Presently she began to recall her plans.  It occurred to her to select her two or three villains.  For one, she immediately pitched upon a lean-faced wretch in front of her.  He seemed to be old, for his back was bent and he leaned upon a cane.  His features were large, and they bore an expression of profound gloom.  His head was sunk upon his breast, his lofty conical cap was pulled over his ears, and his shapeless uniform seemed to weigh him down, so infirm was he.

Miss Eunice spoke to him.  He did not hear; she spoke again.  He glanced at her like a flash, but without moving; this was at once followed by a scrutinizing look.  He raised his head, and then he turned toward her gravely.

The solemnity of his demeanor nearly threw Miss Eunice off her balance, but she mastered herself by beginning to talk rapidly.  The prisoner leaned over a little to hear better.  Another came up, and two or three turned around to look.  She bethought herself of an incident related in Miss Crofutt’s book, and she essayed its recital.  It concerned a lawyer who was once pleading in a French criminal court in behalf of a man whose crime had been committed under the influence of dire want.  In his plea he described the case of another whom he knew who had been punished with a just but short imprisonment instead of a long one, which the judge had been at liberty to impose, but from which he humanely refrained.  Miss Eunice happily remembered the words of the lawyer:  “That man suffered like the wrong-doer that he was.  He knew his punishment was just.  Therefore there lived perpetually in his breast an impulse toward a better life which was not suppressed and stifled by the five years he passed within the walls of the jail.  He came forth and began to labor.  He toiled hard.  He struggled against averted faces and cold words, and he began to rise.  He secreted nothing, faltered at nothing, and never stumbled.  He succeeded; men took off their hats to him once more; he became wealthy, honorable, God-fearing.  I, gentlemen, am that man, that criminal.”  As she quoted this last declaration Miss Eunice erected herself with burning eyes and touched herself proudly upon the breast.  A flush crept into her cheeks, and her nostrils dilated, and she grew tall.

She came back to earth again, and found herself surrounded with the prisoners.  She was a little startled.

“Ah, that was good!” ejaculated the old man upon whom she had fixed her eyes.  Miss Eunice felt an inexpressible sense of delight.

Murmurs of approbation came from all of her listeners, especially from one on her right hand.  She looked around at him pleasantly.

But the smile faded from her lips on beholding him.  He was extremely tall and very powerful.  He overshadowed her.  His face was large, ugly, and forbidding; his gray hair and beard were cropped close, his eyebrows met at the bridge of his nose and overhung his large eyes like a screen.  His lips were very wide, and, being turned downward at the corners, they gave him a dolorous expression.  His lower jaw was square and protruding, and a pair of prodigious white ears projected from beneath his sugar-loaf cap.  He seemed to take his cue from the old man, for he repeated his sentiment.