clerk, with occasional assistance from me if there happened to be a press of business of the sort.  Mr. Flint still, however, retained a monopoly of the defences, except when, from some temporary cause or other, he happened to be otherwise engaged, when they fell to me.  One of these I am about to relate, the result of which, whatever other impression it produced, thoroughly cured me—­as it may the reader—­of any propensity to sneer or laugh at criminal-law reformers and denouncers of the gallows.

One forenoon, during the absence of Mr. Flint in Wiltshire, a Mrs. Margaret Davies called at the office, in apparently great distress of mind.  This lady, I must premise, was an old, or at all events an elderly maiden, of some four-and-forty years of age—­I have heard a very intimate female friend of hers say she would never see fifty again, but this was spite—­and possessed of considerable house property in rather poor localities.  She found abundant employment for energies which might otherwise have turned to cards and scandal, in collecting her weekly, monthly, and quarterly rents, and in promoting, or fancying she did, the religious and moral welfare of her tenants.  Very bare-faced, I well knew, were the impositions practiced upon her credulous good-nature in money matters, and I strongly suspected the spiritual and moral promises and performances of her motley tenantry exhibited as much discrepancy as those pertaining to rent.  Still, deceived or cheated as she might be, good Mrs. Davies never wearied in what she conceived to be well-doing, and was ever ready to pour balm and oil into the wounds of the sufferer, however self-inflicted or deserved.

“What is the matter now?” I asked as soon as the good lady was seated, and had untied and loosened her bonnet, and thrown back her shawl, fast walking having heated her prodigiously.  “Nothing worse than transportation is, I hope, likely to befall any of those interesting clients of yours?”

“You are a hard-hearted man, Mr. Sharp,” replied Mrs. Davies between a smile and a cry; “but being a lawyer, that is of course natural, and, as I am not here to consult you as a Christian, of no consequence.”

“Complimentary, Mrs. Davies; but pray, go on.”

“You know Jane Eccles, one of my tenants in Bank Buildings—­the embroidress who adopted her sister’s orphan child?”

“I remember her name.  She obtained, if I recollect rightly, a balance of wages for her due to the child’s father, a mate, who died at sea.  Well, what has befallen her?”

“A terrible accusation has been preferred against her,” rejoined Mrs. Davies; “but as for a moment believing it, that is quite out of the question.  Jane Eccles,” continued the warm-hearted lady, at the same time extracting a crumpled newspaper from the miscellaneous contents of her reticule—­“Jane Eccles works hard from morning till night, keeps herself to herself; her little nephew and her rooms are always as clean and nice as a new pin; she attends church regularly; and pays her rent punctually to the day.  This disgraceful story, therefore,” he added, placing the journal in my hands, “cannot be true.”