With the aid of Mr. Sergeant Stubble, Maria is brought forward, pale and trembling, and struggling with the war of grief waging in her heart.  Calmly she looks up at the Judge for a moment, then hangs down her head in silence.  “There is a Judge above who knows the circumstances, gives me now His hand, and will judge me in the balance of truth and mercy, when my enemies are at my feet,” flashes through her thoughts, and strengthens the inner nature.  But her tongue has lost its power; her feelings unbend to the thought that she is in a criminal court, arraigned before a Judge.  She has no answer to make to the Judge’s questions, but gives way to her emotions, and breaks out into loud sobs.  Several minutes, during which a sympathizing silence is manifest, pass, when she raises slowly her head, and makes an attempt to mutter a few words in her defence.  But her voice chokes, and the words hang, inarticulate, upon her lips.  She buries her face in her hands, and shakes her head, as if saying, “I have said all.”

His Honor seems moved to mercy by the touching spectacle before him.  He whispers in the ear of Mr. Sergeant Stubble, and that functionary brightens up, and with an attempt to be kind, says:  “Pray, Miss McArthur—­it’s a duty we have to perform, you see—­where is your father? the Judge says.”

Ah!  That question has touched the fountain-spring of all her troubles, and the waters come gushing forth, as if to engulph the last faint shadow of hope in darkness.  Almost simultaneously she falls to the floor in a fit of violent hysterics.  The Judge orders the court-room cleared of its spectators, and if the reader has ever witnessed the painful sight of a female suffering such paroxysms, he may picture more forcibly in his imagination than we can describe, the scene that follows.  For some fifteen minutes the sufferer struggles, and when her mind resumes its calm, she casts a wild, despairing look round the room, then fixes her eyes upon those who are gathered about her.

There was a kind impulse yet left in the Judge.  He discovers a sympathy for her condition, holds her weak, trembling hand in his own, and bathes her temples with cologne.  “You are free to go home-there is no charge against you,” he whispers in her ear.  “I have ordered a carriage, and will send you to your home-where is it?” This is, indeed, cruel kindness.

“If I had a home,” responds Maria, in a low voice, as she rises, and rests herself on her elbow, “it would shelter me from this distress.  Yes, I would then be happy once more.”

A carriage soon arrives, she is put into it, and with a few consoling words from the Judge, is driven back, as hastily as possible, to the house from which she was dragged only last night.  She has nowhere else to go to-day, but resolves to-morrow to seek a shelter elsewhere.  Through the whisperings of that unaccountable human telegraph, the news of her shame, made great and terrible with a thousand additions, is flown into the family secrets of the city.  How strange and yet how true of human nature is it, that we stand ever ready to point the finger of scorn at those we fancy in the downward path, while refusing ourselves to receive the moralist’s lessons.