After a delay of nearly two hours, Chow Chom Manda Ung and her daughter, the Princess P'hra Ong Brittry, made their appearance, accompanied by an immense retinue of female slaves, bearing a host of luxurious appendages for their royal mistresses' comfort during the trial, with the sheriff bending low, and following this grand procession at a respectful distance. The great ladies took their places on the velvet cushions placed for them by their slaves, with an air of authority and rebellion combined, as if to say, "Who is there here to constrain us?" The chief judge adjusted her spectacles, and as she looked fixedly at the great ladies she asked, "Where is the slave-woman L'ore?" The old dowager cast a malicious glance at the judge; but there was still the same silence, the same air of defiance of all authority. All round the open sala, or hall, was collected a ragged rabble of slave women and children, crouching in all sorts of attitudes and all sorts of costumes, but with eyes fixed on the chief judge in startled astonishment and wonder at her calm, unmovable countenance. Superciliousness and apparent contempt prevailed everywhere, yet in the midst of all the consciousness of an austere and august presence was evident; for not one of those slave-women, lowly, untaught, and half clad as they were, but felt that in the heart of that dark, stern woman before them there was as great a respect for the rights of the meanest among them as for those of the queen dowager herself. The chief judge then read aloud in a clear voice the letter she had received from the king, and, when it was finished, the dowager and her daughter saluted the letter by prostrating themselves three times before it. Then the judge inquired if the august ladies had aught to say why the slave-woman L'ore should not have been emancipated when she offered to pay the full price of her freedom. The attention of all was excited to the highest degree; every eye concentrated itself on the queen dowager. She spoke with difficulty, and answered with some embarrassment, but from head to foot her whole person defied the judge. "And what if every slave in my service should bring me the price of her freedom?" All eyes turned again to the judge, seated so calmly there on her little strip of matting; every ear was strained to catch her reply. "Then, lady, thou wouldst be bound to free every one of them." "And serve myself?" "Even so, my august mistress," said the judge, bowing low. The dowager turned very pale and trembled slightly as the judge declared that L'ore was no longer the slave of the Chow Chom Manda Ung, but the property of the Crue Yai (royal teacher). "Let her purchase-money be paid down," said the dowager, angrily, "and she is freed forever from my service." The judge then turned to me, and said, "You are now the mistress of L'ore. I will have the papers made out. Bring hither the money, forty ticals, and all shall be settled."