Repay it! How could she? And so she said bitterly that she had no hope.

Her heart was almost broken. Mrs. Laylor, of course, condoled with her,

soothed her, reassured her of her pure friendship, took out the watch

and put the chain over her neck, sent down and had the Bible brought up,

and with it a bottle of wine, one of the half brandy sort, and insisted

upon her drinking of it freely, and driving off the blues; and then,

after she had got her into a state of partial intoxication, and fit for

any act of desperation, sent for Frank Barkley, who had just arrived, to

come up to Athalia's room, and play a game of cards. She had never

before consented to that, but now Mrs. Laylor was there, and she

desired it, and so he came. It had been all previously arranged that he

should, and that he should order another bottle of wine--mixed wine--and

then Mrs. Laylor was called out, and went suddenly, saying as she did

so:

"Let the cards lie, I will be back in a minute."

That minute never came. That night was the last of conscious purity

which had so long sustained Athalia through all her trials.

For the next six months she never allowed herself to think. She was

lost. The instruments of darkness had betrayed her into the deepest

consequences.

The scene shifts.

Shall we see Athalia again?

Wait.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LITTLE PEDLAR.--MORE OF ATHALIA.

"Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile,"

And thus at this may laugh the scoffer.

"Let those laugh who win."

We started in the first chapter of our volume of "Life Scenes," to take

an evening-walk up Broadway. How little progress we have made. We turned

off at Cortland street, to follow Mrs. Eaton and her children home, and

then we went with the crowd to the fire. Then we came back to listen to

the cry of "Hot Corn, hot corn! here is your nice hot corn, smoking

hot!" that came up in such plaintive music from the mouth of Little

Katy, in the Park. Then we followed her to her home, and to her grave.

What a ramble I have led you, reader. Occasionally our route has led us

back again and again into this great, broad, main artery of the lower

part of this bustling world, this great moving, living body, called New

York. There are several other broadways in the upper part of the city.

We have but one in the lowest portion of it--that is for carriages.

There are a good many broadways of the town, through which pedestrians

go, where they "put an enemy in the mouth to steal away the brains," an

enemy

"Whose edge is sharper than the sword: whose tongue

Out-venoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath

Rides on the winds, and doth belie

All corners of the world; kings, queens, and states,

Maids, matrons," all in one fell swoop,

To earth struck down.

Such a broadway may be seen, nay, must be seen, by all who enter the

great, high, oaken doors of the granite portal of one of the best of the

great Broadway hotels in New York, for the way is wide open, inviting

the weary traveller to enter the great, dome-shaped "exchange"--exchange

of gold, health, peace of mind, domestic blessings, for a worm that will

gnaw out the very soul; a worm with teeth, "whose edge is sharper than

the sword."

That granite pile is a creditable ornament to the city. Its walls have a

look of solidity as enduring as the hills. Yet it contains an element

within that has settled the strong built fabrics of a greater Master

Builder than the architect of that house, down to the very dust, in a

few short years, carrying with it marble palaces and granite walls.

That building was erected by one who sprang, from a class as lowly as

the day laborer who helped to rear its walls, to almost immeasurable

wealth, by a life of industry, free from the vice or misfortune of

drunkenness.

At first it did not contain that great broadway to death. True, death

had his abode there, but he kept in a cave out of sight. He did not

thrust his hideous visage into the face of every guest, as he does now.

The place of his "exchange" was then a place of green grass and flowers

and sparkling fountains, upon which all the interior windows of that

great caravansery looked down with joy and gladness, smiling o'er the

perfumed atmosphere, and beauty admired beautiful flowers, and listened

to love-inspiring songs of birds, and pattering of falling water in the

great marble basin. Ah! that was a court, worthy of such a traveller's

home. But it did not produce the profit that flows to the owner through

another liquid channel, where that fountain once leaped, played and

sparkled in the sunshine. Lovely eyes still look down from the

surrounding chamber windows, not upon the flowers and birds and crystal

waters, but upon an unsightly dome, and in fancy through its roof, and

there they see their husbands, brothers, fathers, friends, putting an

enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains. How fancy will work;

how it will send sharp pangs to the heart; sharper than a two-edged

sword; how the feeble wife will look down upon that roof, and pray for

it to give up her husband. Other wives have prayed the tomb for the same

object, both equally effective. Both will pray to both again, and both

will feel that hardest of all pangs for a wife to bear, the pang that

tells of a lost husband; lost in one case almost as sure as the other;

the loss more hard to bear, when lost while living, than when lost by

death.

I was sitting, one night, in the corridor of this, with the exception of

its drinking "exchange," really good, well managed hotel, looking over

the balustrade, at the in-coming and out-going throng, counting the

numbers that went rum-ward as three to one, to those who went up the

solid stone steps, already deeply worn by the constant dropping of

feet, and trying to read the varied countenances of the ever-changing,

varying scene before me. It is a useful study, to study our own kind; it

is a good place, in the corridor of a great hotel, to practice. Every

now and then, a face beamed out from the mass which made me sensible

that it was not new, but whether an old acquaintance, or one seen before

in some other crowd, I could not tell. Once only I was sure that the

face which riveted my attention was that of one I had called friend,

yet, for my life, I could not tell when or where. It was one of those

faces which we never forget. It was one which a child would approach

with confidence, to ask for a favor. It was one, which a stranger in his

walk through the city, would pick out among a hundred, to ask for a

direction to a particular street. Ten chances to one, he would not be

satisfied to give that stranger a direction in words, but would turn

round, and go a little out of the way to show the inquirer the best

route, or stand upon the side-walk until one of the right line of stages

came up so as to be sure that he went right. There are a few such faces,

which go far to redeem the mass from the charge of coldness or

selfishness, which does seem to be the distinguishing mark of the

majority.

I followed this one up the steps, and as far as the vision extended, as

he walked away to one of the parlors. He was an elderly man, silvering

with age, neatly, but plainly dressed, and I could not help feeling that

he looked in everything about him, as though it would rejoice his very

soul to have a chance to do a good action. I was not mistaken. You will

not be if you read on. I could not sit still after he had passed up. I

went into a long train of thought upon the mental question, the one

absorbing question, "Who is he?" The argument grew intensely painful,

and I became so much absorbed in it, that I almost forgot for a moment

where I was, until I was brought back to consciousness by a little voice

in my ear, of, "Please to buy these, sir." I almost said, no, without

deigning to look up at the quasi beggar, as the frequency of the

question, in all public places, is such that it is somewhat annoying.

But there was a something in the tone of the voice that sent its

magnetic power through me, and put down that spirit which gives the cold

shoulder to the poor, and bids them "call again to-morrow."

"There is a Providence in all things," many a pious heart will aspirate,

as the truths of this little incident are made manifest. It does,

certainly, seem a little singular that this little pedlar girl should be

the chosen instrument of connexion between me and that benevolent

gentleman, whom I had been vainly endeavoring to recognise in thought,

and also another character, with which the reader is already acquainted.

What is there in a word, or tone, the mere sound of the voice, that

sends a stream of magnetic fluid through the system, to repel or attract

the speaker?

What singular means are used to bring about strange results! I was

magnetized by that voice. What the result was, you shall see. But after

the fluid had once entered my brain, I could no more repel the voice, or

its owner, or drive it away, than the iron can disengage itself from the

magnet. I looked up, and a little girl with a basket upon her arm was

standing by my side, holding up a pair of suspenders while she uttered

the "Please buy these, sir?" close to my ear. She was a pretty child,

between twelve and thirteen years old, rather precocious in appearance;

was neatly dressed, and possessed of such a mild, sweet voice, that the

mocking-bird might imitate it in his dulcet notes.

I could not say, no, in such tones as would send her away, and so I

replied, pleasantly, "No, my girl, I do not wish to buy them."

The timid take courage at mild words. Was she too, attracted by mine?

There is magnetism in the human voice.

"Then, perhaps, you will buy a box of matches?" "No." "Or a comb." "No."

"Oh, do buy something, sir, it is getting late, and I am so anxious to

sell a few shillings' worth more. Will you buy a pair of gloves? you

wear gloves, don't you? Oh! do let me sell you a pair, you look as

though you would buy something of me if you wanted anything. Will you

buy a shirt collar? There is a nice one, sir, one that my sick mother

made, sir. Will you buy that?"

"No, my girl, I never wear collars, but I will buy a pair of gloves, if

you will answer me a few questions."

"Will you? Well sir, if they are such as I may answer, I will, and I

don't think you would ask me any other--some men do, though."

"That is just one of the questions I wanted to ask you."

"Oh, sir, I wish you would not ask me what some men say to me, it is so

bad; only yesterday evening, one very bad man--but I cannot tell."

And she burst into tears.

"Well, then, don't tell if it distresses you so."

"It won't now, and I want to tell you, because I should like to let you

know what a good man that grey-headed old gentleman is that came in just

before I did."

"What, the one with a gold-headed cane?"

"Yes, sir, a tall man, with a grey frock-coat, and such a good-looking

face."

"Then, I do want you to tell me, if it is anything about him. I think I

have seen him before."

"Then, I hope you will again, for he is one of the real good men. Well,

sir, yesterday evening, I was here, and I offered to sell some things to

a young gentleman, and he talked so clever, that I felt glad to think

how many things he was going to buy, for he picked out a pair of gloves

and six shirt collars, and several other things, and told me to come up

to his room, and get the money, and I went up; I did not think it any

harm, for I had been up several times before to gentlemen's rooms, and

they never acted bad to me, but this one did, and I was so frightened

that I screamed, and then he caught me, and put his handkerchief to my

mouth, and I don't know what he would have done, but just then I heard a

rap at the door, and somebody demanded to come in, but the door was

locked, and he could not, and so the man that held me told him, but it

did no good, for he was a strong man, and he burst the lock off in an

instant, and how he did talk to the one in the room, and he made him

pay me for all the things he had picked out, and then he told him to

pack up his trunk, and leave the city by the first boat or railroad in

the morning. And then he told him how he had watched his manoeuvres,

and then he took me in his room, and talked to me so good, so kind, and

asked me all about my mother, and where she lived, and what she did, and

why I went about peddling, and all that; and then he asked me if I would

not like to go and live with some good family in the country? and then I

told him that I should like to live with him, for, indeed, sir, I loved

him, he talked so good to me. Then he gave a little sigh, and said, 'Ah,

my girl, I wish I had a home to take you to, but I have none; I am a

lone man in the world, but I will go and see your mother, and see what

we can do for you, as you have grown too big for such work as this. You

must quit it, or ruin is your doom,' and a great deal more, he said."

"And why have you followed it till now?"

"Because my mother would not let me quit it--in fact, sir, I do not see

how we could live if I did quit, for I make about three dollars a week,

and that is more than my mother can make with her needle, and work every

day till midnight; and then she is sick sometimes, and so I must do

something, for mother is very feeble and says she is almost worn out,

and that I shall soon have nobody but myself to work for. I am sure I

don't know what will become of me then; do you, sir?"

I thought, but dared not give it utterance. And I almost wept at the

certainty of her sad fate, if she remained in the city; a fate she could

not escape from, without abandoning her helpless mother, one of the poor

sewing women of this pandemonium.

"Now, will you buy the gloves, for I have answered all the questions you

asked?"

"One more. What is your mother's name?"

"May--Mrs. May. If you should want any shirts made, sir, there is her

name and number on that little card."

"Is that your mother's writing?"

"Yes, sir; don't she write pretty? I can write too, but not like that."

"Well, I shall call and see your mother, if I want work. Here is the

money for the gloves."

"I cannot make change; have you got the change, or shall I run out and

get it changed? I will if you will keep my basket."

"No, no; I do not wish any change. You may keep it all."

"Oh, that is just the way that good old gentleman said last night--keep

it all. Ah, me!"

And she gave a little start of surprise as she looked at the individual

who seemed to be standing behind my chair.

"Why, here he is now. I do wonder if he has heard me talking all about

him? I hope I have not said anything wrong."

