“Sir,” said she, “now may it please your honor, I have come down here all alone to see that justice is done to these two people who are innocent as milk, yes sir, as skim milk. They are my friends, neither of them ever touched the value of a pin that I didn’t give them with my own hand. They——” The judge here interrupted an argument that would have been effective before a jury, and in its honest intensity interested him. “Who are you, Madam? I do not understand.” “Who am I? Yesterday I should have been proud to say I was that man’s wife, but now!” Here poor Mrs. Smith cast a reproachful glance on her husband; burst into a passion of tears, and only answered the judge with her sobs. “She is my wife,” said Smith, in a troubled voice, “and won’t believe in their guilt, though the goods were found in that woman’s wood-house. Some of them was in the cellar. The officers can testify to that, but she won’t believe a word of it.” “No, I won’t, there!” cried the woman, brushing away a fresh burst of tears, and turning upon her husband, “not if I’d seen them a doing it with my own eyes. There are things, Mr. Judge, that human nature won’t take in, and this is one of them.” “Do you know anything about this charge of your own knowledge?” questioned the Judge kindly, for the woman’s generous recklessness had made its impression on him. “Know, Mr. Judge. Yes, I know that it’s a shame and a disgrace that we shall never get over as long as my name is Smith. Why, sir, if you could have seen that boy tending my Jerusha Maria, his innocence would be clear as clear to you. No paid nurse was ever so careful or so handy—the way he used to hold up her two feet in them red morocco shoes for her to crow over, was a sight in itself. He steal. He rob a store—nothing but a heathen would think of it.” Here Mrs. Smith turned upon her husband, and flashed a storm of wrathful glances on him from her yet tearful eyes. “You’re a pretty man, ain’t you—an honor to the name of Smith, oh yes! It would make you happy to see these two innocent creatures in States Prison, with balls and chains on their ankles. I can see you now a gloating over it, and those two girls breaking their hearts. Oh, Smith! Smith! I wouldn’t have believed it of you!” “There, there, my good lady, I can honor your feelings, but you interrupt the case. Pray step down and let me take the evidence of these persons,” said the Judge. “But you won’t believe them, just promise that you won’t believe them, and I’ll be still enough.” “Believe me, they shall have justice,” answered the judge, kindly. “That is all any of us want,” said Mrs. Smith, and stepping down, she took her place by Mrs. Laurence, resolute to stand by her to the last. “Young man, step this way.”