UNDER THE BED.

Temuka Leader, 10 August 1882, Page 3

UNDER THE BED.

It is a well authenticated fact that a pious woman in the suburbs of London did discover th.fi of a bold, bad housebreaker sticking out just as she began her petition. She did net shriek, but went on with a prayer for that particular sianer that would have melted the heart of a Newgate thief. I wish that it might be added that he was converted on the spot, came out, was pardoned, aud afterward* married the petitioner. But truth compels me to add that the good woman was interrupted in the mo?t solema part of her prayer by a peal of laughter from the graceleis young brother who enacted the part of a burglar. A prominent Judge in Birmingham, N. H., was found murdered in his own house and no clue to the murderer. The young daughter and the servants. This daughter was on the night of the murder undressing in her room when she held her white and rounded arm above her head, and, conscious of its beauty, said aloud : " What a beautiful arm !" little thinking the idle remark of such consequence as it proved to be in the trag«dy that followed. The girl both saw and heard her father's murderer, but as he was masked, failed to distinguish his features, but always declared she would know his voice if ever she heard it. Several years passed, and in another city she was standiag in a crowd, when a stranger looked at her with singular intensity, and exclaimed : " Oh, the beautifnl arm !" She knew the voice, in an instant, and throwing herself bodily on the man denounced him as her father's murderer. He was arrested, tried, and convicted, and told how he had lain hidden under the bed and heard the idle remark of the young girl which she herself had been scarcely conscious of. He had recognised her on meeting her, and involuntarily betrayed himself, as ht had been a stranger and an unsuspected party.