"No, no, nothing that you need to blush for. I am glad you have found

another friend to talk with; one who is willing to pay you for the

time--time is money--that he keeps you from your business."

It was my turn to start now. I had heard that voice before. In a moment

I could fix it in my memory, though it was a good many years since I had

heard it, and then it was in the wilds of the West. I offered him my

hand, and said:

"We have shaken hands before. Your name is--"

"Lovetree. And now I know you. I thought it was some one whom I had seen

before. I saw you in such earnest conversation with this little pedlar

girl, that I could not help drawing nigh to hear; I must own I wished to

see if she would tell you the same story she did me. I think now she is

a girl of truth. What can we do for her? Shall we go and see her

mother?"

"I wish you would to-morrow. She is not at home to-night. She has

gone--at any rate she told me she would go to see a lady, a real good

lady, who is worse off than my mother, for she is in a bad house, and

she wants to get away; she told me so to-day, and they will not let her.

She is one of the best women in the world. She is a dress-maker, and she

used to live so nice in Broome street, close by my mother, with another

good girl, and that girl got married and moved away off out West, I

don't know how many thousand miles; and this girl got married too; and,

oh dear! her husband used to get so drunk, and go to bad places, and his

wife used to work and work; my mother used to work for her, and she was

good to my mother, and that is what makes me so sorry for her now."

"How came she in the bad house you tell of, and how did you come to find

her there?"

"Oh my, I cannot tell you all about it, I don't know; I know she had an

auction, and she went away in a carriage, and I felt so sorry, and I did

not know where she went; but to-day, I saw that same carriage, and saw

her with that same woman, and I followed it home, and then I went up to

the door, and I told the girl I had come to see Mrs. Morgan; that was no

lie, for I had, if I did not know before that she was there; and that

Mrs. Morgan wanted to buy some needles; that was a lie; but what should

I say, I wanted to see her so bad; and then the girl said, she was not

there, that there was no Mrs. Morgan in the house, and then I felt bad,

because I knew she was there, and I was afraid something was wrong, and

I began to cry, indeed, sir; don't laugh at me, I could not help it, I

would have cried my eyes out to see her, but the girl said, she was not

there, and I said, I saw her come there in the carriage, just a minute

ago; and then another girl told the servant girl, it was Lucy, Lucy

Smith, that I wanted to see; but I knew it was not, but I thought I

would go up and see Lucy Smith, and may be she would tell me about Mrs.

Morgan; and so I went to Lucy Smith's room, and I rapped on the door,

and somebody said, come in; I thought I should go off, for I knew the

voice in a minute, and I opened the door, and then it was not Lucy

Smith, they only called her so for sham, and so that nobody would know

her; it was Mrs. Morgan. How glad I was to see her, and how glad she was

to see me; how she did hug me and kiss me, and call me her little pet;

and then she told me--but you don't want to hear--why did you not stop

me before--my mother says I always talk too much when I get a-going; I

am sorry that I have talked so much, but, oh, how I do wish you would go

and see Mrs. Morgan, and help her to get away from there; I will give

you all the money I have made to-day, to help you, and I am sure my

mother would give it as soon as I would, for she cried and took on so

when I told her. Oh dear! I know well enough she never would be a bad

woman, unless they made her."

"I do not understand this matter at all; do you?"

"Oh, yes, I replied, perfectly. Some poor unfortunate woman, with a

miserable, drunken husband, has been driven by necessity, probably to

take up her abode in some house of sin, where she finds her life

miserable, and is anxious to escape; I suppose that is it."

"Anxious to escape! Why, sir, you confuse me worse than ever. No one is

obliged to stay in such houses, are they? If she wished to go away, she

could go; it is her own sinful choice that she is there."

"Friend Lovetree, how long have you lived out West?"

"Well, some twenty-five years, I suppose. You have a short way of

turning a corner. Was I talking anything about the West?"

"No. Twenty-five years. This city has changed some in that time, and you

have got behind the times. You don't know as much as this little girl

about this matter. Ask her."

"How is it little girl--what did you tell me was your name?"

"Stella, sir, Stella May."

"Well then Stella, what is to hinder this Mrs. Morgan from coming away

if she wishes?"

"Because she is in debt, sir."

"Debt, sir, debt! do private citizens imprison their fellows for debt?

Are women compelled to live in houses of prostitution in this city, a

city where the Bible is read and gospel preached, against their will?

Preposterous, I will not believe it."

"Nevertheless it is gospel truth, as much as the Bible itself. The

keepers of such houses sometimes inveigle innocent young girls into

their dens, board and clothe them, and get them in debt, and in fact

make them slaves, as sure as those who are bought and sold in southern

cities. They cannot leave unless they leave naked, with the mark of

their owner branded, not upon the surface of their bodies, but burnt

into the inmost recesses of the mind.

"Sometimes those who go there voluntarily, repent afterwards most

bitterly, most gladly would leave, but the door is closed against them,

they are shut out of the world by the mark upon them, and shut in by

their creditor mistress, or kept in such a state of intoxication that

they have no time to redeem themselves from their life of slavery.

"From this little girl's account I venture to say that this woman is

some one of the thousands of poor seamstresses, who stitch and starve in

this city, who perhaps in very despair after a long struggle to live

with a drunken husband, has been tempted into one of these places, and

is now repenting grievously, and would gladly get away, but has not the

means to do so; for she lacks a small sum to pay her greedy landlady

some iniquitous charge, and a few dollars and some friend to assist her

in her immediate necessities. Thus she will live a short life of

excitement, and go friendless and unwept to an early grave."

"She shall not. She shall not. I have money, useless, idle, more than I

shall ever want, and I have no friends. I will be her friend, I will

rescue her, and she shall be mine."

Stella, the little pedler, had stood as though transfixed, during all

this time, drinking in every word, until she found that her friend, poor

Mrs. Morgan, would have some one to care for her, some one to love her

as she loved her, one who had money, "more money than he wanted," to

assist her, and then she grew as enthusiastic as Mr. Lovetree. She

caught him by the hand, and as the tears ran down her cheeks, tears of

joy, blessed tears, that drop like honey upon the lips, sending

sweetness through every channel of sensation in the whole system, she

said, "Will you, will you give her money to get out of that place? Will

you go and see her? Will you love her? Oh I am so happy! I must run home

and tell my mother, and that will make her happy too. Now I am so glad I

told you all about it."

"And you will do it," said she, looking up in his face so earnestly,

"yes, I know you will, you don't look like one of those kind of folks

who say one thing and mean another."

Yes he would do it, I knew that; naturally enthusiastic, though not

easily carried away by sudden flaws of side winds, when he once said, "I

will do it," it was half done.

"Now I will run home and tell mother, for I want her to be as happy as

me. Good night."

"Stop, stop a moment, you have not told us where the poor lady is that

you wish us to go and see, nor what her name is."

"Oh dear, I forgot that. Yes I told you, Mrs. Morgan, but you want her

whole name; well that is such a pretty name; I love pretty names; have

you a card, I will write it for you."

"What, can you write?"

"Oh yes, sir, before we got so poor, I used to go to school. I would

like to go now, but I have no time. You ought to see my mother write;

she can write so pretty."

I saw what was working in the benevolent old gentleman's face, while

Stella was writing. He had heard her say, "I would like to go to school

now," and he was resolving in his mind, "Why not? Why should I not send

her there? I have none of my own to send." It was a good resolve.

"There, that is it. 'Mrs. Athalia Morgan, at Mrs. Laylor's in H----n

street.' I don't recollect the number, but you can find it easy enough;

mother says it does seem as though the evil one always stood ready to

lead folks to such houses. But you had better inquire for Lucy Smith.

They don't know her by any other name there. Shall I go now? Good night.

I am so anxious to tell mother."

"Athalia!--Athalia!" said my friend, as he spelt over the name on the

card. "Athalia! oh, pshaw! that is nonsense, yet it might be--why not? I

say, my little girl, you knew her before she was married. What was her

name then?"

"And what is that, 'why not,' and what about that name? The little girl

is well on her way home, by this time, if she kept on at the speed she

went down stairs. Her earnestness makes me begin to feel a good deal

interested in that woman."

"Nothing, only a thought, a mere passing thought, and yet I cannot shake

it off. It is rather an unusual name. I had a brother--yes, I had a

brother, whether I have or not now, I cannot tell; yet he was not

exactly a brother either, though we called the same woman mother, and

the same man father, and whether he is living now or not I cannot say,

but think not. He did very badly, drank up all his property, and took

the usual course, and I suppose he is dead, and his wife too, and then

his children are orphans, and why not this be one of them; it is the

same name. Athalia--it is not a common name; if it had been I should not

remember it, for I never saw her but once, then a little girl not as big

as this one just here. I wish she had not run away so soon, before I

could ask her a single question. What shall I do now?"

"Go and ask Athalia herself."

"What! to-night? It is now ten o'clock, time all respectable citizens

were in bed. It is too late."

"No, it is never too late to begin to do good. It is just the hour that

the lives of the inmates of such houses, as we propose to visit, begin.

From this till one or two o'clock, drinking, carousing, swearing, and

all sorts of revelry and debauchery, and then----it is well that night

has curtains. Now this house where we are to go, however, I take, from

its location, to be one of a different character, one that maintains a

show of respectability, yet is one of the most dangerous, for its

victims are drawn from among a class just as good as Stella has

described Mrs. Morgan."

"You think, then, that we may go there safely, at this hour of the

night?"

"As safely, as respects our persons, as to church. As dangerously, as

respects our morals, as the poor weak bird fluttering within the charmed

circle of the fascinating serpent."

"As to that I fear nothing."

"So has said many a one. I say,

'He must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil,'

or he will soon come to such familiarity that he will eat freely out of

the same dish. No man is proof against the fascinations of a designing

woman. But as we go doubly armed, for our cause is just, let us go, go

at once, for I see you are excited about that name. It would be strange,

if it should prove to be your niece."

"Yes and stranger still, the way that we have been brought together, and

to a knowledge of her, through our mutual sympathy for this little

pedler girl, such an one as we may see every hour in the streets,

without exciting a passing thought. What a mysterious power governs all

our actions, and how we are influenced and turned aside from the path

we had marked out, by the most trivial circumstances. I had seen this

little girl come in here and offer her little wares a score of times,

without paying any attention to her or her movements, except to wonder

how any mother could trust such a child, bright, good-looking, free

spoken, forward--that is, precocious--among so many fops and libertines,

who would take advantage of her some day, and by deceit and money work

her ruin. Last night I had put on my gloves and hat, and was just

walking out as she came in with her 'Please to buy this, sir,' and why I

did not go out I cannot tell, but some unaccountable influence turned me

back, and I picked up a paper and sat apparently absorbed in its

contents, while my ear was open and mind awake to every word and

movement of the libertine rascal who made a pretence of buying

liberally, to induce her to go up to his room to get the pay. I

followed, watched him to his room, heard the key turn in the lock, heard

all his conversation, his vile proposals, and her virtuous rejection,

with an energy, 'that she had rather starve and see her mother dead;'

and then I heard a struggle and I knew the villain was using his brutal

strength upon a weak girl, and then I burst the door, and then--you know

the rest."

"Why did you not strike the villain dead at your feet?"

"That is savage nature."

"Why not arrest and punish him, then, for his attempt at rape?"

"That is civilized nature."

"What then did you do?"

"I forgave him, and bade him repent, and ask God to forgive him, as I

did."

"Lovetree, give me your hand, I give you my heart; I stand rebuked. I

understand you now, that was Christian nature. Let us go."

Reader, walk with us. We threaded our way along the crowded side-walk,

passing or meeting, between the Astor House and Canal street, not less

than fifty girls; some of them not over twelve years old, many about

fourteen or fifteen, some of them superbly beautiful, naturally or

artificially, and all, such as the spirit, hovering over the poor

shipwrecked mariner upon the stormy ocean, cries wildly to, as they

sink, down, down, to death, "lost, lost, lost!"

