Whenever any cause of special local interest took place she had commanded the best seat in the court, and had obsequious attention paid to her.

She had learned well the aspect of the place, and the mode of procedure.

But hitherto her recollections of a court of justice were all agreeable, and her impressions those of a superior being looking down from above on the miseries and crimes of another race.
How different was the vision that branded itself on her brain this morning! She saw her husband standing at the dock, instead of some coarse, ignorant, brutish criminal; the stern gravity of the judge; the flippant curiosity of the barristers not connected with the case, and the cruel eagerness of his fellow-townsmen to get good places to hear and see him.

It would make a holiday for all who could get within the walls.
She could have written almost word for word the report of the trial as it would appear in the two papers published in Riversborough.

She could foretell how lavish would be the use of the words "felon" and "convict;" and she would be that felon and convict's wife.
Oh, this intolerable burden of disgrace! To be borne through the long, long years of life; and not by herself alone, but by her children.