One evening when they were below stairs, there happened to be some discourse about a trial at the Sessions House, whereupon Alice expressed her desire of seeing the trials, and her sister agreeing in the request, their landlady agreed to carry them the next morning.  Accordingly they were at Sessions House by the time the Court was set, and the two young sluts were exceedingly merry at the wretched appearances the poor creatures made at the bar.  In the midst of their mirth, a man was brought up to plead to his indictment, who had only a blanket wrapped over his shirt to keep him from the weather; they were laughing and talking to some of the people behind them, when Jenny patted her sister to take notice of what the man was charged with.  Alice listened and heard the indictment read, which was for breaking open an escritoire and taking out of it ninety guineas, two diamond rings and a good tweezer.  When the clerk had done reading, the criminal answered with a low voice, Not Guilty, and the keeper thereupon took him from the bar.  As he turned, his face being towards them, Alice saw that it was the book-keeper who had lived with her, and in a low voice whispered her sister, As I hope to live, it is our Tom. They did not stay much longer, but began to consider as soon as they got home what was to be done.  Alice was sensible that the tweezer-case mentioned in the indictment had been given her, and was under a thousand frights and fears that it should be discovered and was above all wondrous careful of her landlady, that she did not go any more to the trials that Sessions.

The day they heard that sentence was passed, Jenny went to one of the runners at Newgate, and giving him a shilling, asked what had become of such a person.  The fellow answered that he was to be transported.  Jenny came immediately home with the news to her sister.  She shed a few tears and said, what if he should want in Newgate? Nay, says Jenny, let him want what he will, I’m sure you shall not be fool enough to pawn your things to relieve him; and as her fit of compassion was soon over, so they determined to remove their lodgings for fear that if he were under necessity, as they could not well doubt he was, considering the figure he made at his trial, he might send to her.  But they needed not to have been under any apprehensions of that sort, for shame and grief had brought him so low that the gaol distemper seizing on him, he died the same week he had been tried, and the runner to whom Jenny had given the shilling, remembering her face, stopped her in the street, and told her the news.  When Alice heard it, she pretended to fall into fits, and express abundance of sorrow and concern.  The sorrows were not, however, so deep but that brandy and two days’ time effaced them so well that she dressed in the best manner she was able, in order to go out and look for a spark.