We will neglect nothing to that end; but you, who are less familiar with the leading circumstances, must bear this in mind to guard yourselves against being misled: This lady is much attached to the accused; she clings to him and Perpetua as the only friends remaining to her from her native home.

Moreover, there is nothing to surprise me or you in the fact that a noble woman, as she is, should assume the onus of another's crime, and place herself in a doubtful light to save a man who has hitherto been honest and faithful.

The nurse is here; shall she be called, or have you, Nilus, heard from her everything that her mistress can say in favor of her freedman ?" "Perpetua told me, and told you, too, my lord, certain credible facts," replied the treasurer.

"But I could not repeat them so exactly as she herself, and I am of opinion that the woman should be brought before the court." "Then call her," said Orion, fixing his eyes on vacancy above the heads of the assembly, with a look of sullen dignity.
After a long and anxious pause the old woman was brought in.

Confident in her righteous cause she came forward boldly; she blamed Hiram somewhat sharply for keeping silence so long, and then explained that Paula, to procure money for her search for her father, had made the freedman take a costly emerald out of its setting in her necklace, and that it was the sale of this gem that had involved her fellow-countryman in this unfortunate suspicion.
The nurse's deposition seemed to have biased the greater part of the council in favor of the accused; but Orion did not give them time to discuss their impressions among themselves.