"Why, why, tell me why they are permitted to roam through the streets,

plying their seductive arts? Where are your police? Where your city

Fathers?--guardians of the morals of strangers and citizens! How can

anything, male or female, remain pure in such an atmosphere of impurity?

Where are your laws? laws of love that lift up the fallen. Where all

your high-paid, well-fed city guardians, who should watch the city

youth, to keep them from becoming impure?"

Echo gave the answer, and it reverberated back and forth from granite

wall to freestone, from marble front to red-burnt bricks, from dark

cellar to gas-lighted hall, from low dens of death to high rooms of

wealth and fashion, from law makers to law breakers; echo came back with

that one word, "Impure, impure, impure."

How the throng go thoughtlessly onward. Do they ever think--think what

a sirocco blast from the valley of the Upas tree, is sweeping over this

city? Do mothers ever inquire, ever think whether it is possible for

their sons to escape the contagion of such company as they keep in the

great evening promenade of this mighty Babylon? Have New York mothers no

feeling of fear for their sons? or has "the pestilence that walketh in

darkness," obtained such strength that this is overcome? or has the

plague spot grown so familiar to their eyes that they no longer seek to

wash it out? If they have given up their sons, if they have surrendered

the great street to the almost exclusive occupancy, at night, of painted

harlots; have they also given up their daughters, surrendered them to

the wiles of the seducer? do they let them go out without fear, even in

company with their male friends, to be jostled upon the side-walks by

midnight ramblers, and seated at the same table, at some of the great

"saloons," side by side with those who win to kill, whose trade is

death, whose life is gilded misery, though enticing as the siren's song?

Have they forgotten that we are all creatures of surrounding

circumstances, subject to like influences, and liable to the same

disease as those who breathe the same atmosphere, and if that is impure,

those who breathe it may become so?

Even now, while I write, the "New York Daily Tribune," gives this "Item"

to its readers:--

"MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.--On Sunday evening last, between six

and seven o'clock, Miss G. C---- left her father in Spring

street, near Broadway, to go to her brother-in-law's (Mr.

B----), No. -- Spring street, since which time nothing has been

heard of her, and it is feared that she has been dealt foully

with. She is seventeen years of age, good-looking and rather

tall; dark complexion, and dark eyes; lisps somewhat when in

conversation. She was dressed in plaid, light and dark stripe;

Talma cape; straw bonnet, trimmed with white outside, and green

and white inside. Her disappearance has caused the deepest

affliction to her family, and any information that can be given

will be gratefully received by her aged parent, No.--Spring

street."

"It is feared that she has been foully dealt with." Yes, and it ought to

be feared that "good-looking, rather tall" young girls, are foully dealt

with in the streets of this city, every night in the week. It is feared

she is not the first girl of seventeen, whose "mysterious disappearance

has caused the deepest affliction to her family."

"Any information will be gratefully received." Yes, any information will

be gratefully received by the author of this book, which he can use

effectually to awaken aged parents to the fact, that each one of these

girls who wander the streets at midnight, or who fill up the dens of

infamy that line whole blocks of some of the best streets in this city,

is somebody's child; some "mysterious disappearance," that has caused

deep affliction, and will cause more, for she is now influencing others

to disappear from the path of rectitude, in the same way that she did.

Perhaps, yea, it is probable, more than probable, that Miss G. C---- has

been inveigled into one of these dens where worse than cannibals live,

for they only eat the body, while these destroy the soul.

How long would a house be permitted to stand, where human flesh was

served up as a banquet for those who delighted to feast upon such dainty

food? A house where young girls were driven in by force or fascination,

to be cooked and eaten by young epicures and gouty gormandizers. How the

city's indignation would boil over, and how the storm of wrath would

beat upon that house, until there would not be one stone left upon

another.

Yet how calmly that same public sleeps on by the side of a thousand

worse houses, where victims are worse than cooked and eaten every

day--they are roasted alive.

How coldly parents will read that "mysterious disappearance;" they will

never think that girl has been destroyed by cannibals, far worse are

here--they belong to savage life.

How carelessly, how thoughtlessly mothers will read this page that tells

how their daughters may be influenced to ruin themselves, by such

unfortunate associations as they must meet with in their walks through

the city, while our municipal government permits the streets to be

monopolized by the impure, because it is itself just what the echo

answered.

How I would rejoice if I could make the truth manifest, as regards this

matter, that, "to the pure all things are pure."

Now, let us walk on.

You need not stop to drop anything into the hand of that woman with a

child on her lap. True, she looks like a pitiable object, with her

opium-drugged infant wrapped in that old blue cloak, but she is not. She

is a professional beggar. I have known her these three years. That child

is not hers. It is hired for the purpose. It draws a share of the

benefit, as it does the sympathy of those who are attracted by that

well-put-on, appealing look. That child is kept by a woman who keeps

three others "to let." They never grow too big. Laudanum is not the food

that infants grow upon. They will die young, and others will be begged,

borrowed, or stolen, for the same purpose.

There, the sixpence you have given that little child, will go into the

till of that "family grocery," before we are a block farther on our way.

I know her.

It is hardly charity to give to that man; I know him too, and where he

lives.

"But, he is blind."

I know it, and that is his fortune. With it he supports himself and

family of great idle girls and boys, better than many others live who

labor. He is a stout, rugged, hearty man, capable of doing much useful

labor, if he had any one to direct him.

"Well, here, what of this?"

Yes, you may give there; no, give me the quarter, see what I will do

with it. I will buy two smiles.

"Good evening, Joseph, how do you do this evening?"

"Oh, very well, sir, thank you. How are you this evening?"

"Very well. How is trade with you, Joseph? Do these gay people buy your

bouquets?"

"Well, some do, sir, but these big boys and stout men can run about and

forestall a poor black man who has got no legs."

"Joseph, has that sewing woman been down this evening; the one who

always stops to give you a kind word and look, and smell of your

flowers?"

"What, the one that looks so pale, the one who makes shirt collars; the

one you gave the bouquet to, sir?"

"Yes; and I want you to give her another, here is the money."

"I wish I had known it a few minutes ago, for her daughter went by; she

stopped a moment just to admire this one, and said, how she did wish she

could afford to buy it for her mother; and then she said, it did not

matter, she had such good news to tell her, and she picked up her

basket, and away she ran."

There was a queer idea came into my mind, when he said basket, just as

though there could be but one girl out to-night with a basket. I was

about to drive away the idea as a foolish one, when something whispered

me, "Ask him." So I did.

"A girl with a basket? Who is that girl with a basket; do you know her

name?"

"Oh, yes. We call her, the little pedler. She is a nice girl. Her

mother's name is May."

The queer idea was a true one after all. And so this woman, whom I had

often seen speaking pleasant words to this poor legless Negro man, who

sits night after night, upon the Broadway side-walk, selling bouquets,

is Mrs. May, the little pedler's mother.

"Do you know where she lives?--could you get anybody to carry this to

her to-night?"

"Yes, sir, here is Tom Top, he will go in a minute; he will do anything

for me, or for a lady; he is ragged and dirty, but he is a good boy; it

is a pity he had not somebody to be good to him. Tom, will you go to

Mrs. May's for me? Stella, the little pedler's mother, you know where

she lives?"

"Yes, sir, shall I carry that? Is that for Stella?"

"No, that is for her mother."

"And this," said Mr. Lovetree, picking up another beauty, "this is for

Stella. Stop, Tom. Here is a shilling for you. Don't tell who sent you.

Now let us go on. You know this poor black fellow, then, do you? What is

his name!"

"Joseph Butler. He was a sailor. He was shipwrecked, and lost his legs

by freezing, fourteen years ago. He has been to sea five years since, as

cook, hobbling around on the stumps. Now, he supports his family by

selling bouquets. Did you ever see a finer face? Always cheerful,

intelligent, and polite; it is a pleasure to buy flowers of him. It is a

wonder that ladies and gentlemen do not all feel it a duty and pleasure

both, to buy all their bouquets of this poor cripple."

"It is because they never think. If they did, they certainly would."

"Then, I must ask them to think. I must try and awaken the sympathies of

the benevolent to look at this poor unfortunate black man as they pass,

and see if they do not think him a fit subject for honest sympathy. He

is not a beggar. He gives a fair equivalent for your money. At least,

give him a kind word, or pleasant look, and he will return you the

same."

How we do linger in our walk. So will you, reader, if you come to New

York, and undertake to see all the curiosities of Broadway, in one

night.

At length, we reached Mrs. Laylor's. It is a handsome house, in a quiet

street. My friend hesitated about entering. He thought I must be

mistaken. It did not look like what he had conceived of such houses.

Then he was afraid they would suspect us, and would not let us in.

"For the fact is, we do not look much like the class of men who visit

such places," said he.

"That shows how little you know of life in New York. Let me manage this

matter, and I assure you, they will think us two old rakes, rich ones,

too, out of whom they may make a harvest."

So we went up the broad, high steps, and rang the bell with a jerk, that

said, as near as bells can speak, that is somebody that has been here

before. The lady, as is the usual practice, came herself to the door,

unlocked it, and opened it a little way, where it is held by a chain, so

that she could reconnoitre, and if the company did not suit, or if a

stranger applied, she would refuse him, particularly, if she had plenty

of company, unless he could give very good references.

I thought of that, and so I said, with the same confidence that I had

put into my pull of the bell, "Good evening, Mrs. Laylor, how do you do

this evening? You were unwell the other evening when I was here. This is

Mr. Treewell, from the South." That was an "open sesame," that undid

the chain directly, and we walked in as old acquaintances. True, she

could not exactly locate us, but our easy assurance carried us through.

"Walk into the parlor, gentlemen, there is nobody there, we are quite

alone this evening. Or, will you go in the back room; the young ladies

and I were having a little game of whist together, to drive off the

dullness."

Yes, to drive off the dullness, thought I; to get rid of the horror of

thinking. That is the greatest curse that this class of women have to

endure. They cannot bear to think. They must have something "to drive

off the dullness." If they have no company, they must play cards, or

something else to keep away thought. If they have company, wine is the

panacea. They cannot afford to buy it themselves, but they often

persuade gentlemen to do so, pretending to be very thirsty, when they

have just been drinking, because that is a part of the contract upon

which they are kept by the mistress of the house. If a girl had any

conscientious scruples about coaxing a gentleman to buy, or about

drinking, or wasting all the wine that all of them would buy, she would

be trained into the work, or turned out of doors. So that it is a very

rare thing for one of them to go to bed sober. In the morning, or rather

towards night, when they wake up, they are almost unable to dress

themselves for the next scene in the round of dissipation, until they

have sent out and got a little cheap rum, "to bring them up."

Those who have studied the life of these poor, wretched women as

carefully as I have, will not wonder at the shortness of it.

Of course we accepted the very polite invitation to go in where the

young ladies were. We had an object in doing so. Neither of us knew Mrs.

Morgan, and if we should inquire for her, if it suited the convenience

of madame she would palm off any other one that she thought she could

make pass. I adopted my plan of operations very quickly. I thought if

they had had no company yet to-night, they had had no wine, and

consequently would not be in the best of moods to be communicative. As

soon as we were introduced, I ordered a bottle of wine and thought I

would find out if either of the three girls present answered to the name

of Lucy, and if she did, I intended to whisper one word in her ear, and

that word should be "Athalia," and watch what emotion it produced.

It would be entirely impossible for a stranger to form an idea what an

emotion the very name of wine caused among them. They were fairly

longing for it. We were in the good graces of all the household at once.

I pleaded headache not to drink. Lovetree took his glass with them. I

fixed upon one that I thought perhaps might be Athalia, but soon found

that she was called Nannette.

Another was Belle, and the third was Adelaide. The latter was one of the

most perfectly beautiful girls in face and form I ever saw, and she had

really pretty red hair. I have often met or passed her since that in the

street and never without admiring her beauty and thinking of her

mother, and how she must mourn "a girl lost."

I was now satisfied that Athalia was not in the room, and I said

carelessly. "Where is that other girl I saw here, with brown hair and

blue eyes, not very tall?"

"What was her name?"

"Oh, confound names, I never can think of names."

