reluctant fingers the corners of the apron which contained the proofs of her crime. Jane Plummer passed that night in the police-station, and the next morning was brought face to face with Justice. The policeman, with modest triumph, gave his evidence. "Taken red-handed," observed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell to the dummy by his side, who nodded with the wisdom of an owl, and asked the prisoner what she had to say for herself. Tremblingly and with sobs, Jane Plummer said, "If you please, your worship, it was bitter cold, and I had no fire at home, and no money to buy coal; and as I was passing by Mr. Icicle's wood, I gathered a few sticks to boil my kettle. There is a path through the wood, and I picked up the sticks by the side of the path. I didn't think there was any harm in it; the sticks ain't worth a ha'penny!" "Had prisoner any money upon her, policeman?" "A penny and a farthing, your worship." Thereupon the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell remarked that the rights of property must be respected; and the sapient Justice of the Peace, having property, read Jane Plummer a lecture upon her offence, and, looking at some writing on a paper handed to him by his reverend counsellor, passed sentence--two shillings and sixpence fine, and three shillings and sixpence costs, or seven days' imprisonment. "And I hope," added the law's administrator, with more owl's wisdom, "that this will be a caution to you never to touch sticks in gentlemen's woods again." Jane Plummer sobbed that she would never, never, never do so again and went to prison to brood upon her sin. These are but two cases out of many which the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell was instrumental in deciding. No doubt that, being actuated by a love for justice presumably more merciful (in these enlightened times) than the old Mosaic law of eye for eye and tooth for tooth, he often had to wrestle with his tender feelings; but he overcame them, as Jacob did the angel. And this mention of Jacob suggests the vision of his ladder. Say that the steps of the ladder by which the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell was to ascend to heaven were to be formed by good and just actions, surely such sentences as those he was instrumental in passing upon the baker's boy and hapless Jane Plummer would not be forgotten. If this thought ever occurred to him, it must have afforded him much consolation. CHAPTER IX. THE REVEREND EMANUEL CREAMWELL AND HIS SON TAKE DIFFERENT VIEWS OF THINGS.