sought the world over for advice and assistance? But instead of that
you hear the bitterest expressions proceed from her, expressions
sufficient to shock human nature. They have been all mentioned already
by my learned leader, and I will not again repeat them.

Observe, as things come nearer the crisis, whether her behaviour
towards her father carries any better appearance. When it began to be
suspected that Mr. Blandy's disorder was owing to poison, and
strongly, from circumstances, that the prisoner was privy to it, the
poor man, now too far gone, being informed that there was great reason
to suspect his own child, what expressions does he make use of? No
harsher than in the gentlest method saying, "Poor love-sick girl! I
always thought there was mischief in those Scotch pebbles. Oh, that
damned villain Cranstoun, that has ate of the best and drank of the
best my house afforded, to serve me thus and ruin my poor love-sick
girl!" An incontestable proof that he knew the cause of his disorder
and the authors of it.

The report spread about the house of the father's suspicions soon
alarmed the prisoner; what does she do upon this occasion? Can any
other interpretation be put upon her actions than that they proceeded
from a manifest intention to conceal her guilt? Why is the paper of
powder thrown into the fire? From whence, as my learned leader most
elegantly observes, it is miraculously preserved. What occasion for
concealment had she not been conscious of something that was wrong? If
she had not known what had been in the paper, for what purpose was it
committed to the flames? And what really was contained in that paper
will appear to you to be deadly poison.

The long-wished-for and fatal hour at last arrives, and but a little