She was a poor ruin of a woman, belonging to Kirk Christ, but wandering like a vagrant over the island. The fact of first consequence is, that she was only half sane. In the language of the clergy of the time, she "had a degree of unsettledness and defect of understanding." Thus she was the sort of human wreck that the world finds it easy to fling away. Katherine fell victim to the sin that was not her own. A child was born. The Church censured her. She did penance in a white sheet at the church doors. But her poor, dull brain had no power to restrain her. A second child was born. Then the Bishop committed her for twenty-one days to his prison at the Peel. Let me tell you what the place is like. It is a crypt of the cathedral church. You enter it by a little door in the choir, leading to a tortuous flight of steep steps going down. It is a chamber cut out of the rock of the little island, dark, damp, and noisome. A small aperture lets in the light, as well as the sound of the sea beating on the rocks below. The roof, if you could see it in the gloom, is groined and ribbed, and above it is the mould of many graves, for in the old days bodies were buried in the choir. Can you imagine a prison more terrible for any prisoner, the strongest man or the bravest soldier? Think of it on a tempestuous night in winter. The lonely islet rock, with the swift seas rushing around it; the castle half a ruin, its guard-room empty, its banqueting hall roofless, its sally port silent; then the cathedral church falling to decay; and under the floor of its choir, where lie the graves of dead men, this black, grim, cold cell, silent as the graves themselves, save for the roar of the sea as it beats in the darkness on the rocks outside! But that is not enough. We have to think of this gloomy pile as inhabited on such a night of terrors by only one human soul--this poor, bedraggled, sin-laden woman with "the defect of understanding." Can anything be more awful? Yet there is worse to follow. The records tell us that Katherine Kinrade submitted to her punishment "with as much discretion as could be expected of the like of her." But such punishments do not cleanse the soul that is "drenched with unhallowed fire." Perhaps Katherine did not know that she was wronged; nevertheless God's image was being trodden out of her. She went from bad to worse, became a notorious strumpet, strolled about the island, and led "a scandalous life on other accounts." A third child was born. Then the Bishop concluded that for the honour of the Christian name, "to prevent her own utter destruction, and for the example of others," a timely and thorough reformation must be made by a further and severer punishment. It was the 15th day of March, and he ordered that on the 17th day, being the fair of St. Patrick, at the height of the market, the said Katherine Kinrade should be taken to Peel Town in charge of the general sumner, and the