the terrible sentence of the law, which is to consign her to an early and ignominious death.

The verdict and the sentence were just. The writer knew the girl very well, from his frequent intercourse with the family at Broomlands, and had many interviews with her in the prison before and after trial, seeking to awaken her to a right sense of her guilt and danger. Of a low, sullen, brutal nature, it was difficult to arouse her moral faculties in any degree, or call forth any manifestation of moral sensibility. Old sinners with seared conscience and indurated heart he has often fallen in with; but one so young, and yet so obtuse and hardened, he never met before. Yet even that callous nature was not beyond the influence of religious feeling. She quailed when the thought of standing before God, and facing the solemnities of the eternal world, was placed before her; and she wept in prayer, and read the Holy Scriptures, after she was sentenced to die. Even before her trial, she acknowledged to the writer that she "killed Master Eddy;" but it was not until she was under sentence, when concealment could avail nothing, that she confessed all the details of the murder. She had for a long time resolved to kill the boy because he "told upon her; " and she watched for an opportunity. On the afternoon of the murder, with dark and deadly purposes in her heart, she asked him to go and play at the pig-pen, for she knew no one was likely to see them there. He refused, but she went, expecting that he would follow her; and in a few minutes she saw him come galloping towards her with his whip. He struck her playfully with the whip as he came up; and she rushed upon him at once, and with all the strength she could exert, struck him to the ground, and fell upon him. Both of them fell into the thick mud flowing from the pig-pen; and, to prevent his crying out, she held down his face in the dirt till he ceased to struggle; and then she sat upon his head, and afterwards stood upon him, keeping him down until she thought he was dead. He was never able to utter one cry, for she "held him down so hard." Thinking some one might come to the pig-pen, she dragged the body away

from the place where she killed him, to the old trench, and placed it among the grass where it was found, intending when it was dark, and no one was about, to drag it to the large trench, and throw it in the water, that it might be supposed he was accidentally drowned, while playing near the water. It had not occurred to her that the child would be missed so soon, and that there would be an alarm and a search made for him in all directions, and thus her purpose would be defeated. So it often is with evil-doers. A slight defect in the well-laid plan—a trivial oversight—furnishes the clue which leads to detection, and the foul deed, and its perpetrator though covered, it is supposed, with impenetrable darkness, are laid open to the light of day.

The child-murderer was suffered to escape the extreme penalty of the law because of her youth. Several ministers, of whom the writer was one, and others, thought it right, on this ground to petition the executive for a mitigation of the capital sentence, as there was something revolting in the idea of a girl only fourteen years of age dying upon the gallows. Sir Francis Hincks, the governor-general, admitting the force of such a plea, respited the criminal shortly before the time appointed for her execution, and she now lingers out a wretched, crime-stained existence in one of the prisons of British Guiana.

On

painful bereavement; but the sufferer is insensible to it all Stunned by the heavy blow that has smitten and crushed her, she seems to hear nothing that is said. No persuasion can prevail upon her to touch food of any kind. And all this time the fountain of her tears is sealed; not a drop of moisture is to be seen in her eye or upon her cheek. It would indeed be a blessed relief if she could give expression to her anguish in a flood of tears. It comes, at length. the fourth day, when those around her begin to fear that reason will soon give way under the pressure of such a load of grief, an allusion to her fatherless children, and the necessity of her rousing herself from her prostration for their sakes, opens the sealed fountain. A plentiful flow of tears now relieves the 'Wessure upon her heart, and she gradually awakens frof the deadly stupor in which all her faculties have been held with such tenacious grasp.

For a day or two she lies helplessly weeping upon the bed, overwhelmed with a sense of her loneliness and the great loss she and her five children have sustained; a loss that can never be repaired in this world. She is now prevailed upon to take a little food, and gradually acquires strength to pay a visit to the spot where the manly, handsome form she loved so well has found its last resting-place in the dust, hidden from her eyes until the resurrection morn. Heartrending is the scene, as the desolate one, weeping tears of bitter agony, kneels and bows over the grave of the departed, as if she would embrace the very earth that covers the beloved remains. Gladly, most gladly, would she close her eyes on all earthly scenes, and be laid beside him there, if such were the Heavenly Father's will!

