These are they who are living not by years nor by weeks, but by breaths. They are motley enough, for the most part, sitting upon a long bench with their backs against the wall,--ill-shaved, haggard, anxious, and the dungeon door at their left opens now and then to show behind it a moving bayonet. There are women within the court proper, edging upon the reporters, introduced there by a fussy usher, and through four windows filters the imperfect daylight, making all things distinguishable, yet shadowy. The _coup d'oeil_ of this small and crowded scene is lively as a popular funeral. There is the witness with raised hand, pointing toward heaven, and looking at Judge Holt. The gilt stars, bars, and orange-colored sashes of the commission; the women's brilliant silks and bonnets; the crowding spectators, with their brains in their eyes; the blue coats of the guards; the working scribes; and last of all the line of culprits, whose suspected guilt has made them worthy of all illustration. Between the angle of the wall and the studded door, under the heavy bar of dressed stone which marks above the thickness of the gaol, sits all alone a woman's figure, clothed in solemn black. Her shadowy skirt hides her feet, so that we cannot see whether they are riveted; her sleeves of sable sweep down to her wrist, and dark gloves cover the plumpness of her hand, while a palm-leaf fan nods to and fro to assist the obscurity of her vail of crape, descending from her widow's bonnet. A solitary woman, beginning the line of coarse indicted men, shrinking beneath the scornful eyes of her sex, and the as bold survey of men more pitiful, may well excite, despite her guilt, a moment of sympathy. Let men remember that she is the mother of a son who has fled to save his forfeit life by deserting her to shame, and perhaps, to death. Let women, who will not mention her in mercy, learn from her end, in all succeeding wars, to make patriotism of their household duties and not incite to blood. Mrs. Surratt is a graduate of that seminary which spits in soldiers faces, denounces brave generals upon the rostrum, and cries out for an interminable scaffold when all the bells are ringing peace. How far her wicked love influenced her to participation in the murder rests in her own breast, and up to this time she has not differed from mothers at large--to twist her own bow-string rather than build his gibbet. Beneath her shadowy bonnet, over her fan-tip, we see two large, sad eyes, rising and falling, and now and then when the fan sways to and fro, the hair just turning gray with trouble, and the round face growing wan and seamed with terrible reflection, are seen a moment crouching low, as if she would wish to grovel upon the floor and bury her forehead in her hands.