unhappy girl. It was in compliance
with his injunctions, expressed in that letter, that the panel was
prevailed upon to alter the line of conduct which her own better thoughts
had suggested; and, instead of resorting, when her time of travail
approached, to the protection of her own family, was induced to confide
herself to the charge of some vile agent of this nefarious seducer, and
by her conducted to one of those solitary and secret purlieus of villany,
which, to the shame of our police, still are suffered to exist in the
suburbs of this city, where, with the assistance, and under the charge,
of a person of her own sex, she bore a male child, under circumstances
which added treble bitterness to the woe denounced against our original
mother. What purpose Robertson had in all this, it is hard to tell, or
even to guess. He may have meant to marry the girl, for her father is a
man of substance. But, for the termination of the story, and the conduct
of the woman whom he had placed about the person of Euphemia Deans, it is
still more difficult to account. The unfortunate young woman was visited
by the fever incidental to her situation. In this fever she appears to
have been deceived by the person that waited on her, and, on recovering
her senses, she found that she was childless in that abode of misery. Her
infant had been carried off, perhaps for the worst purposes, by the
wretch that waited on her. It may have been murdered, for what I can
tell."

He was here interrupted by a piercing shriek, uttered by the unfortunate
prisoner. She was with difficulty brought to compose herself. Her counsel
availed himself of the tragical interruption, to close his pleading with
effect.

"My Lords," said he, "in that piteous cry you heard the eloquence of
maternal affection, far surpassing the force of my poor words--Rachel
weeping for her children! Nature herself bears testimony in favour of the
tenderness and acuteness of the prisoner's parental feelings. I will not
dishonour her plea by adding a word more."

"Heard ye ever the like o' that, Laird?" said Saddletree to Dumbiedikes,
when the counsel had ended his speech. "There's a chield can spin a
muckle pirn out of a wee tait of tow! Deil haet he kens mair about it
than what's in the declaration, and a surmise that Jeanie Deans suld hae
been able to say something about her sister's situation, whilk surmise,
Mr. Crossmyloof says, rests on sma' authority. And he's cleckit this
great