"Oh, I know who he means," said Adelaide, "it is Lucy, Lucy Smith."

"Yes, yes, that is it. It is Lucy at any rate."

"She is in her room. She has got the dumps--the blues--I should not

wonder if she was all melted by this time, she has been crying these

three days."

"Crying, why what has she to cry about? I should not think anybody need

to cry in this house, you never cry, do you?"

The very question almost brought a tear, but she drove it back.

"Well, Lucy must come down and have some wine. Get her down, and we will

have another bottle."

"She won't come. We are all tired of trying. She has got the pouts,

because Mrs. Laylor took her trunk away from her to keep for her board.

She don't make any thing. All she ever did make was out of Frank

Barkley, and that she gave to redeem her watch and a good-for-nothing

old Bible I don't see what she wants of that."

"Well, I am going to have her down--I have no opinion of having any girl

in the dumps. Where is her room?"

"Third floor back room. That is right, go and bring her out whether or

no. She has hardly been out for a week till to-day Mrs. Laylor took her

out riding with her, to try to put a little life in her, for fear she

would die on her hands, and she would have to bury her for charity."

"Well, well, I will bring her down, see if I don't. Come, Treewell, if

she will not come without we will bring her."

So away we went upstairs, now satisfied that we were on the right trail,

and that we had completely lulled all suspicion that we wanted anything

of Lucy Smith, except to compel the poor heart-sick woman to join in a

Bacchanalian revel, at which her soul revolted. Up, up we went, passed

three "private rooms," in which we will not seek to look, for they are

occupied by those who come veiled and in the dark. Here is the room we

want. We knocked but received no welcome "come in."

How quick she would open the door if she knew who was waiting for

admission. Tired of knocking, we enter unbidden, and find the room

empty. The prisoner has escaped.

The truth flashed upon my mind in a moment. She has gone off with Mrs.

May. Mr. Lovetree thought not, for Stella said they would not let her go

out except some one in the house went with her to watch her.

"No matter. I am almost sure that woman has got her away. These women

are great at contrivance. Very likely she came prepared for it, as

Stella told her of course, all that Mrs. Morgan had told her."

We made a light and the first thing that Lovetree saw was the Bible,

and Athalia's name--her age and birth-place and the age and names of her

father and mother and grandfather and grandmother, a complete family

record. I thought the man would go crazy. It would have made him nearly

crazy if he had found her an inmate here, as much lost to shame as those

we had just been carousing with, and now to find that she was not here

put him into a perfect agony. He thought he could not live till morning

without seeing her. At first we thought of going directly to Mrs. May's

but then we recollected we did not know where she lived and could not

find out, for I had lost her card that Stella gave me.

Finally we concluded to go down and talk a minute in the same kind of

sang froid manner, to keep up our assumed characters and then go home

and await coming events.

We were rallied as we entered the room with a jeering laugh at not being

able to bring one woman between us both.

Then I pretended to get angry at being sent upon a fool's errand, to a

room where nobody was at home. At that Mrs. Laylor started.

"Was she not in the room?"

"No, nor has not been lately. You are playing tricks with the wrong

persons, trying to fool us."

"Indeed, gentlemen, upon my honor it is no trick."

She rang the servants' bell violently. "Martha, do you know where Lucy

Smith is? She is not in her room. Have you let her out to-night?"

"No, ma'am. I have not let anybody out but that sewing woman."

"Where is Kate? Send Kate up. Kate have you let anybody out to-night?"

"Yes, ma'am. I let that sewing woman out."

"You let her out! Martha says she let her out."

"So I did."

"And so did I."

"Both of you."

"I did."

"Well, I did."

"You have let out the ----. Get out of the room, you stupid Irish ----s.

You have let out the sewing woman, sure enough. I have lost my bet which

I made with Frank, of a hundred dollars that I would keep her here till

she would not want to go away."

And there was such, a string of oaths as I never heard before, and hope

I never shall hear again, particularly from female profane lips. None

but a drunken slave driver, ever poured out such a stream of awful

language, full of oaths, anger and billingsgate expressions, at the

escape of one of his victims, as she did at the escape of a woman whom

she had determined to debase to her own level, until she had brought her

to that condition that she would feel degraded in the eyes of the world,

would know that all her own sex had closed and barred the door against

her, so that she could never return to the paths of virtue, and she

would be to her mistress a "profitable investment," for she would be

attractive, by her beauty and manners, and "draw custom to the house."

But she had escaped--gone off too in a temper of mind which might send

retribution back upon the head of one who under the guise of friendship

had first robbed, then by pretended debt, enslaved her mind, coaxed and

almost driven her into intoxication, and then prostituted her most

shamefully. It would be idle to pretend that Athalia had escaped without

sin. She had not. She had sinned deeply. She said afterwards while

claiming some extenuation, though by no means trying to justify her

fall, that her mind was so wrought upon by her disappointments of life,

by her lone and friendless condition, by the accumulation of debt, by

the terrible treachery of those she had entrusted herself with as such

disinterested friends, by her anxiety to obtain her valued keepsakes and

get money enough to redeem them, and then escape from the pandemonium

she found that she had unwittingly entered, that she had determined to

drown her thoughts in wine, and then she accepted the oft-repeated

proposals of Frank Barkley to redeem her watch, which he honorably did,

but which another _friend_, one of Mrs. Laylor's friends, whom she

forced her to accept, and which cost her the friendship of Frank, robbed

her of, and carried off so that she never saw it again; whether he kept

it or gave it to Mrs. Laylor, she never knew.

Often she intended to fly, but it seemed to her that she could not get

away; she was kept in one constant whirl of excitement so that she could

not reason with herself long enough to determine what to do. What

deterred her most, was that she had nowhere to go to, no friend to call

upon for counsel or assistance, and thus she went on from day to day,

adopting one plan in the morning to discard it at night.

Frank was very kind to her in a certain measure. He liked her, but it

was a very selfish liking. He did not like to hear her talk about

leaving. He liked her there, and he was almost as much her jailer as

Mrs. Laylor. He took her out to all manner of dissipation, theatres,

saloons, late suppers, balls and frolics, in which strong drink--not

Athalia Morgan--acted as wild a part as the wildest. But he offered her

no means of escape. She began to have a sort of fondness for Frank. What

woman can avoid liking one who is devoted to her? But this devotion to

one was not what Mrs. Laylor wished. It was not what brought the most

money to her iron chest. She would like to negotiate the charms of

Athalia to some rich libertine every day, whenever she could meet with

one fool enough to pay her well for her influence with the "young

widow."

Among the most determined of her suitors, was a young Frenchman, who

used every art which he knew well how to use with words and money, to

win Athalia's favor. As a last resort, he pledged a splendid diamond

ring to Mrs. Laylor, if she would accomplish what he could not.

When all other arts fail to work ruin and misery in a woman's mind,

there is one left, one which concentrates all the power of all the lies

of the father of deception. It is jealousy.

There is a little story in "Othello," about the arts of a villain, to

produce mischief by that power. It is nothing compared with the villainy

and lies invented to produce jealousy between Frank and Athalia, so as

to let in the Frenchman, and win that ring.

Villainy is too often successful in this life. It was in this case.

Jealousy, a feeling of revenge, drives more women to infidelity towards

those they love, than all other causes.

It did its perfect work with Athalia, and then the fiend who had

accomplished the work, laughed at her, and told her how she had been

fooled, thinking it would have the usual effect, to make her careless of

what she did in future. It had an entirely different effect upon

Athalia. It was this that produced the state of mind that Adelaide

called the dumps, the blues, and the tears that Stella saw her shed.

Stella had told her mother much that Athalia told her, much that the

child did not understand, but the mother did, for she knew how girls

were inveigled into those houses, and kept there as prisoners.

I have lately witnessed a scene, highly illustrative of this fact. It is

one of the "Life Scenes of New York."

Coming up one of the streets west of Broadway, about one o'clock at

night, I saw a fellow hovering near a house, whom I recognized as a

Negro wood-sawyer that I had seen the day before, engaged at the same

house, putting wood down the cellar grate. I knew him or thought I did,

as a poor but honest man, and I felt pained with a fear that I had been

deceived, that he had left the grate unfastened, and now was about to

steal something from the cellar. I passed on around the next corner, out

of sight, and then turned back and crossed over, where I could have a

full view of his operations. There were no lamps burning, because there

should, or might have been moonlight, if it had been clear; as it was,

it was a fitting time for the burglar's trade. Directly, the fellow

approached the grate, opened it carefully, and drew up a trunk. My heart

beat with excitement, fear, and sorrow. I was just on the point of

calling, "Watch," I must own with a view of letting the fellow escape,

and saving the trunk, when I saw a bonnet, then a shawl, and then a full

suit of woman's clothes follow the trunk up from that dark recess. My

mind was somewhat relieved; my honest wood-sawyer might be honest still,

though he was probably assisting a dishonest woman; else why did she

leave that house, to all appearance, an honest house, for all that I had

ever seen in passing it a hundred times, in such a clandestine manner.

The Negro walked on with the trunk on his shoulder, and the woman

followed. It was a scene of such frequent occurrence, that it would

excite no suspicion or question from a policeman. He would think it was

a passenger by the train, from Boston, or Albany, or the Erie railroad,

all of which make midnight arrivals.

On they went, block after block, and I followed, till I thought the

chase likely to prove a long one, and then I stepped up to the woman,

and laying my hand upon her shoulder, said, "Stop!" She uttered a little

cry of alarm, and said, "Oh, don't take me up, please don't."

The Negro stopped, looked round, and set down the trunk hastily,

evidently supposing that a star had nabbed her, and that the better part

of a fight consists in running away. There was a light here, for the

lamp-lighters were just going their late rounds. He gave one glance back

before he started, to be sure he had good cause to run, and instantly

burst into a most merry fit of laughter, very unlike what might be

supposed that of a caught burglar.

[Illustration: "'SPEC A BODY HAS A RIGHT TO STEAL OWN TRUNK."--_Page

285._]

"Ha! ha! ha! ki, missee, you don't know dat gemman? You nebber seed dat

gemman 'fore? You tink him a star? Look at um. You tink he look so he

hurt you? He wouldn't hurt a child, much more a woman. I know dat

gemman. Ki, I mighty glad to see him. 'Spose tell him all about um? Spec

he say a body has a right to steal he own trunk, and run away from such

a house as dat."

"Such a house as that, Peter; is that not a good house?"

"Well, spec him house good enough, but spec he folks dat lib dare, not

'zactly straight up and down like dog hind leg."

"Why, Peter, what do you mean? Is not that Mr. Ingram, whose name I see

on the door, and whom I know as apparently a gentleman of wealth and

leisure, for I have often seen him associating with gentlemen about the

hotels; is he not the gentleman of the house?"

"Gentlum! Lord, sir, he is dat woman's man, her pimp, she gives him all

dem fine clothes and gold rings, and he gets fellows to come an see her

gals."

"Mercy on me! The outside of the platter is made clean, while the inside

is full of dead men's bones."

"Dat's just what Agnes says; she says, she find dead men's bones in the

ashes, and buttons, and bits of burnt woman's clothes in a pile in the

cellar, and she seed woman's ghost dare, and she won't stay in dat house

no how can fix um, and dat's what it mean 'bout I got dis trunk; did

you see how I get him, massa?"

"Yes, I did, and I want to know something about why you 'get him' at

this time of night out of that cellar. The ghost story won't do; if she

was afraid of ghosts she would not go down into that cellar at night any

more than she would go down to her grave. It won't do."

"Oh, sir, the ghost goes upstairs every night, to stay in the room where

she was seduced. None of the girls in the house will stay in that room.

They gave it to me when first I went there. I did not know it was

haunted then, but I found out afterwards that it was, for she told me

so, and how she was shut up in the coal cellar, and starved, and

suffocated to death, and then cut up, and part of her body burned, and

part buried in lime and ashes, and how, if I would look in one corner of

the cellar, I would find some of her bones, and I did; and then I

determined to run away, and that is why I am hero."

