her hands. A moment or two elapsed, and she grew more assured, and the
counsel for the Crown proceeded with the examination.

"Ellen Duncan, is not that your name?" was the first question.

"It is, Sir," she shrinkingly answered, without raising her eyes.

"Do you know the prisoner at the bar?"

"Do I know the pres'ner at the bar?" she reiterated; "do I know Owen
Duncan? Shure, isn't he my husband?"

"Do you recollect the night of the twenty-first of September?"

"I do, Sir."

"Can you swear to whether your husband was at home on that night or
not?"

Her voice faltered a little as she answered in the negative; and on the
presiding judge repeating the question, with the addition of, "Did he
return at all next day?" it seemed as if she first thought that her
answers might criminate him still farther, and clasping her I hands
convulsively together, and raising her face to the bench, while the
scalding tears chased each other down her sunken cheek, she passionately
exclaimed--

"Oh, for the love of heaven, don't ask me any thing that 'ill be worse
for him! Don't, counsellor jewel, don't! don't ask me to swear any thing
that 'ill do him harm; for I can't know what I'm sayin' now, as the