position, affect them in their opinion as to her
guilt or innocence. "I find," said this gentleman,
after speaking for a considerable time on
the nature of the case, " that, on a certain day at
the end of last autumn, the deceased lady, Miss
Carrington, came to reside at the house of Mr.
and Mrs. Penmore, the former of whom was her
first cousin once removed. The persons thus
brought together do not appear to have lived on
very happy terms. Into the merits of the case
on. either side it is not necessary or desirable
that I should enter. Be these what they may,
certain it is that there was some amount of ill
feeling between Miss Carrington and the
prisoner, that it broke out from time to time, and
that on one occasion more particularly it amounted
to a serious disagreement. That disagreement
was followed by the sudden and unexpected
death of Miss Carrington, under circumstances
of something more than a suspicious kind. I
shall be able to prove, by the testimony of the
witnesses who will presently be examined before
you, that the prisoner had, on the evening of the
day on which that disagreement to which I have
alluded took place, an opportunity of supplying
Miss Carrington with meat and drink, that she
had also an opportunity of introducing into such
meat and drink any foreign matter with which
she might desire to qualify it, and that in the
course of the night on which Miss Carrington
partook of that refreshment which was conveyed
to her by the prisoner, or early on the following
morning, Diana Carrington breathed her last,
poisoned, as the medical evidence shows, by a
drug, a considerable quantity of which was found
in the possession of the prisoner."

Serjeant Probyn then proceeded to call his
witnesses, with a view of proving, as the custom
is, what he had just been advancing. The first
of these was no other than the wretched Charlotte,
the servant-of-all-work. She was called to prove
the arrival of Miss Carrington at the house in
Beaumont-street, and the fact of her residence
there, which was done something in this wise.
The first few preliminary questions as to her
name (which, by-the-by, was Grimes), her
occupation, and the like, having been disposed of, the
inquiry followed:

"Do you remember the day of Miss Carrington's
arrival?"

Witness. Yes, sir, I do.

Serjeant Probyn. You had many extra things
to do, no doubt?

Witness. Yes, sir.

Serjeant Probyn. What time did the lady
arrive?

Witness. In the evening, sir.

Serjeant Probyn. On the evening of the 29th of
November?

Witness. Yes, sir.

Serjeant Probyn. Can you remember any
circumstances connected with her arrival?

Witness. I was out when she arrived, sir. But
I came back afterwards.

Serjeant Probyn; And when you came back, do
you remember anything of what was going on?
Did everything seem comfortable between Miss
Carrington and your mistress?

Witness. No, sir. Miss Carrington didn't
seem to like anything that was done for her, and
complained a good deal.

Serjeant Probyn. And your mistress was,
naturally enough, a little irritated by so many
complaints?

Witness. No, sir, she wasn't. ' She took it
like a hangel.

[At this unintentional rebuff there was some
manifestation in the court of a tendency towards
laughter. It was at once suppressed, however.]

Serjeant Probyn. Miss Carrington was accompanied
by a servant, was she not?

Witness. Yes, sir.

Serjeant Probyn. Did she seem as little satisfied
as her mistress?

Witness. She was the worst of the two, sir.

It was evidently the object of the serjeant to
prove that from the very first there had been a
great amount of provocation inflicted on the
unhappy Gabrielle, thus gaining more and more
strength of motive for the act of which it was his
business to prove her guilty.

"In fact," said the serjeant, in that off-hand
manner of taking things for granted which is so
common among the brotherhood" in fact, they
both provoked your mistress very much?"

"They was both very provoking, sir," replied
the witness, after reflecting a little; "but my
mistress was that gentle and patient that they
couldn't make it out to quarrel with her."

"You may stand down," said Serjeant Probyn.
"Call the next witness." He had got all he
could out of this last one, and the poor faithful
drudge had done less for him than he expected.

The next witness was Jane Cantanker.

The greater part of what she had to say is
already known to us, and much of it need not be
repeated. The whole body of her evidence, as
eliminated by Serjeant Probyn, was certainly of
the most damnatory kind, and it was easy to see
that it told not a little upon the jury. It was
not difficult to gain abundant proof of motive out
of this witness. She seemed to remember every
word that had ever dropped from Gabrielle's lips
which could give the faintest indication of
impatient feeling towards her mistress, such as that
which arose from Miss Carrington's habit of
making known all her wants, connected with the
house arrangements, to Mr. rather than to Mrs.
Penmore. All that she had overheard of the
conversation between the husband and wife when
Miss Carrington was the subject of their talk, was
shamelessly reproduced; and every little petulant
expression used by Gabrielle, words spoken,
some half in fun, some without thinking what
they meant, was brought up here in court, and
made to wear a serious, even a malignant aspect.
She did not care t—the terrible vindictive woman
—how her evidence told against herself. She did
not care who knew that she had listened at doors
to conversations which she had no right to overhear.