"And what are you going to do now?"

"I am going home with Peter, I have got nowhere else to go, and then I

shall try to get a place."

"A place! Why, Peter, is not this one of the girls of that house?"

"Why, no, not 'zactly; but 'spose you go wid us in my house, he close by

here now, and she tell you all about herself. I spec she not a bad gal,

sir."

"Go ahead then;" and he shouldered his load, and went a few steps

farther, and then turned into a dark alley, where I should have

hesitated about following the burglars, but now followed the honest,

good-hearted wood-sawyer, and his protege with delightful pleasure, up

the long, dark alley into the centre of the block, and there was a

tenant house, inhabited by the better class of blacks. Compared with

some of those full of foreigners, it was a little paradise. Up, up to

the sixth story, that is where the poor live; here is where the poor

legless Negro flower-seller lives, with his nice little family; a door

opened as we approached, and a light shined out, and a voice said:

"Is dat you, Peter? Has you got her, Peter? Thank God for that!"

It was Peter's wife, rejoicing at the rescue of a woman from perdition.

One of a poor, down-trodden race, a member of a Christian church, yet

considered unworthy to sit by the side of white skinned (thin skinned)

Christians, doing a most Christian act, such an one as many of her

sisters in the church would consider beneath their dignity to do.

We entered Peter's home. It was but one small room, scantily, yet neatly

furnished. There was a little stove, and all necessary cooking utensils,

and plenty of dishes, a table, a bureau, a carpet on the floor, a stand

in one corner covered with a clean white cloth, and on this a large

Bible, covered with green baize, lying open, with Phebe's spectacles on

the page, indicating her employment while waiting and watching for Peter

to return, as she expected, with company--one more than she expected.

There was a bedstead in one corner, from which a portion of the bed had

been removed and made into a nice pallet upon the floor, in readiness

for an expected lodger. Agnes met a warm welcome from Phebe. We shall

see Phebe again, out on another errand of mercy. In some of these ever

shifting scenes, we may have another glimpse of Agnes. Peter explained

to Phebe, how I happened to be in company, and then we all sat down to

hear Agnes's story. I shall not tell it now. But I will tell here

another little story, which will give a clue to what she said about the

haunted house.

It is a story about "a girl lost."

The "Tribune" one day published an appeal to the kind-hearted of the

city, to give a distracted family some information of "a girl lost."

She was "a good-looking, rather tall girl, seventeen years of age, dark

complexion and dark hair. She was well-dressed, and started to go from

her father's house in Spring street, near Broadway, to her brother's in

the same street.

"And she was lost!"

Some stranger who reads that simple announcement, one who has spent a

night at one of the three great hotels on the corners of Spring street

and Broadway, may wonder that a girl should be lost in such a

respectable neighborhood. He does not know that the guests of one of

those great hotels look down from one side upon one of the worst

gambling hells and police-permitted gambling lottery offices in the

city, and on the other side upon still worse premises; houses which the

vocabulary of infamous language has no words black enough to describe;

houses which are ever open for innocent young girls to enter--from which

innocent young girls never return. They are "lost." This is not the

first girl lost in New York. These are not the first parents who have

been deeply afflicted; who have appealed in vain through the press for

any information of "a girl lost."

I have a little incident to relate of a girl lost. A few years ago No.

000 Church street, was accounted the "luckiest house in the street."

There are a great many unlucky ones in that street now, and that

particular one is esteemed the most unlucky of all of them. It should be

so. It was in that house about three years ago, that a girl was lost.

For the sake of her parents, brothers and sisters, and large family of

relatives, I will not give her true name. You may call it Julia

Montgomery. She was just such a girl as the one described in the

"Mysterious Disappearance!" She was tall and handsome, just seventeen,

with dark hair and eyes, and well dressed. She lived in one of the river

towns, and came down upon one of the barges that float down such a

multitude of things produced by farmers, in company with her father and

mother, who brought some of their own produce to market. On the same

boat were two young men who had been up the river, they said, on a

sporting excursion. This was true. But they might have added, "What is

sport to us is death to you." They were gamblers. On the passage they

made the acquaintance of Julia, and by their bland manners completely

won the confidence of the old folks. When they arrived, they were very

anxious that Julia should go home with them and see their sisters. They

were not so anxious that her mother should go, but they insisted very

hard that she should, because they knew she would not; she had her

butter and eggs and chickens to sell, and lots of shopping to do, so

Julia went alone. She came back to the boat towards night to tell her

mother what nice girls the Miss Camptowns were, and that they wanted she

should go with them to the theatre, and then as it would be late, stay

all night. The mother consented, as Mr. Camptown was such a fine young

man. After the play they had an oyster supper and wine, and Julia became

very much elated. Then they went home, to Mr. Camptown's home, which was

no other than that notorious Church street den, and the "sisters" the

most notorious sinners in it. Of course more wine was drank, and Julia

became oblivious of what transpired. She waked to consciousness next

morning to find herself--"a girl lost." Almost delirious, she flew from

the wicked scoundrel at her side to the street door, to find it barred

against her. In vain she begged and prayed, and cried to be let out. The

soul incarcerated in the infernal regions might as well pray for egress.

She finds in both cases only scoffing at the victim's agony. Then she

grew wildly furious, and then they tied her hands and feet and carried

her down into the coal cellar, "to let her get over her fit, and keep

her out of sight till the old woman was out of the way." For three days,

Camptown watched her father and mother, and then they gave up and went

home with heavy hearts, for "a girl was lost." Yes, she was "lost." Then

Camptown went back to enjoy his "country beauty." She was lost to him

also. In some of the pullings down and diggings up in that street, all

that remains to earth will make another "Item" in a daily paper. It

will be headed "Human bones found."

The inmates of that house soon left. It was no longer a lucky house. The

ghost of that murdered girl walked through every room. One in

particular, it never allowed any one to occupy. It is said that that

ghost still haunts that house. It is still an unlucky house. The old

harridan who kept it--well known in that street when that girl was

lost--went off to New Orleans, lost all her property, and then was lost

herself. Camptown still lives. I saw him a few days ago, in the very

street where that girl was lost, noticed in the "Tribune." Has he any

connection with her loss? Reader, there is a girl lost. Ask where and

why? Rum and gambling can answer.

Now, let us leave Agnes in the hands of the wood-sawyer and his wife,

those good-hearted, kind Christians, that despised, because

black-skinned, brother and sister, more worthy than many of the

despisers, and return to Mrs. May, and see how she effected the rescue

of another prisoner.

What Stella told her mother was sufficient to give her the most intense

anxiety about Athalia. She was so well acquainted with the ways of the

wicked in this city, that she felt satisfied that her friend wanted good

counsel, and perhaps assistance, and she determined to give it to one

who had often given such to her. As soon as it was sufficiently dark,

she slipped on a shawl and hood, and went into a neighbor's and borrowed

another just like her own.

"What in the world do you want of it?" said the woman.

"No matter, it shall come safe back to you, in the course of the

evening."

So it did, and with it came Athalia, who, by that double, had eluded her

jailers.

Lovetree went to his hotel in a state of mind not to be envied. He had

found the strongest evidence that his niece had been in a house which

pollutes all who breathe its atmosphere, and he had heard vile women

speak of her as one of themselves, and he knew not how far she was like

them. He had witnessed an exposition of character that night, such as he

never had before conceived possible. He first saw Mrs. Laylor, a

specimen of a high-bred lady,

Bland as the dewy morn

That opes the buds to flowers.

Then he saw her furious as the winds,

By Boreas rudely driven,

Wild as the storm, when Jove hurls down

His thunderbolts from Heaven.

He trembled with fear that she would pursue Athalia, and drag her back,

and perhaps hide her where he could never find her. Undoubtedly she

would have exercised her vindictiveness upon Athalia in some way, if she

had known where she was. Lovetree had heard Mrs. Laylor swear that

Athalia had robbed her, and that she would have her punished, and

although he did not believe a word of such a charge, he believed that

vile woman wicked enough to swear away an innocent girl's life.

He was quite mistaken. She was furious at her disappointment and loss of

gain, for gold she worshipped, but after all she would not have done a

thing to put the life or liberty of Athalia in danger of the law. The

restraint she had put upon her, was one of policy, all in the way of her

business. Lying and cheating were a part of her trade; it is of some

others. She had been outwitted by one whom she thought too tame to

resent an injury, or protect herself. Lovetree did not know that like a

furious wind it would soon blow out, or that a portion of her apparent

anger was put on for effect, for one of the other girls was held by a

slender thread, and it was an object to deter her from taking the same

step that Athalia had.

It is a great object--great as it is with the merchant to get new

goods--with all this class of houses to get new girls; those fresh from

the country are objects of great importance; hence the effort to keep

them until their conscience is obliterated from hearts made for virtuous

actions, and then they stay willingly--often, have to beg for the

privilege of staying, for "old goods" in this branch of trade are a

greater drug in the market of seduction, than old dry goods upon the

merchant's shelves. They are more like old meat upon the butcher's

stall; nobody wants to buy, though all may admire its fatness, and

remark how good it had been, but when they examine closely, an odor

cometh up to the nostrils, which giveth offence to the stomach.

Men treat all these poor girls as children treat toys. The fresh and

beautiful are admired, then barely tolerated, then kicked aside to make

room for a fresh set. Hence all the arts that cunning vile women know of

are used to obtain new toys for their customers.

Lovetree slept but little that night. How he did walk up and down the

corridors of the Astor house the next morning, watching every one that

entered, hoping it might be the little pedler girl. She was at home and

asleep. She got home before her mother, and went to bed, so that she

knew nothing of the coming of Mrs. Morgan. All slept late, and Stella's

mother saw her daughter sleeping so sweetly that she could not bear to

wake her for her daily task until breakfast was ready. How delighted she

was to see Mrs. Morgan! "Oh, mother, mother, let me go and tell that

gentleman; I will bring him right here. He will be so glad to see Mrs.

Morgan."

"So glad to see me, Stella, who is it that knows me?"

"He don't know you at all. But when I told him about you, he and that

other gentleman said that they would go right off to Mrs. Laylor's, and

get you away."

"Why, Stella, my daughter, who are you talking about? We do not

understand a word you are saying."

"Don't you, no, you do not; I had forgotten that I had not told you

about those two nice gentlemen that I met at the Astor house last night.

Oh, mother, where did you get those bouquets? As I live there is the

very one that I looked at and talked about with Joseph Butler, last

night. Did you buy them, mother?"

"No, Tom Top brought them here just as we got home, and said that an

old gray-headed gentleman bought them of Joseph, and gave him a shilling

to bring them here, one for me, and one for you."

"Oh, my, that must be him, who else could it be? And then, only think of

it, his name is just like Mrs. Morgan's before she was married."

"What, Lovetree? Is his name Lovetree? How remarkable it would be if he

should turn out to be my uncle from the West."

"So it would. Now I think of it, he does look like you. No, no, I cannot

eat now, I must run and tell him, that you are here, it will make him so

happy."

