that, when in agony of shame she strove to conceal her face, her temples,
her brow, her neck, and all that her slender fingers and small palms could not
cover, became of the deepest crimson.
    All marked and were moved by these changes, excepting one. It was old Deans,
who, motionless in his seat, and concealed, as we have said, by the corner of
the bench, from seeing or being seen, did nevertheless keep his eyes firmly
fixed on the ground, as if determined that, by no possibility whatever, would he
be an ocular witness of the shame of his house.
    »Ichabod!« he said to himself - »Ichabod! my glory is departed!«
    While these reflections were passing through his mind, the indictment, which
set forth in technical form the crime of which the panel stood accused, was read
as usual, and the prisoner was asked if she was Guilty, or Not Guilty.
    »Not guilty of my poor bairn's death,« said Effie Deans, in an accent
corresponding in plaintive softness of tone to the beauty of her features, and
which was not heard by the audience without emotion.
    The presiding Judge next directed the counsel to plead to the relevancy;
that is, to state on either part the arguments in point of law, and evidence in
point of fact, against and in favour of the criminal: after which it is the form
of the Court to pronounce a preliminary judgment, sending the cause to the
cognisance of the jury, or assize.
    The counsel for the crown briefly stated the frequency of the crime of
infanticide, which had given rise to the special statute under which the panel
stood indicted. He mentioned the various instances, many of them marked with
circumstances of atrocity, which had at length induced the King's Advocate,
though with great reluctance, to make the experiment, whether, by strictly
enforcing the Act of Parliament which had been made to prevent such enormities,
their occurrence might be prevented. »He expected,« he said, »to be able to
establish by witnesses, as well as by the declaration of the panel herself, that
she was in the state described by the statute. According to his information, the
panel had communicated her pregnancy to no one, nor did she allege in her own
declaration that she had done so. This secrecy was the first requisite in
support of the indictment. The same declaration admitted, that she had borne a
male child, in circumstances which gave but too much reason to believe it had
died by the hands, or