She was evidently a child of the streets. Her dress was ragged and foul, and even her face so unclean as to be barely redeemed by the large, beautiful black eyes which would alone have betrayed the sunny clime of her origin. While the wretched criminal stood, shame-facedly and with drooping crest, before her, she fell upon his manacled hands, kissing them wildly, and betraying in her childish grief all the deep, sensitive, despairing sorrow of a woman. The villain before her might have often beaten her, debased her immeasurably, but the mysterious cord that linked their beating hearts was unbroken, though it sang like a bowstring in the gusty horror that swept between, and stretched to attenuation as the elder spirit sank, groaning, into the abyss of its own wickedness. Hot tears gushed from her eyes, her little throat was swollen with the choking sobs, and her narrow, rag-covered chest heaved with tumultuous agony. But after he was taken away, when the iron door which to her was, indeed, the door of the tomb, had closed between them forever, she became quickly calm, and her face soon wore an air of quiet resignation.
As she was about leaving the court-room she stooped and picked up a weather-stained guitar. I guessed her vocation, and was resolved to speak to her.
'Angela, sir.' It was a sad voice, but very sweet.
The court had been dismissed, and the crowd were confusedly dispersing.
'I say, little gal, can't you give us a song 'afore you go?' said an inconsiderate policeman, meaning to be good-natured.
'I shall not sing to-day, sir!' said the little girl, decisively; and then, with a dignity of grief which sat well upon her, despite her rags, she passed out of the room with her dingy guitar, while the large man who had accosted her so rudely shrank back, abashed, before the glance with which the black eyes reproached him to the heart, ere they vanished in the crowd.
Here was a chance for me. I happened to be the only reporter present at the scene--'sensation' was my forte--a 'beat' upon all the other dailies had come directly to my hand. It was late in the week, and I was also afforded the chance of cooking the thing up remuneratively for two or three weekly papers. But the whole thing stood before me like a picture which it seemed a sacrilege to copy. So I cheated the _Tribune_ with the rest, and, for the first time in my life, let the opportunity for a sensation slip my hand. No credit to either heart or head, however, for a relapse into my chronic state of impecuniosity, on the following week, caused me to curse a squeamishness whose absence might have earned a score of dollars.