So it did. There was another happy person that day; ah, two or three of

them, for Mrs. May and Stella were almost as happy as Athalia; when he

came they saw how quickly she recognized him, and how overjoyed he was

to see her, and how he hugged her and kissed her, and then he took

Stella in his arms and kissed her, and told her that she should never go

out peddling again; that he would set her mother up in a little shop,

and Stella should be her clerk, for he felt that he owed all that he now

enjoyed to her, and he owed her mother a great debt for her kind

intention and goodness of heart, in getting Athalia away from that

house; and then he told them all about his visit to Mrs. Laylor's, and

Mrs. May told all about how she worked her plan to get Athalia away; how

she dressed her up and sent her down first, and then she watched until

she saw the other girl in the hall, and then went down herself. Then

Stella said, she must run and see Joseph, she wanted Joseph to tell

that other gentleman; and so she did, and Joseph told "the other

gentleman," when he came by and stopped to give the poor crippled black

man a kind word, which always lighted up a pleasant smile upon his fine

face; and in the evening the two gentlemen, and the two ladies, and the

dear little girl, all sat down in Mrs. May's little parlor, to such a

supper, as, perhaps, never had been set in that room before. This was

one of Mr. Lovetree's whims. It was a thanksgiving supper, he said, for

the prodigal returned, and he wanted to eat it there, all by themselves;

and so he went out and ordered the best of everything that could be

provided sent there, and then as happy a party sat down as ever enjoyed

a supper in New York. Athalia and her uncle had talked all day, and she

had told him all the secrets of her life, and he had forgiven her

everything, and told her that he would love her as long as she would

love him. Then he asked Stella to go out and get him some writing

materials, and then her eyes fairly danced with joy as she ran and got

her own little portfolio, one that she had made herself out of some

colored paper, and asked him if he would use her pen and paper. He did

so, and then wrapped up the little home-made article in a newspaper, and

carried it away with him, without saying a word. Stella thought it very

queer that he should do so, and she almost dropped a tear at the thought

of losing it, for it had cost her a good many hours of busy work to make

it. After awhile a boy brought it back, wrapped in the same paper, but

as it had her name on the outside, she thought she would open it, to

see what he had put in it; "some paper, I dare say, in place of that

which he had used." That was not what she found; she found in place of

her old one, the most beautiful portfolio that could be found in New

York, filled with all sorts of stationery that could be desired.

After supper was over, of course Stella had to get her portfolio, and

show it, and talk about it; and then Mr. Lovetree talked about what he

had written with Stella's pen--it was his will.

"I have made," said he, "Athalia my heir. I adopt her as my daughter,

and shall always treat her as my child. I hope she will always feel

towards me as she would if I were her father in fact. She is an orphan,

and she is----a widow."

"A widow--a widow?"

"Is Walter dead?"

"Is that so, uncle--father?"

"Yes, it is so. When I went to the attorney to see if I had got my will

all right, and when he came to the name of Athalia Morgan, he said, 'Oh,

that is Walter Morgan's widow.' Then, I said, widow, widow, just as you

all did a minute since. And he told me, that was the fact; and a good

thing it was that he was dead, for he got to be a terrible sot. And now,

Athalia is my heir, and my executor. When I am dead she will do what she

pleases with what I leave, and get married again if she likes; she has

promised me that she never will while I live. There is one little clause

in my will that I will read now, for I like to make people happy, and I

am going to make a mother happy, free from anxiety about what her child

will do when she is gone. This is the clause, 'To the owner of the pen

with which I wrote this will, I bequeath five hundred dollars.'"

"Why, what is there in that to cry about? Bless my heart, I thought I

was going to make you all happy, and here you are all shedding tears."

"Oh, uncle, uncle, you have made us happy. These are tears of joy and

gladness. How noble, how generous, how good!"

"Just like him," said the other gentleman.

"This to me! Oh, Mr. Lovetree, this to the poor widow! This to my

daughter!"

"To me, mother, to me? Does it mean me? Yes! Oh, mother, may I kiss

him?"

Before anybody could say no, if they had been disposed to, Stella was in

his arms, and who shall say, that to one of his wealth, that moment was

not cheaply purchased for five hundred dollars. Happiness is contagious.

Those who feel it, feel as though they would like to make everybody else

feel just so. Stella did, for she reached out one hand and drew her

mother to the same enfolding arms, and then Athalia enfolded them all,

until it seemed to my dim-growing eyes that four exceedingly happy

people were blending all in one. Feeling how useless is a fifth wheel to

a vehicle already having four, and feeling too a sort of choking

sensation, as though the air of the street would be beneficial, while

this scene was on, I went off.

When I had breathed the fresh air long enough to recover my equilibrium

of thoughts, one came into my mind that I might do something to

increase the happiness of the full hearts I had just left. With this new

idea in my mind I took my way directly to Mrs. Laylor's. Of course I

found the storm had passed. A May morning could not be more calm and

pleasant. Of course I was a welcome visitor. I had ordered a bottle of

wine the night before, that paid my footing. I had spent money for one

sin, and apparently seemed willing to spend more for another, and that

always makes welcome guests, because profit can be made out of such

visitors. I had an object in my course the night before; I had nothing

of that kind to accomplish to-night, and so I ordered no wine. I looked

serious, earnest, determined, and asked Mrs. Laylor for a private

interview. It is not necessary to inflict the particulars upon my

readers; it will be only interesting to them to know that one of the

results of the talk did add to the happiness of those whom I had just

left already very happy, for just as Lovetree was in the act of kissing

good-night to Athalia, there came a rap to the door, it was a porter's

rap; his load was a trunk, a bandbox and a square bundle. The bundle was

opened first, its contents were now doubly dear, and Athalia longed to

show it to her uncle. It was the old family Bible. Everything had been

sent but the watch. That was irrecoverably lost.

As I was leaving Mrs. Laylor's, with the porter and Athalia's trunk, I

met Frank Barkley and had five minutes talk with him. As we parted, he

said: "Depend upon it I shall claim my bet, and the stake is in the

hands of a friend who will fork over."

The next morning Athalia met with another surprise. The three had just

finished breakfast, and sat talking over the strange events of the last

day or two, congratulating each other upon their singular good fortune,

and laying out plans for the day, while awaiting the momentarily

expected arrival of Mr. Lovetree. Mrs. May and Stella were to go out and

look up a place for the "little shop," which was to hold an assortment

of just such goods as she had been accustomed to sell out of her basket,

to which her mother was to add her nice shirt collars, and perhaps the

work of some other poor woman who might be in need of assistance; and

Athalia and her uncle were to go "house hunting," a very common

employment in New York, for he was going to set her up in a business

that she could live by, and have a house for herself and him too, when

he was in the city, and pretty soon he hoped that would be all the time;

it should be as soon as he could get his Western business settled up;

but she should have a house and take a few boarders, and always keep a

room for him, and he would always call that home; "and we shall be so

happy," says she, "and if he is sick I will take care of him, and if I

am sick I know he will be kind to me, he looks just as though he would;

don't you think so, Mrs. May?"

"Indeed he does; and you will be so happy, but I do not know as you will

be quite so happy as Stella and I shall be, when we get a-going. I am

happy now, only one thing troubles me a little, I do not know what I am

going to do for a little money for present necessities. I had just paid

my month's rent, ten dollars in advance, and bought a piece of linen for

my work, and Stella had laid out all of her little stock, and now we are

quite out. If you had money as you once had, I should know very well

what to do. I should ask you for a loan of five dollars, and I know very

well what you would say; no, you would not say anything, you would jump

up and run to the little drawer, the left-hand top drawer of the bureau,

I can almost see it now, and then you would say, 'there, there it is, go

along, I don't want you to stop to thank me.' But that time has past

away. I suppose I shall have to do what we poor folks often have to do,

go to the pawnbroker again.

"Your trouble, Mrs. May, is just mine too; I want a few dollars so bad

that I do not know what to do, and I was about to ask you; I do not like

to ask my uncle, so soon, and would not on my own account, but will on

yours."

"No, no, no, do not, I can get along very well, I can pawn the linen, I

shall not want that for a few days."

"Yes, I will, do not say anything more, I have made up my mind, and here

he comes, so it is too late for argument."

There was a rap, and as they did not expect anybody else, of course it

must be her uncle; who else should it be? but it was not. It was the

same porter who was there last evening. He did not bring any trunk or

bundle, he simply brought a letter and a very small package; a letter

addressed, "Lucy Smith."

Athalia was on the point of denying it, but then she thought that Mrs.

May and Stella both knew that was the name she was known by at Mrs.

Laylor's. Still she blushed and trembled. She blushed to think that she

had once said of her first name, "I never shall change that." It is a

sad thing for a girl to change that. She trembled at the thought of

having any of her old acquaintances, who knew her by that name, write to

her or speak to her as friends, for they were only friends of days which

she would gladly blot out of memory--days of sin and shame, which she

looked back upon with horror, as she felt their deep degradation. She

trembled still more when she opened the letter, and saw that the

signature was Frank Barkley. She felt faint, and her eyes grew dim, for

she felt that she was still pursued--"the guilty flee when no man

pursueth"--by one with whom she had sinned, and she felt that it was a

renewal of the proposition to sin again. She saw the name, and the "Dear

Lucy" with which it commenced, she saw no more, she could see no more,

and so she handed the letter to Mrs. May, with an "oh, dear!"

Mrs. May read it, and then _she_ said, "Oh, dear," but it was a very

different "Oh, dear," from Athalia's. It was an "Oh, dear, what a

fortune," and then she handed the letter back to Athalia, and said,

"read, you will not find it very bad." Her joyous smile reassured the

fainting, trembling Athalia, and she read:

"MY DEAR LUCY.

"Dearer to me now than ever. I have heard from a mutual friend

all about it. First, forgive me for the wrong I have done you.

I shall not do it again. Blush not to meet me in the street or

church, for by no look or word will I ever seek to renew our

acquaintance. I know you now, I never did before, and I feel

that I am not worthy to renew that acquaintance. I am a man of

the world, and enjoy what my own class call pleasures. I have

enjoyed pleasant hours with you, but I never enjoyed a night

as I have the last. I have been alone in my room all night. I

have been thinking. I have thought how much myself and my

associates have done to swell the class of females whom we look

upon with contempt, as they pass us in the street. I have found

that it is good to think. I have thought a great deal of you,

and of your history, as I gleaned it partly from you and partly

from Mrs. Laylor, but the last and best part from your friend.

Believe me when I say that I am most sincerely glad that you

have escaped from a life which I had persuaded you to adopt. I

was selfish then. I am sober now.

"Of course you know I have won my bet. I have got the money. I

do not need it, you do. It is your due and much more from that

avaricious woman who deceived you so bitterly. You lost your

watch. It was partly my fault. If I had not believed the lies

told of you, it would not have happened, for then in a spirit

of retaliation, I had not been false to you, nor you to me, and

you would not have made the acquaintance of the gambler who

stole your watch. I cannot return that, but I send one in its

place. I also send you my check for the money won, and the same

sum which was staked against it. If you are ever in need

hereafter remember your real, truly sincere friend,

"FRANK BARKLEY."

She looked up with tearful eyes, and simply said, "Mrs. May, you will

not have to go to the pawnbroker's to-day. Take this check and go to the

bank, or I will write a note to a friend who will cash it in a minute,

it needs no endorsement, it is payable to the bearer, and you shall have

one hundred and I the other. Now let us look at the watch." They did

look at it, and of course admire it, and then Mr. Lovetree came in, and

then the letter was read again, and then he said, "the fellow has got a

heart after all, it has only been spoiled by bad associations; he has

got a good start now in the right path, and I shall make it my business

to look him up and help him along. Do you know, Athalia, where he

lives?"

"I have his card, sir, in my trunk."

"Very well, give it to me at your leisure, and we will let him know that

the pearls of that letter have not been cast before the very worst sort

of pigs."

Then Stella was going out to get the check changed, and then he said,

"Never mind, give it to me," and then he put it in his pocket-book very

carefully, and put that away in his left-hand pocket--he had a place for

everything; and then he put his hand into his right-hand pocket, and

took out fifty dollars in gold, and handed that to Athalia, with the

remark that he would bring her the balance to-morrow, that that was as

much as she would want to-day; and then he said, as he saw her slipping

it slyly into Mrs. May's hand, "Oh, that is it, is it?" and then Mrs.

May said, "she _must_ tell, and then she did tell all about her want of

money, and how she used to go to Athalia when she was in want, and now,

when neither of them had any, it did seem as though the good spirit had

opened the heart of that man to repentance and good works, just when it

was most needed."

And then they all went out, Mrs. May and Stella to hunt for the shop,

which they found and had in operation in a week, and which was the

foundation of a fortune, for it prospered wonderfully. The ball only

needed a start, it would accumulate at every roll. It is accumulating

still. I wish a few more benevolent old gentlemen would take each one of

them a little girl out of the street, and set the ball to rolling.

Good bye, Mrs. May--good bye, Stella. "We may never meet again, but we

never shall forget you, good-hearted little girl, and kind, blessed,

good mother. Thy good works have their reward."

