As for Mary Monson, she went into her cell, like one who declined any further communication with her counsel. Timms was struck with her lofty and decided manner; but stood too much in awe of her, to interpose a remonstrance. After a few minutes taken by Dunscomb to regain his self-command, and a brief consultation together, the two lawyers quitted the prison. All this time, the accused remained in her cell, in resentful silence, closely and anxiously watched by the searching eye of her senior attendant. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIX. “Methinks, if, as I guess, the fault’s but small, It might be pardoned.” _The Orphan._ Perhaps no surer test of high principles, as it is certain no more accurate test of high breeding can be found, than a distaste for injurious gossip. In woman, subject as she is unquestionably by her education, habits, and active curiosity, to the influence of this vice, its existence is deplorable, leading to a thousand wrongs, among the chief of which is a false appreciation of ourselves; but, when men submit to so vile a propensity, they become contemptible, as well as wicked. As a result of long observation, we should say that those who are most obnoxious to the just condemnation of the world, are the most addicted to finding faults in others; and it is only the comparatively good, who are so because they are humble, that abstain from meddling and dealing in scandal. When one reflects on the great amount of injustice that is thus inflicted, without even the most remote hope of reparation, how far a loose, ill-considered and ignorant remark will float on the tongues of the idle, how much unmerited misery is oftentimes entailed by such unweighed assertions and opinions, and how small is the return of benefit in any form whatever, it would almost appear a necessary moral consequence that the world, by general consent, would determine to eradicate so pernicious an evil, in the common interest of mankind. That it does not, is probably owing to the power that is still left in the hands of the Father of Sin, by the Infinite Wisdom that has seen fit to place us in this condition of trial. The parent of all lies, gossip, is one of the most familiar of the means he employs to put his falsehoods in circulation.