The scene in that police-court was one of the most painful things ever witnessed. The prisoner had no professional assistance. No expert attorney was there to help or mar her defence. All she did, and all she said, was a repetition of what she had told her mistress and master and their friend the night before. She protested that she was as innocent as an unborn child; that her hands had been trained by parents (whose memory she revered, and who tenderly loved her) to honest industry; and that she had no more perpetrated these thefts than the worthy magistrate. She appealed to her mistress to bear evidence of her general character. (Mr. Green was not in court.) Her mistress gave her a general good character, and expressed the grief of herself and her husband at the discovery in the servant's boxes. The magistrate put a question or two to the mistress, who seemed to betray an idea that one of the other servants, or some friend, had been the thief; or that, at least, the accused had not been, although she did not say as much in distinct terms. The tone and manner of the girl had evidently impressed the magistrate with the belief that she was not in her proper place when in that dock before him as a criminal. He, however, remarked that the case was one of very grave suspicion, and that he should remand her for a week, in order that inquiries might be made, with a view to getting further evidence upon the case. The accused had looked forward to her appearance in court as the ordeal which would establish her innocence. She had never doubted for a moment that a police magistrate would unravel the mystery, and turn the tide of false suspicion from her. When she heard the last words fall from the lips of the presiding justice, and ascertained that she was to be sent back to something like the loathsome cell she had passed the previous night in, her spirits gave way. She uttered one heart-rending shriek, swooned, and was carried down from the dock--senseless. Mrs. Green narrated circumstantially to Mr. Green what had taken place in court that afternoon, with a minute exactness, as he sipped his wine after dinner. As she did so, I believe he half repented the prosecution of this poor girl, although not a shadow of a doubt rested upon his mind as to her guilt. He said he thought it was a pity she had not confessed. As the hours rolled on, and bedtime approached, and he was about entering the solemnity of night--when, I am inclined to think, men's better thoughts usually gain the ascendency (that is, unless the thinker be _intent_ on the perpetration of crime)--he confessed that he did not know what to do; that he thought the poor girl ought to have an attorney employed for her; and that he would see his lawyer about it in the morning.