“At length the dull, misty, wintry morning dawned upon the metropolis--though all was still dark in her gloomy cell. Presently an officer entered, and gave her a cup of hot coffee and a piece of bread. She asked him if the message had been sent to her brother;--but he was not the same constable who had made the round of the cells at midnight, and therefore knew nothing about the matter. Moreover, he was a stern, sulky man; and she dared not speak farther to him--much as she longed to ascertain the real nature of the charge against her. She drank the coffee, which seemed to do her good;--but she could not force a single mouthful of the bread down her throat--though the cravings of hunger now began to oppress her cruelly. But, to use a common phrase, her heart heaved against food. A couple of hours more passed away, and then the same policeman who had arrested her on the preceding evening came to conduct her to the police-office. While they were proceeding thither, Julia enquired the nature of the charge against her; and she now learnt for the first time that the coin which she had changed at the bakers, and which she had believed to be a sovereign, was only a gilt counter, of the kind used at card tables in genteel society. She was cruelly shocked at this information, and frankly and candidly explained to the officer the manner in which she had become possessed of it; but he only shook his head, and seemed to put but little faith in her story. Julia was, however, too much absorbed in the vexation and ignominy she had thus been subjected to, and was still enduring, to notice the man’s incredulity;--but she clung to the hope that her tale would be believed by the magistrate before whom she was about to appear. It happened that the usual charges of drunkenness were just disposed of, at the moment when the young female entered the court; and she was accordingly at once placed at the bar--the baker being already in attendance to prefer his charge against her. This he did in a plain and straight-forward manner,--showing no ill-feeling against the prisoner--but, on the contrary, alleging that he had always believed her to be a highly respectable, industrious, and praise-worthy young woman until the present transaction took place. He added that he had given her into custody in a moment of irritation, believing himself to have been duped; and that he should be truly delighted if she could make her innocence apparent. Julia’s courage was somewhat restored by the forbearing conduct of the baker--for her own good sense told her that the case was really one involving much unpleasant suspicion;--and she now told her tale with an artlessness and sincerity that produced no inconsiderable effect upon the bench. Nevertheless, as the magistrate observed, it certainly appeared strange that a gentleman should have given her a gilt counter in mistake for a sovereign,--strange also that a mere stranger should have intended to bestow upon her a sovereign at all.