as she sat with her back to the window of the house

keeper's room-she never stirred out now-was obtained by an enterprising photographer, and had a wonderful sale at two-and-six.

All the correspondents of the cheap press found themselves in exclusive possession of particulars concerning the Galton family. The fact of the existence of Minim Hall began to be noised abroad for the first time, and gave the neatest occasion to the Democrat for a pyrotechnical exposition of university abuses and shortcomings. The circumstance of the living of Casterton being sequestered (as poor Mr. Morrit used to call it), did not, on that account, escape observation, but the reverse; and the "interim incumbent and uncle of the accused," made a very prominent figure in the indictment. The Home Secretary was harassed night and day, for admission to a private interview with the prisoner by a man who was commissioned to model him in wax for the Room of Horrors.

Conceive how terrible were all these things, or even the echoes of them, to those who really loved poor

Frederick! How he himself imagined them all in his solitary cell, and gnashed his teeth with anguish. How Mr. Morrit's nature shrank from them as from some physical blow, notwithstanding his utter scorn for those from whom they emanated. He was not a man to take that sort of morose pleasure which some men do in undergoing the consequences of their own errors; the cup of bitterness had no expiatory attraction for him, but was drained with shuddering and repugnance. And yet he owned that he was much to blame for what had happened. Had he made his nephew such an allowance as was suitable from the first, the Galtons and the Meyricks would have stood upon the same social level, or nearly so, and would have been intimate or not, according to circumstances. There would have been no mad jealousy engendered in John Meyrick's brain, or, at least, it would not have been brought to the bitter birth by that secret visit of Eugenie to Somers Town; or, if the curate did not guess so much as that, he knew that but for him Mary would have been a guest at M. de Lernay's upon that fatal night, as well as her

husband, when no mischief could possibly have occurred. Now, however, it seemed as if Mr. Morrit could never do enough to express his sorrow for the past, not only in the way of pecuniary expenditure, personal exertions, and the like, but what was really some sacrifice to him, still in the self-abnegation of all family pride and social superiority. He had always had a genuine respect for Widow Perling and her daughter, even when their existence had been most obnoxious to him, and their common misfortune now knit the three together in its loving bond. To Mary he was always making some practical apology for his former treatment of her, in delicate and thoughtful service. Any shyness or embarrassment which the poor girl might have experienced in the sudden change of her relations with the curate, was rendered impossible by the circumstances of the case; the vastness of her trouble swallowed up all minor things, and she accepted the homage of this rebel knight quite naturally, as though he had never borne arms against her cause, or refused to pay her due allegiance. It was touching to remark how he strove to

keep out of the sight and hearing of the little family all evidence of the publicity attaching to Frederick's condition, although he might have spared his pains; first because nothing could stop the tongue of Mrs. Gideon; and secondly, because the three in question cared less about what the world was saying than the world could possibly have guessed. The thoughts of Widow Perling and Jane were occupied wholly with prayers and fears for their beloved Mary, upon whom such unparalleled woe had fallen in God's inscrutable wisdom; and the mind of Mary herself never strayed for one single instant from the great problem of." How was Frederick's life to be saved?" The time had now arrived for this to be solved.

CHAPTER XV.

FOR THE PROSECUTION.

SELDOM had that squalid space in front of the Old Bailey been filled by such a fashionable throng as pressed about it on the morning of the trial of Frederick Galton; one would have thought, by the stream of carriages, that Her Majesty's Servants had temporarily transferred themselves during alterations in the Haymarket, to Justice Hall, and were giving a morning performance there. Tickets of admission to the court were sought after as though they had been passports to Paradise, and many a Peri-for so "interesting” a case attracted numbers of the softer sex-besieged that Eden gate-opening from the ghastly courtyard wherein the scaffold is housed-and went away disconsolate, since tears themselves could not avail them,