the dense crowd she made her way, and took her place beside her anxious husband.  The court opened, and the foreman of the jury came forward to read the verdict.  Many an eye sought with eager curiosity, or strong interest, the face of the wife.  Its calmness was strange and awful.  All anxiety, all deep interest had left it, and as she turned her eye upon the foreman, none could read the slightest exhibition of emotion.  “GUILTY OF MURDER IN THE SECOND DEGREE!” Quick as thought a hundred eyes again sought the face of Mrs. Warburton.  It was pale as ashes, and her insensible form was gently reclining upon the arm of her husband, which had been extended to save her from falling.

When recollection returned, she was lying upon her own bed, in her own chamber, with her little boy crying by her side.  Those who had, from humane feelings, conveyed her home, suffered the dictates of humanity to die in their bosoms ere her consciousness returned; and thus she was left, insensible, with no companion but her child.

In due course, Warburton was sentenced to eight years imprisonment, the first three years to be passed in solitary confinement.  During the first term, no person was to be allowed to visit him.  The knowledge of such a sentence was a dreadful blow to Mrs. Warburton.  She parted from him in the court-room, on the day of his sentence, and for three long, weary years, her eyes saw him not again.

But a short time after the imprisonment of Warburton, another babe came into the world to share the misery of her whose happiness he had, in all his actions, so little regarded.  When able again to go about, and count up her store, Mrs. Warburton found that she had little left her beyond a willing heart to labour for her children.  It would have been some comfort to her if she had been permitted to visit her husband, but this the law forbade.

“Despair is never quite despair,” and once more in her life did Mrs. Warburton prove this.  The certainty that there could be no further dependence upon her husband, led her to repose more confidently in her own resources, for a living, and they did not fail her.  She had long since found out that our necessities cost much less than our superfluities, and therefore she did not sit down in idle despondency.  Early in the morning and late at night was she found diligently employed, and though her compensation was not great, it was enough to supply her real wants.

For two years had she supported thus with her own hands herself and children.  The oldest was now a smart little fellow of five years, and the youngest a fair-haired girl of some two summers.  Thus far had she kept them around her; but sickness at last came.  Nature could not always sustain the heavy demands made upon her, and at last sunk under them.