of her cell are arraigned, some black, others white, all before so august a judge. His eye rests on a pale and dejected woman inwardly resolved to meet her fate, calm and resolute. It is to her the last struggle of an eventful life, and she is resolved to meet it with womanly fortitude. The Judge takes his seat, looks very grave, and condescends to say there is a big docket to be disposed of this morning. "Crime seems to increase in the city," he says, bowing to Mr. Seargent Stubbs. "If your Honor will look at that," Mr. Stubbs says, smiling,--"most on em's bin up afore. All hard cases, they is." "If yeer Onher plases, might a woman o' my standin' say a woord in her own difince? Sure its only a woord, Judge, an beein a dacent gintleman ye'd not refuse me the likes." "Silence, there!" ejaculates Mr. Seargent Stubbs; "you must keep quiet in court." "Faith its not the likes o' you'd keep me aisy, Mr. Stubbs. Do yee see that now?" returns the woman, menacingly. She is a turbulent daughter of the Emerald Isle, full five feet nine inches, of broad bare feet, with a very black eye, and much in want of raiment. "The most corrigible case what comes to this court," says Mr. Stubbs, bowing knowingly to the judge. "Rather likes a prison, yer Honor. Bin up nine times a month. A dear customer to the state." The Judge, looking grave, and casting his eye learnedly over the pages of a ponderous statute book, inquires of Mr. Seargent Stubbs what the charge is. "Disturbed the hole neighborhood. A fight atween the Donahues, yer Honor." "Dorn't believe a woord of it, yeer Onher. Sure, din't Donahue black the eye o' me, and sphil the whisky too? Bad luck to Donahue, says I. You don't say that to me, says he. I'd say it to the divil, says I. Take that! says Donahue." Here Mrs. Donahue points to her eye, and brings down even the dignity of the court.