ket at which prisoners are admitted into
this gloomy mansion, and surveyed the few objects he could discern, with
an indescribable feeling of curiosity? The thick door, plated with iron
and mounted with spikes, just low enough to enable you to see, leaning
over them, an ill-looking fellow, in a broad-brimmed hat, Belcher
handkerchief and top-boots: with a brown coat, something between a
great-coat and a 'sporting' jacket, on his back, and an immense key in
his left hand. Perhaps you are lucky enough to pass, just as the gate is
being opened; then, you see on the other side of the lodge, another gate,
the image of its predecessor, and two or three more turnkeys, who look
like multiplications of the first one, seated round a fire which just
lights up the whitewashed apartment sufficiently to enable you to catch a
hasty glimpse of these different objects. We have a great respect for
Mrs. Fry, but she certainly ought to have written more romances than Mrs.
Radcliffe.

We were walking leisurely down the Old Bailey, some time ago, when, as we
passed this identical gate, it was opened by the officiating turnkey. We
turned quickly round, as a matter of course, and saw two persons
descending the steps. We could not help stopping and observing them.

They were an elderly woman, of decent appearance, though evidently poor,
and a boy of about fourteen or fifteen. The woman was crying bitterly;
she carried a small bundle in her hand, and the boy followed at a short
distance behind her. Their little history was obvious. The boy was her
son, to whose early comfort she had perhaps sacrificed her own--for whose
sake she had borne misery without repining, and poverty without a
murmur--looking steadily forward to the time, when he who had so long
witnessed her struggles for himself, might be enabled to make some
exertions for their joint support. He had formed dissolute connexions;
idleness had led to crime; and he had been committed to take his trial
for some petty theft. He had been long in prison, and, after receiving
some trifling additional punishment, had been ordered to be discharged
that morning. It was his first offence, and his poor old mother, still
hoping to reclaim him, had been waiting at the gate to implore him to
return home.

We cannot forget the boy; he descended the steps with a dogged look,
shaking his head with an air of bravado and obstinate determination.
They walked a few paces, and paused. The woman