Athalia and her uncle found a house. We have heard of that before, from

Maggie; we shall hear of them again, in some of these shifting "Scenes."

I shall draw the curtain now. It may remain down for one or two or more

years, what does it matter to the reader? It is facts that he wants, he

cares nothing for time, or which scene comes first. If the reader is a

woman, she cares neither for time nor facts, so that the story is good.

What next?

Look in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XIV.

NEW SCENES AND NEW CHARACTERS.

"There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would man

observingly distil it out."

That was well exemplified in the last chapter. It may be in this. If any

of the readers of these "Scenes" suppose the writer lost sight of the

chance to do good, and the right time to do it, that the death of

"Little Katy," offered, they are quite mistaken. Although he may not be

able to do with his own purse, he has a way of procuring others to do a

part that is so much needed to be done. He found that Katy had an aunt

in the city, who was able to do for her sister, and he took the

preliminary steps to restore the poor, lost sheep to the fold from which

she had strayed. That he should have lost sight of her for a little

while, in the busy whirl of city life, is not surprising. That the

reader has been left in suspense, while he has had many other scenes

before him, the author hopes he will not regret. We do not travel old,

beaten paths, in this volume.

As the subject is new, so is the way of illustrating it. Now, let us

walk on.

"There has been a black woman here twice this evening after you, and she

says, she must have the sight of ye afore she sleeps, any how."

This was a piece of Irish information, which met me as I opened the

door, one night, in rather a melancholy mood, for I was as yet

supperless, tired, sleepy, and about half sick, from breathing fetid air

four or five hours, while visiting the poorest of the city poor, the

denizens of Cow Bay.

Now, it must not be understood that Mrs. McTravers intended to tell me

that the Ethiopian female, who had twice called at my abode, and

declared that "she must have the sight of me before she slept," had the

least desire to gouge out my eyes. On the contrary, she was only anxious

to have a sight of the ugly visage I own, and come within speaking

distance of me.

"What for? What did she want, Mrs. McTravers?"

"Sure, your honor, it's not the likes of me knows what a lady wants with

a lone gentleman at this time o'night."

If I did not swear, I had some very hard thoughts at the blundering

awkwardness of this woman, or her entire inability to convey ideas by

language, so that I could understand them "at this time of night."

She proceeded to give a most minute description of "the black woman,"

how she looked, and talked, and dressed.

Who could it be? I run over in my mind all of my African female

acquaintances--not large--but not one of them answered the description

given by Mrs. McTravers.

I was about proceeding up stairs, when she said, "ye'll surely go and

see the sick lady." I had a slight internal intimation that I was nearly

losing my patience.

"Mrs. McTravers, what is it about a sick lady? You have not told me a

word about anybody, sick or well, except a negro woman, and you have not

told me what she wanted."

"And sure, then, I thought you knew all about it. The wench said you

knew the lady."

"I know a good many, but how can I tell which one of my acquaintances

this may be?"

"Why sure, then I thought you would know when I told you where she

lived."

"In the name of common sense, Mrs. McTravers, if you know who the sick

woman is, or where she lives, or what she wants, why don't you tell me?"

"Wasn't I going to, only you put me into such a flusteration? There,

sure, that'll tell you all about it."

And she handed me a piece of paper, on which was written, in a very

delicate lady hand, though evidently nervous, "Madame De Vrai, 53

W--street."

I am sure I must have looked like a living specimen of confusion worse

confounded. The name I had never heard before. The street was an unknown

locality. I only knew it was a street on the west side of the city,

somewhere, and whether it had such a number as "53," was entirely too

much for my arithmetic. I determined not to go. Still there was a

mystery, that natural curiosity prompted me to solve. Who could it be?

"Did the black woman say that I was acquainted with the lady?"

"She did that, and that you had been very kind to her. God bless you for

that same, for being so to a stranger and a foreigner too at that. The

black woman said you was a blessed good man to the poor lady, and a

father to her childer, dead and alive."

Was anything ever so provoking as the stolidity of an Irish servant.

Every word she uttered made the mystery still darker. I knew no Madame

De Vrai; never heard of the name before in my life--took no credit to

myself for any special act of kindness to the poor in general, and

certainly could not call to mind any act of my life that would warrant

me in appropriating the blessing so heartily offered for my acceptance.

As to being the father of the poor woman's "childer, dead and alive," I

declared emphatically that it was just no such thing. I would not own

them. So I called for something to eat, and determined to go to bed,

fully satisfied that African blunders and Irish ditto, duly mixed, had

made one this time too large for my mastery, either with my very common

name, or by a mistake in the street or number; or else somebody else had

undertaken to father this family, and now desired to shift the

responsibility; certainly I had not, could not, would not father them.

So I sat munching and musing over my bread and butter and cold water, of

the scenes of the evening which I had witnessed.

"Would to Heaven I knew what had become of her," I thought aloud.

"Who?" said a kind voice at my elbow. "What lady are you so anxious

about now. Any of your Five Point proteges?"

"Yes. You have guessed it exactly. None other."

"Is that what you have been looking for to-night. Do tell me of your

visit. What have you seen?"

"More of human misery than I ever saw before in one night. Would you

like to hear the detail?"

"Yes, it may do me good to hear how others live, and if worse than I do,

it may make me more contented with my own lot."

"Worse than you do? Why, madam, have you not all that is necessary to

make life comfortable around you. A neat, airy, well-furnished house,

plenty of room, plenty to eat, good bed to sleep on, good baths for

evening ablution or morning renovation, and above all the other luxuries

of city life, plenty of that greatest of New York's blessings, the

Croton water? Now listen how and where others live. In a close, dirty,

pent up court, are piles of old bricks and frame houses, perfect rat

harbors, filled with human beings, men, women, children, from cellar

bottom to garret peak, poor beyond the power of imagination, dirty to a

degree that is sickening to behold, criminal through necessity----"

"No, not necessity. Nobody is necessitated to be criminal."

"You are simply mistaken. I repeat, criminal by necessity. So educated

from childhood, that they know of no way to live, but by the beggar's

trade, or pilferer's, or prostitute's crime. Such are the parents, such

must be the children. There is no hope otherwise. They are sent out in

infancy to beg, and early taught to 'pick up things;' the place of

education is the street, the watch house, or city prison."

"Why don't their parents send them to school?"

"Why should they? They never went to such a place themselves, and care

not that their children should go. They care for nothing but rum, and

that the builders of prisons, and hangers of murderers, take care they

shall have the means of getting. The imprisonment and hanging, is the

sequence of the license system."

"But you were to tell us what you saw this evening."

"Human misery. The houses of the city poor. The locality is Cow Bay. It

opens upon Anthony street at the North West angle of the Five Points."

The first _home_ we entered was a cellar room twelve by twenty feet,

quite below the surface, and only just high enough to stand up under the

beams of the floor over head, while at every step the water oozed up

through the boards we trod upon. At one end was the narrow, muddy

stairway and door, by which we entered, and at the other a fire-place.

On one side two windows with places for three panes of glass to each,

gave all the light and ventilation afforded to the four families who

occupied the room. These consisted of two men and their wives, two

single women, an old woman and her three boys, and a young girl as a

boarder. There were four sleeping places, called beds, upon forms,

elevated above the floor, for none could sleep on that on account of the

water.

"Do you always have the water as bad as it is now?" I inquired.

"Bad is it? An I wish then you could see it after a big rain, when the

water is over the floor entirely fornent the the door."

"Have these women husbands?"

"These two with the young children have."

"What do they do for a living?"

"One of them jobs about--but he is on the Island now."

"What for?"

"Just nothing at all, yer honor, he is as kind a husband as ever lived,

only when he takes a drop too much once in a while."

"Hould your tongue now, Ellen Maguire, you know your husband is drunk

every time he can get liquor, and that is as often as he can coax

anybody that has got money into that dirty hole at the corner--Cale

Jones's grocery. He is a burner, sir?"

"A burner. What is that?"

"He asks some one to go and take a drink with him, and then tells him to

call for what he likes, and so he drinks and drinks, thinking all the

time it is a treat, till he gets ready to go, and then the fellow who

keeps the shop stops him and makes him pay for all the liquor the

company have drank."

"Don't he refuse?"

"What's the use? He is burnt, and must stand it. If he refuse, they will

take his coat, or hat, or shoes. If he gets off with his breeches on he

is lucky."

"What does this woman's husband do to support his family?"

"Deil a bit can I tell. It is not for me to pry into peoples' business

who pay the rint like honest folks."

"The rent. How much rent do you pay for this room?"

"Fifty cents a week for each of us--that is two dollars in all, every

Monday morning in advance; sure, you may well believe that, if you know

Billy Crown, the agent. It's never a poor woman that he lets slip; if

she was dying, and never a mouthful of bread or drop of anything in the

house, the rint must be paid."

"Well, these women what do they do?"

"What should a lone woman do? she must live. There is but one way."

"Have you a husband?"

"The Lord be thanked, no. It is enough for me to live with me boys. What

would I do if I had a drunken husband to support out of me arnings?"

Sure enough. What should any woman want of a drunken husband? Let us

look above ground. Perchance misery only dwells in dark, low, damp

cellars. Up, then, to the very garret of the same house. It is divided

into three rooms, one is ten feet square with one window, without

fire-place or stove. What may be inside we know not, for a strong hasp

and padlock guard the treasure. Back of this, through a two feet wide

passage, is another room, eight feet by twelve. This is partly under the

roof, has a dilapidated fire-place and broken window. This is inhabited

by a black man and his wife. There is a bed, a table, dishes and two

chairs, and an air of neatness, contrasting strongly with the cellar.

By the side of this is another room inhabited by a negro and his white

wife, and a white man and wife. Did you ever see four uglier beasts in

one cage? The white man is a hyena; his wife a tiger; the negro a

hippopotamus; his wife a sort of human tortoise; the dirt, representing

the shell, out of which the vicious head poked itself, glaring at the

intruders upon her premises, with a look that plainly said, Oh, how I

should like to bite and claw you, and strip off those clean clothes, and

spoil that face, and put out those eyes, and make ye as dirty and ugly

and miserable as I am. The black man was social, courteous and

intelligent. He was a cobbler, and diligently plied his hammer and awl.

With a kind master and well cared for, he would be a faithful, good

servant. He has no faculty to take care of himself. By nature the slave

of one of nature's strongest passions, he has sunk down into slavery to

this hard-shell woman, and the tool of his designing hyena and tiger

room-mates. The white man looked as if he were counting the contents of

our pockets, and what chance there would be for a grab at our watches.

The shape of this room was peculiar. Take a large watermelon, cut it in

quarters, cut one of those across--the flesh sides will represent the

floor and one wall--the cross-cut the end, where there is a

fire-place--the rind is the roof and other side of the room, through

which at the butt end, there is a window. There is no bedstead, or place

for one. There is no table, or occasion for any. Two boxes and a stool

serve for chairs. The bedding is very scarce, but the floor is of soft

wood, and the weather is warm. Each of these rooms rents for three

dollars a month, always in advance.

Now let us go down the rotten stairway to the next floor. Though what we

have seen is bad, we may yet say:

"The worst is not

So long as we can say, 'this is the worst.'"

What have we here?

Something worse. Yes, for coupled with poverty and crime, is fanatical

hatred of everything that is not worse than itself. Let us rap at this

door. A gruff woman's voice bids us enter. We are met by an insolent

defiant scowl and an angry "what do you want here?"

"Good woman, is some one sick here?"

"Yes. What of that. Nobody wants the like of you, with your pious faces

and 'good woman,' prowling about at this time of night. You're after

nothing good, any one might swear that."

"Perhaps we can give you some good advice for your sick child."

"Give your advice when we ask it. Haven't we got Father Mullany to give

us advice, and he a good doctor too. I tell you we don't want any

miserable heretics in the house and me child a dying. And who have I to

thank for it?"

"Surely, madam, we cannot tell. Perhaps you can, or your husband, where

is he?"

