by her or her counsel to the reading of it at the trial.  The point is of importance for two reasons.  Firstly, this letter, if written by Cranstoun and received by Mary affords the strongest presumptive proof of their mutual guilt.  Had their design been, as she asserted, innocent, what need to adopt in a private letter this “allegorical” and guarded language?  Secondly, Mary, as we shall see, found means before her arrest to destroy the half of the Cranstoun correspondence in her keeping, and it would have been more satisfactory if the prosecution had shown how this particular letter escaped to fall into their hands.  That she herself fabricated it in order to inculpate her accomplice is highly improbable; had she done so, as Mr. Bleackley has pointed out, its contents would have been more consistent with her defence.

On the evening of Sunday, 4th August, Susan Gunnell, by order of her mistress, made in a pan a quantity of water gruel for her master’s use.  On Monday, the 5th, Miss Blandy was seen by the maids at mid-day stirring the gruel with a spoon in the pantry.  She remarked that she had been eating the oatmeal from the bottom of the pan, “and taking some up in the spoon, put it between her fingers and rubbed it.”  That night some of the gruel was sent up in a half-pint mug by Mary for her father’s supper.  When doing so, she repeated her curious action of the morning, taking a little in a spoon and rubbing it.  On Tuesday, the 6th, the whole house was in confusion:  Mr. Blandy had become seriously ill in the night, with symptoms of violent pain, vomiting, and purging.  Mr. Norton, the Henley apothecary who attended the family, was summoned—­at whose instance does not appear—­and on arriving at the house he found the patient suffering, as he thought, from “a fit of colic.”  He asked him if he had eaten anything that could have disagreed with him; and Mary, who was in the bedroom, replied “that her papa had had nothing that she knew of, except some peas on the Saturday night before.”  Not a word was said about the gruel; and Mr. Norton had no reason to suspect poison.  He prescribed, and himself brought certain remedies, promising to call next day.  In the afternoon Miss Blandy, in the kitchen, asked Elizabeth Binfield, the cook, this strange question:  “Betty, if one thing should happen, will you go with me to Scotland?” to which Betty cautiously replied, “If I should go there and not like it, it would be expensive travelling back again.”  That evening Susan was told to warm some of the gruel for her master’s supper; she did so, and Mary herself carried it to him in the parlour.  On going upstairs to bed, he was repeatedly sick, and called to Susan to bring him a basin.