cate her situation,--to whom," said the learned gentleman,
"I will add, it would have been unadvised and improper in her to have
done so; yet, I trust, I shall remove this case most triumphantly from
under the statute, and obtain the unfortunate young woman an honourable
dismission from your Lordships' bar, by showing that she did, in due time
and place, and to a person most fit for such confidence, mention the
calamitous circumstances in which she found herself. This occurred after
Robertson's conviction, and when he was lying in prison in expectation of
the fate which his comrade Wilson afterwards suffered, and from which he
himself so strangely escaped. It was then, when all hopes of having her
honour repaired by wedlock vanished from her eyes,--when an union with
one in Robertson's situation, if still practicable, might, perhaps, have
been regarded rather as an addition to her disgrace,--it was _then,_ that
I trust to be able to prove that the prisoner communicated and consulted
with her sister, a young woman several years older than herself, the
daughter of her father, if I mistake not, by a former marriage, upon the
perils and distress of her unhappy situation."

"If, indeed, you are able to instruct _that_ point, Mr. Fairbrother,"
said the presiding Judge.

"If I am indeed able to instruct that point, my Lord," resumed Mr.
Fairbrother, "I trust not only to serve my client, but to relieve your
Lordships from that which I know you feel the most painful duty of your
high office; and to give all who now hear me the exquisite pleasure of
beholding a creature, so young, so ingenuous, and so beautiful, as she
that is now at the bar of your Lordships' Court, dismissed from thence in
safety and in honour."

This address seemed to affect many of the audience, and was followed by a
slight murmur of applause. Deans, as he heard his daughter's beauty and
innocent appearance appealed to, was involuntarily about to turn his eyes
towards her; but, recollecting himself, he bent them again on the ground
with stubborn resolution.

"Will not my learned brother, on the other side of the bar," continued
the advocate, after a short pause, "share in this general joy, since, I
know, while he discharges his duty in bringing an accused person here, no
one rejoices more in their being freely and honourably sent hence? My
learned brother shakes his head doubtfully, and lays his hand on the
panel's declaration. I understand him perfectly--