This was, perhaps, the worst experience she had yet endured, and she longed for the privacy of her cell again.  Never before had she come in contact with such debased wrecks of humanity, and she blushed for womanhood as she cowered in the furthest corner and looked upon her companions—­brutal women, with every vice stamped on their bloated features.  The majority were habitual drunkards, filthy in person and foul of tongue.  True to their depraved instincts, they soon began to ridicule and revile one who, by contrast, proved how fallen and degraded they were.  And yet, not even from these did the girl recoil with such horror as from some brazen harpies who said words in her ear that made her hide her face with shame.  The officer in charge saw that she was persecuted, and sternly interfered in her behalf, but from their hideous presence and contact she could not escape.

By some affinity not yet wholly obliterated, the girl she had heard weeping in the night shrank to her side, and her swollen eyes and forlorn appearance could not hide the fact that she was very young, and might be very pretty.  Mildred knew not what to say to her, but she took her hand and held it.  This silent expression of sympathy provoked another outburst of grief, and the poor young creature sobbed on Mildred’s shoulder as if her heart were breaking.  Mildred placed a sustaining arm around her, but her own sustaining truth and purity she could not impart.

A partition only separated her from the “box”—­which was simply a large wooden pen with round iron bars facing the corridor—­to which the male prisoners were brought, one after another, by the policemen who had arrested them.  The arrival of the judge was somewhat delayed, and may the reader never listen to such language as profaned her ears during the long hour and a half before the opening of the court.

Fortunately her turn came rather early, and she at last was ushered to the doorway which looked upon the crowded court-room, and her heart throbbed with hope as she singled out her mother, Belle, Mrs. Wheaton, and Roger, from among long lines of curious and repulsive faces.  The former kissed their hands to her, and tried to give wan, reassuring smiles, which their tears belied.  Roger merely bowed gravely, and then, with an expression that was singularly alert and resolute, gave his whole attention to all that was passing.  After recognizing her friends, Mildred turned to the judge, feeling that she would discover her fate in his expression and manner.  Was he a kindly, sympathetic man, unhardened by the duties of his office?  She could learn but little from his grave, impassive face.  She soon feared that she had slight cause for hope, for after what seemed to her an absurdly brief, superficial trial, she saw two of her companions of the “box” sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.  The decision, which to her had such an awful import, was pronounced in an off-hand manner, and in the matter-of-fact tone