gudes but
ance, and that was lang syne, afore I was married. But whisht, whisht!
here's the Court coming."

As he spoke, the five Lords of Justiciary, in their long robes of
scarlet, faced with white, and preceded by their mace-bearer, entered
with the usual formalities, and took their places upon the bench of
judgment.

The audience rose to receive them; and the bustle occasioned by their
entrance was hardly composed, when a great noise and confusion of persons
struggling, and forcibly endeavouring to enter at the doors of the
Court-room, and of the galleries, announced that the prisoner was about
to be placed at the bar. This tumult takes place when the doors, at first
only opened to those either having right to be present, or to the better
and more qualified ranks, are at length laid open to all whose curiosity
induces them to be present on the occasion. With inflamed countenances
and dishevelled dresses, struggling with, and sometimes tumbling over
each other, in rushed the rude multitude, while a few soldiers, forming,
as it were, the centre of the tide, could scarce, with all their efforts,
clear a passage for the prisoner to the place which she was to occupy. By
the authority of the Court, and the exertions of its officers, the tumult
among the spectators was at length appeased, and the unhappy girl brought
forward, and placed betwixt two sentinels with drawn bayonets, as a
prisoner at the bar, where she was to abide her deliverance for good or
evil, according to the issue of her trial.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.

We have strict statutes, and most biting laws--
The needful bits and curbs for headstrong steeds--
Which, for these fourteen years, we have let sleep,
Like to an o'ergrown lion in a cave,
That goes not out to prey.
Measure for Measure.

"Euphemia Deans," said the presiding Judge, in an accent in which pity
was blended with dignity, "stand up and listen to the criminal indictment
now to be preferred against you."

The unhappy girl, who had been stupified by the confusion through which
the guards had forced a passage, cast a bewildered look on the multitude
of faces around her, which seemed to tapestry, as it were, the walls, in
one broad slope from the ceiling to the floor, with human countenances,
and instinctively obeyed a command, which rung in her ears like the
trumpet of th