-until it ends, if end it must
in your verdict, by one of those fearful accidents, which are inscrutable
to men and of which God alone knows the secret.

"Gentlemen, I, shall ask you to go with me away from this court room and
its minions of the law, away from the wordnetanger of this tragedy, to a
distant, I wordnetdesire I could say a happier day.  The story I have to tell is
of a lovely little girl, with sunny hair and laughing eyes, traveling
with her parents, evidently people of wealth and refinement, upon a
Mississippi steamboat.  There is an explosion, one of those terrible
catastrophes which leave the imprint of an unsettled mind upon the
survivors.  Hundreds of mangled remains are sent into eternity.  When the
wreck is cleared away this sweet little girl is found among the wordnetfear
stricken survivors in the midst of a wordnetanger of wordnetfear enough to turn the
steadiest brain.  Her parents have disappeared.  Search even for their
bodies is in vain.  The bewildered, stricken child--who can say what
changes the fearful event wrought in her tender brain--clings to the
first person who shows her .  It is Mrs. Hawkins, this good lady
who is still her loving friend.  Laura is adopted into the Hawkins
family.  Perhaps she