"It is all over with Chilion," said he, "unless we can get Judge Morgridge to help us; he can set the Jury right in his charge, or do something; you must go right up and see him."

Margaret, by a cross path, sped her way to the Judge's; she met Susan at the door, to whom she stated her errand. Susan sought her father in the library. "No," replied the Judge, "let me not see the girl. There are points in the case I do not understand, but the evidence against the prisoner is overwhelming." "O father," replied Susan, "what if she were me, or her brother our Arthur!" "Speak not, my child, our duties are imperious, our private feelings are borne away by a higher subserviency. The public mind is much excited; God knows where it will end, or how many shall be its victims." "But, if my dear, dead mother were her mother, or you were his father!" "Let the girl not come near me, let me not hear her voice, let not her agony reach me, leave me to compose myself for the awful task before me. Go out, go out, my child."

Stung by this repulse, terrified at the prospect before her, Margaret passed a sleepless night, and before daybreak she left the house, and directed her course towards Sibyl Radney's. She had not gone far when she met people thronging to the closing scenes of the trial. This diverted her into the woods, and so delayed her that when she reached Sibyl's all were gone from there, excepting Bull, who ran fondly towards her and was caressed with tears. She went down to the Widow Wright's, whose house was likewise deserted; and she continued on the Via Salutaris to her own home. Here were only silence and desolation; one of her birds she found frozen to death on the door-stone.

Restless, anxious, she returned towards the village by the Via Dolorosa. She hung on the skirts of the Green with an indeterminate feeling of inquisitiveness, awe, and terror; seating herself on a rock in the pasture, a chilling desperation of heart seized her, and with an agitating sense of the extinguishment of hope her eye became riveted on the Courthouse. Presently she saw persons running towards that building, which was now an object of public as well as individual interest. She knew the hour of final decision had arrived. With a rapid step she descended the West Street, turned the corner of the Crown and Bowl, and soon became involved in a crowd of men who were urging their way into the Court-room.

"The Judge is pulling on the black cap," was reported from

within. "Tight squeezing," said one, "but your brother will soon be thankful for as much room to breathe in, I guess." "Won't you let me pass?" said Margaret. "We can't get in ourselves," was the reply. "The Injin's dog has bit me, I'm killed, I'm murdered," was an alarm raised in the rear. "Drub him, knock him in the head," was the response; and while the stress relaxed, by numbers breaking away in pursuit of Bull, who had followed his Mistress, Margaret pressed herself into the porch; wimble-like, she pierced the stacks of men and women that filled the hall. "What, are you here, Margery?" exclaimed Judah Weeks, with an undertone of surprise. "Do help me if you can," was the reply. She sprang upon the back of the prisoner's box, seized with her hand the balustrade, and resting her feet on the casement, was supported in her position by Judah, who folded himself about her. Her bonnet was torn off, her dress and hair disordered, her face and eye burned with a preternatural fire. This movement, done in less time than it can be told, had not the effect to divert the dense and packed assemblage, who were bending forward, form, eye, and ear, to catch the words of the sentence, then dropping from the lips of the Judge. Chilion, who was standing directly before her, with his head bent down, remained unmoved by what transpired behind him.

The Judge himself seemed the first to be disturbed by this vision of affection, anguish, and despair, that arose like a suddenly evoked Phantom before his eye. He halted, he trembled, he proceeded with a stammering voice "You have violated the laws of the land, you have broken the commands of the Most High God; you have assailed the person and taken the life of a fellow-being. With malice aforethought, and wicked passions rife in your breast"-"No! No!" outshrieked Margaret. "He never intended to kill him, he never did a wicked thing, he was always good to us, my dear brother." She leaned forwards, grasped her brother's head and turned his face up to full view. "Look at him, there is no malice in him; his eye is gentle as a lamb's; speak, Chilion, and let them hear your voice, how sweet it is.- Stop, Judge Morgridge, stop!"-"Order in Court!" cried the Sheriff. "Down with that girl!" "It's nater, it's sheer nater; just so when I was down in Arcady," exclaimed Deacon Ramsdill, leaping from his seat with a burst. of feeling that carried away all sense of propriety. The Judge faltered; there was confusion among the people; but the jam

was so great it was impossible for any one to stir, and those in the vicinity of Margaret, who attempted to put into effect the commands of the Sheriff, were resisted by the stubborn and almost reckless firmness of Judah. But Margaret, throwing herself forward with her arms about the neck of her brother, became still, as frozen, unearthly despair can be still.

The popular feeling, only for a moment arrested, again flowed towards the Judge, who, in the midst of a silence, stark and deep as the grave, went on to finish his address, and pronounce the final doom of the prisoner. He came to the closing words "be carried to the place of execution, and there be hung by the neck till you are dead, dead, dead," — when with a sudden convulsive wail, Margaret raised herself aloft, extended her arms, and with a startling intonation cried out, "O God, if there be a God! Jesus Christ! Mother sanctissima! am I on Earth or in Hell? My poor, murdered brother! Fades the cloud-girt, star-flowering Universe to my eye! I hear the screaming of Hope, in wild merganser flight to the regions of endless cold! Love, on Bacchantal drum, beats the march of the Ages down to eternal perdition! Alecto, Tisiphone, Furies! Judges bear your flaming Torches; the Beautiful One brandishes an ax; Serpents hiss on the Green Cross-tree; the Banners of Redemption float over the woe-resounding, smoke-ingulfed realms of Tartarus!" she relapsed into incoherent ravings, and fell back in the arms of Judah, who bore her senseless body out through the gaping and awe-stricken crowd.