She has listened calmly, though with much weeping, to the details of those events of the last few days which have left her in the desolation of early widowhood. She learns from those who have been with him all through his sickness, how he arrived there on Sunday apparently in his usual health, having engaged to preach missionary sermons on that day. He preached both morning and evening, with much power and unction, taking for his text in the morning,

turely all the discomfort of sea-sickness, and the passengers thought it as well to wait for this until they reached the larger vessel, it was ignored, except by one or two whose delicate condition of health rendered the exposure to wind and rain on the deck a matter of serious hazard to their lives.

Wrapping themselves in waterproof cloaks, pea-jackets, fur tippets, Ac,, and spreading their umbrellas, the passengers set themselves to face the inclement weather as best they could; the miserable apology for an awning consisting of a piece of old canvas which overspread the deck, only serving to collect the descending rain, and pour it down in continuous streams upon those who were compelled to stand beneath it, because they could not obtain standing ground elsewhere in the uncomfortable and dirty little craft. How despicable is the sordid meanness of a wealthy Company, which thus exposes ladies and delicate children and sick persons, who embark on the vessels of their line, to dangerous risk of health and life, in order to save the small expenditure of fitting up a decent and respectable tenderboat, with a commodious deck saloon, in which passengers, compelled to entrust themselves to the tender mercies of the Company, may be protected from unpleasant and dangerous exposure, in being conveyed to and from their

vessels !

After some half-hour's delay beyond the time announced for her departure from the landing-stage, during which the crowd of passengers covering the deck became chilled with the wind, and their baggage soaked with the unceasing rain, the tender pushed out into the river. Soon we found ourselves approaching the "Tripoli," one of the Cunard line of steamers, which was about to become our home upon the deep; and distinguished from the numerous vessels around by the stars and stripes flying at her stern, and the well-known signal for sailing,—the blue Peter,—floating from her mast head. Lightly she sat upon the water, and gracefully rose and fell, as the light waves which rolled into the river passed beneath her. All eyes were turned towards the noble steamer with which we were about to form a more intimate

acquaintance. We beheld a long and narrow vessel of more than two thousand tons' burthen, carrying two square-rigged masts, with a capacious red funnel tipped with black, out of which volumes of black smoke were pouring, showing that she only waited the arrival of her passengers to commence her voyage across the wide Atlantic. Her fore-decks were already crowded with several hundred steerage passengers, who had been conveyed on board at an earlier hour of the day. The little steamer is soon alongside her more majestic principal; a stage is thrown across, sloping upward to the deck of the larger vessel, and, in a few moments, all the cabin passengers have found their way on board. There they shelter from the still falling rain, while the large heaps of baggage are transferred to the " Tripoli's" decks, though not until many packages have been thoroughly soaked by their exposure to the wet; from which a few tarpaulins would have protected them, if due care were exercised by the company to preserve their passengers from injury and

loss.

Not a little confusion prevails on board for a little while, until the sixty or seventy new arrivals have found the berths numbered upon their tickets, and got their cabin luggage safely deposited in their respective state-rooms. Meanwhile a portion of the crew are occupied in passing down the hatchway to the dry baggage-room in the centre of the vessel the numerous neat packages and trunks which are not required for use during the voyage. Before this has been completed, the anchor has been lifted, and the "Tripoli " is moving under full steam down the Mersey into the Irish sea. Once more we have left the favoured land within whose shores are to be found some of the brightest examples of Christian purity and the richest scenes of self-denying benevolence that gladden this world of ours; and some of the most unfathomable depths of crime and woe to which depravity can sink,—extremes of good and evil over which angels in their bright abode may rejoice, and devils exult and triumph.

The arrangements of our new home appear to be con