Much has been said of the sadness of the spectacle when a strong man weeps, as compared to the same exhibition of feeling by a woman. It is equally sad when a woman is seen kneeling to any other power than that of her God! It seems man's province, given alike by nature and the laws of chivalry, to bend his proud knee in other aspects than that of devotion; and even when he is showing that prostration his eye may be glowing with the conscious pride of the future conqueror; but what except the most abject shame or the most overwhelming sorrow, can be shown when the delicate limb of womanhood kisses the green sod or the floor beneath her tread? To save by pitiful entreaties a perilled honor--to beg through blinding tears and choking sobs the restoration of that honor lost, that can often so easily be given back to her by the hands of the tyrant who will not hear her cry--to implore the concealment of a shame too heavy to bear--to plead for the forfeit life of some one dearer than the very pulses beating in her own bosom--to moan for the restoration of some object of love and protection, her babe perhaps, reft from her and her heart and her arms left alike empty--ay, to wail for the boon of a crust that shall chase starvation from the thin lips of herself or her child and keep them yet a little longer as clinging sufferers upon the earth,--these have been the compelling motives so often bending the knee of woman since the earliest day of recorded time. And yet not one of all the long array of unchronicled martyrs has been bowed under a deeper wrong than was that day made manifest, or uttered a more piteous appeal than that day went up to heaven! "Oh, do not cast me off!--do not desert me, Mr. Bladesden!" wailed a voice that would have been marvellously sweet and tender had it not been broken and roughened by grief, while her poor hands wrung and agonized themselves in sad sympathy with the writhings of her cowering form. "Do not take away from me my last hope of knowing one hour of peace before they put me into the coffin! I am no worse to-day than I was yesterday! Oh, do pity and save me, even if you cannot love me any longer!" "I do pity thee, Eleanor Hill, and I should like to save thee if I could!" answered a voice rich, full and strong, with only an occasional tremor in its intonation, and the Quaker phraseology seeming to accord peculiarly with the voice as well as the general appearance of the man. "But thou hast deceived me, and the plain people--" "Oh, no, I did not deceive you, Mr. Bladesden," the poor girl interrupted. "Do let me speak! Do let me try if I cannot move your heart to believe that I have never willingly done wrong--that I have never been intentionally wicked!"