The process of the law was rapid. The day of trial arrived. Mitford pleaded not guilty. All that the most able counsel could effect, was done for him. The witnesses were brow-beaten; the jury harangued; but he was found guilty. The judge passed sentence of death. * * * * * 'LA!' said Mrs. Minikin, the haberdasher's wife, 'to-morrow is the day when that there gen'leman is to be hung for forgery. Let's go see him.' 'My dear,' said Mr. Minikin, 'you know I never likes them there sort of things. If it was a reg'lar mill, then I might go; but I never likes to see no one tucked up.' 'Oh, but, my dear,' said the gentle Mrs. Minikin, 'it is not entertaining, I grant, to see them there riff-raffs which is usually hung; but this is a gen'leman. Only consider,' said she, in her most endearing manner, 'how delightful to see one of them there 'igh-flyers hung!' And the pliant Mr. Minikin consented. * * * * * LET us now turn to the dungeon which contained this ill-fated man. There, on a scanty supply of straw, a dim light glimmering through the bars of his cell, rendering the interior still more desolate, by revealing its wretchedness, lay Mitford--pale, emaciated, and bearing on his countenance the conviction, that the world and himself were now disjointed. Ever and anon the echoing wheels of some patrician chariot conveyed to his ear the mirth and gayety that reigned without. But what was all this to him? His heart was never more to beat at the sight of beauty; ambition could no longer convey elevation to his mind. A few short hours, and he must be brought forth to satisfy the stern severity of the law, and furnish food to the gaping curiosity of thousands. And was this to be the termination of his career? Was it for this a mother's holy tears had blessed his advent to the world?--that a father's toil had left him reposing amid the luxuries of wealth? All, all was now shortly to terminate in the scaffold's terrors, and worse than the scaffold's terrors, in the scaffold's shame. While these thoughts passed through his mind, scalding tears coursed down his cheeks, moistening the straw on which he lay; not tears extracted by craven fear, but holy drops of penitence. From this state of mind he was soon awakened by the reverend clergyman, whose duty it was to prepare him for his approaching awful change. He whispered to him the hope of divine mercy, so unquenchable that the most heinous offences failed to suppress it; that it was true he must suffer a public punishment, at once as an example, and an earthly atonement for his crime; but the benign Saviour of mankind had passed through all the ignominy of a public execution, with a resigned spirit, as an offering for the sins of others; and in virtue of that offering, he must himself hope for forgiveness, and suffer with resignation.