Her power over others, even the most savage people, was shown by the changed behaviour of the poor girl waiting for execution. I have mentioned her: she was at first a wild creature: she fled to the darkest corner of the cell and there crouched with eyes of suspicion and terror: she snatched her food and ran into her corner to eat it: she was altogether unwashed and altogether in rags: she was bare-footed, bare-legged and bare-armed: her hair which should have been light--like Jenny's own hair, was matted with dirt: it looked as if it had never known a comb: yet long and beautiful hair: her eyes were blue, large and limpid. She had never known kindness, or love, or care since the day when her mother was marched away to Newgate wearing handcuffs. She was, I say, a mere savage. The child might have been sixteen, but she looked thirteen. Still, sixteen is young for Tyburn. Jenny found this child in her cell: condemned like herself; and she tamed her. Not in a single day, but in a few days. She tamed her with kindness; with soft words in the language which the child understood best: with soft touches: with gifts of pretty things: I suppose she gave her sweetmeats--I know not what she did, but in a few days I found the savage wild creature converted into a shy, timid girl--clinging to Jenny and following her about like a favourite spaniel. She was washed and combed and dressed from head to foot: she wore stockings and shoes: her hair, just confined by a ribbon, hung over her shoulders in lovely tresses: she had become an interesting child who promised to grow into a lovely maiden. And yet she was to be carried out to Tyburn and there hanged. Then, when the girl had assumed a civilized look, Jenny began to lament her approaching fate of which the poor creature seemed herself unconscious. Indeed, I think the child understood nothing at her trial or her sentence except that she was horribly frightened and was carried out of court crying. 'Is it not terrible,' she asked, 'that we must hang children--ignorant children?' 'It is the law of the land, Jenny. Judges have only to administer the law of the land.' 'Then it is a cruel law, and the Judges ought to say so. A man is a murderer who condemns a child to death, even if it is the law, without declaring against it.' 'Nay, Jenny'--this she could not understand for the reasons I have already given--'we must remember that the children suffer for the sins of the fathers, unto the third and fourth generation.' She stared. 'Why,' she said, 'the poor child has been taught no better.' And, indeed, there seems no answer to this plea. If in the mysteries of Providence we must so suffer, the Law of men should not punish ignorance. 'To hang children!' she insisted. 'To destroy their lives before they have well begun! And for what? For taking something not their own--Oh! Will, it is monstrous. Just for a bit of cloth--only a bit of cloth off a counter. Oh! the poor child! the poor child!'