If a dog were thrown among the whelps in a wolf's lair, it would not

arouse the dam quicker than these words did this human she-wolf. She

sprang towards us, foaming with rage. A stout cane in my strong right

hand caught her eye, and she stood at bay.

"What was she so mad at you and your companion for? Did she know either

of you?"

"She knew us by sight, or rather she knew him as one of the active

helpers of the Missionary, Mr. Pease, the House of Industry, and the

Five Points Mission. What more should she know to hate us? She knew we

were not of her faith; that we believed not in the efficacy of holy

water and confession, to work out sin; that we did not kneel and receive

a consecrated wafer with 'extreme unction', and so she hated us with all

the fervent rancor of religious hate. She hated us for our mission of

good; for she knew we hated what she dearly loved--drunkenness and all

its concomitant evils. She hated us with that envious hate of depravity,

which would sink everything to its own level. She knew that we would

take her dying child to a clean bed and airy room, and give it food and

medicine, and nurse it into life, and she hated us for that."

"How could she? How could a mother be so wicked to her poor sick child?

I am sure if I could not take care of mine, I would trust it with

anybody who would save its life." Thus will say more than one Christian

mother.

Think--be careful--be not uncharitable--good mother. Would you let it go

with those who saved its life to be reared with them--taught their

creed--perhaps to hate yours? Certainly if taught the principles of

temperance--virtue--neatness--her child could not love its drunken

mother, in her rags and dirt and life of sin.

"But then the child would be brought up by religious teachers, and

taught to be a Christian."

Yes, a Protestant Christian; she is a good Catholic. Would you willingly

give up your child if it were to be reared a Pagan, a Mahometan, or even

a Jew?

"No! I would let it die."

There spoke the Five Points mother. Sooner than it should go into a

Protestant house, she would see it die.

Alas! poor human nature; yes, poor human nature, sunk down into those

depths of misery and degradation, yet every one of them are our brothers

and sisters, who are rearing up children like themselves, as true as

like produces like, while we look on, shrug our comfortably-wrapped

shoulders, and "Thank God we are not like one of these," and yet never

give, out of our abundance, one cent to make one of them like one of us.

"Well, what of her husband?"

"My husband, is it?" she said, as she stood glaring at us; "my husband?

Go, look in your city prison, you old gray-headed villains, where ye or

the likes of ye, murdered him without judge or jury. Did you try him for

his life? No. Had he been a murderer? No. Had he done any crime? No. You

licensed him to sell liquor, and he drank too much--I drank too

much--what else can you expect, when you set fools to play with live

coals, but they will burn themselves? What next? What is the natural

consequence of getting drunk? A quarrel. I know it. Don't ask me what I

get drunk for; I know you did not speak, but I saw it in your eye--yes,

your eye--turn it away--I cannot bear it, it looks right into my soul.

Don't look at me that way, or I shall cry, and I had rather die than do

that. It would kill me to cry for such as you, who murdered my poor

husband. You licensed him to sell rum, in the first place, to make other

wives miserable with drunken husbands--mine was not drunken then, and I

did not have to live in such a hole as this--look around you, ye

murdering villains. What do you see?--poverty, filth, and rags;

starvation, misery, crime--on that bed is my dying boy--that is nothing.

Let him die, I am glad of it--the priest has made it all right with him.

Now, look in that bed, rum-selling, licensing whelps that you are--that

is worse than the dying boy in the other--see what we have bought with

our money paid to your excise office. See what a mother is sunk to by

rum. Yes, I do drink it--why do your eyes ask the question? I do drink,

and will again. What else have I got to live for? What lower hole can I

sink to? Me, a mother. A mother! Mother of that shameless girl, do you

see her, there in that bed, before her mother's eyes?"

"Yes, and a pretty looking, bright-eyed girl she is."

"Bright-eyed. Yes, bright-eyed. I would to Heaven she had none--that she

had been born blind. Her bright eyes have been her ruin--a curse to her

and the mother that bore her--they are a curse to any poor girl among

such villains as you are. Ye are men--how many hearts have you

broken?--withered, trampled on?--there, go, go. I hate the sight of all

men."

"Who is this man I see with your daughter; is he her husband?"

"Husband! husband! Do the like of her get husbands? Where is my

husband?"

"We cannot tell, can you?"

"Tell! who can tell where a man is that died drunk--died--murdered in

your man-killing city prison, and the priest not there to give him

absolution. What had he done? What crime? Drank rum that you licensed

him to sell--beat me because I drank too. What next? Next come your

dirty police--the biggest scoundrels in the city--mad at my husband

because he would not 'touch their palms,' and drag him to the Tombs--a

right name--good name--true name--Tombs indeed--a tomb to my husband."

"Did he die there?"

"No! he was murdered there. Look here. Can you read? Yes, yes, I know ye

can. So can I. Do you see that account of prisoners dying by

suffocation--poisoned by carbonic acid gas--there, read it,"--and she

thrust a crumpled paper before us--"read how ye reform drunkards--shut

them up in prison cells, and in spite of their prayers, and groans, and

dying cries for air, ye let them die. Are ye not murderers? Do you see

that name? That is--that was my husband. Ha, ha, ha! Now, what is he,

where is he? Don't answer--I know your answer; but if he is in hell, who

sent him there? Who, who, who?"

And she sank down upon one of the pallets which were spread over the

floor, in a paroxysm of wild, delirious grief and rage, speechless as

her dying boy, lying unheeded and unheeding, by her side. What could we

do? Nothing here; much elsewhere; and we looked up and registered a vow,

that much as she hated us for what we had not done, yet had permitted

our fellows to do without crying out against them, that she should be

avenged. If we could do nothing here--if we could not pull down the

sturdy oak by taking hold of its topmost branches, yet, although its

mighty strength defies our weak efforts thus applied, we can and will

dig around its roots--we will take away the life-sustaining earth--and

that strong tree shall be made to feel our power--it shall wither, dry

up, and die, and time shall rot down its strong trunk, and the place

that once knew it, shall know it no more.

This then is our pledge, made over that dying boy, and, worse than by

murder, widowed mother, and here now we redeem it. Here we expose the

hydra-headed monster--the orphan and widow-maker--the property, health,

and virtue-destroyer. Sad, harrowing as these scenes of wretchedness and

misery are, they must be laid open to the gaze of the world. "Wounds

must be seen to be healed." Weak nerves tremble at the idea that

physicians cut and carve the dead, talking, aye laughing, as freely over

the quiet heart and still nerves in the dissecting-room, as the butcher

over his beef upon the market house block; yet without the dissecting of

one and butchering of the other, how should the maimed be healed, or

meat-eating multitude be fed? So let us on with our panorama of scenes

from life in New York.

[Illustration: OLD PLATO COOKING HOT CORN.--_Page 321._]

Let us open this door. Ah! we have been here before.

The room is seven by twelve feet, under the roof, which comes down at

one end within a foot of the floor. There is a broken, dirty, window in

the roof, at the right hand of the door as we enter on the side. No

fire-place or stove, no table, only two broken chairs--a very old

bureau--a dilapidated trunk--a band-box--a few articles of female

apparel--some poor dishes and a few cooking utensils--used upon a little

portable furnace standing in the room--a poor old bedstead and straw bed

in one corner--a child's cot and a doll; and yet the only occupant of

the room is an old negro man, who sits of nights upon cold stones,

crying Hot Corn. We look about wonderingly, peering in here and there,

but except the old man we see no one.

"She gone, massa, clean gone--cry old eyes out when I come home next day

arter dat one, you know massa, which one dis child mean--sad day--don't

like to mention him, massa--give me chaw terbacca, massa--come home and

find her and little sis--nice child dat--"

"You found her."

"No sir, found her gone--done gone entirely--key in old place where I

knew where to find him--everything all here--no word for old Plato--what

I give to see her once more--to see little Sissee--Oh that I knew where

she was. Oh, oh, oh."

"And would to Heaven we could tell what has become of her."

"Who?" said the lady who had been listening with intense interest to my

narrative.

"True, I had forgotten to tell you that we stood in the chamber where

little Katy died. Where that last sweet kiss of an angel was

given--where the candle seemed to the dying innocent to go out--where

she said, 'Good bye--mother--don't drink--any more--good b--' but before

the word was finished, there was another angel added to the heavenly

host around the throne of God."

It was here that the scene, which the artist has so touchingly

illustrated upon the opposite page, transpired. Turn your thoughts a

moment from this page to that and look upon the picture. Turn back to

Chapter VI., "The Home of Little Katy," and read over the story of the

death of that poor innocent, and you will better appreciate the

description and illustration of that home and that dying scene.

'Twas then and there that that fallen mother was touched by a power

greater than human strength--'twas then as she knelt over her dead

child, she had said, "never, never, never, will I touch that accursed

poison cup. Oh, God," she prayed, "take my child, my wronged and

murdered child, and I will not repine; I will thank thee; I will praise

thy name as my mother taught me to praise thee; as she loved and

blessed, and prayed for me all her life, even after my fall, although

hastened to her grave by my sin. Oh, my mother, forgive me; oh, my

child, forgive me; oh, my God, forgive me, but let me live to repent,

and be a mother and a blessing to my living child. Oh, my sister, where

are you, cold and unforgiving sister, but for you I had not been

here--why could you not forgive. Oh, God, canst thou?"

What was that still small voice that seemed to say in our ears, as she

ceased speaking, and lay sobbing upon the breast of little Katy?

"Yes, sister, he can, he will, he has; rise, thy sins are forgiven

thee."

Did she hear it too? Else, why did she instantly rise up, with dry eyes

and calm, almost happy features?

It was then that I gained from her the secret of her sister's name, upon

a promise that I did not keep--I could not keep--it was not my duty to

keep it. But where has she gone? Has her sister got my letter?--has her

heart at last been touched?--has she taken her away? If so, why has she

not told me where? Long days and nights of anxiety have come and gone,

and she comes not back to her home. Has despair worked its wonted

result, and does the ocean wave roll over the mother and her child, in a

suicide's watery grave?

"What would I give to know?"

"You must wait," said our sympathizing friend.

Yes, we must wait. Yet "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick."

"Have you been to see the woman who sent for you to-day?"

"No! It is nobody that I know. Some mistake."

Yes, it was some mistake.

"But she sent her name by the black woman, when she came the second

time."

"I know it, but it is no one that I know. The name is utterly unknown to

me. It is a French name. Some mistake." There was a mistake.

What prompted me to look again at the name? I knew it as well as I

should if I looked at that paper a hundred times. Yet I was prompted to

look at it once more. The desire was irresistible. Who has ever felt a

longing after something unseen, unknown, unheard, undefined, something

that he feels as though he must have or die, yet knows not how to

obtain, may realize the intensity of my desire to see that paper once

more. Where is it? This pocket, and that is searched, turned wrong side

out, and turned back again; the table, floor, books, papers, hunted

over, but nowhere can it be found. What has spirited it away? It could

not blow out of the window, for there is no air stirring.

"It must," said the lady, "have gone down on the tea-tray--I will call

Bridget."

A woman is worth a dozen men for thought, and this time she thought

truly. It had gone down that way, and gone into the slop-bucket, and

into the street.

"Bridget, will you take a lamp and go out and see if you can find it."

"Yes, sir, certainly, and I think I can."

Blessed hope. My friend was curious to know, what in the world I wanted

of that piece of paper? "You say, you remember the name and number

perfectly, and yet you act as though it was of the utmost value. I

recollect seeing you once when you had lost a twenty dollar bill, as

cool and careless as though it had been as worthless as this little

scrap of paper. Now you act strangely, what can it mean?"

"I don't know--I know I want to see that paper. I cannot tell why."

"Well, you will soon be gratified. She has found it. Do wait, don't be

so impatient to meet her at the foot of the stairs."

I did not wait though. I gave one glance at the soiled scrap--it was

enough--the pen and ink name had faded out, but there were three

words--talismanic words--in pencil marks, evidently added as an

after-thought by her who had first written her name in ink--words which

sent me out of the door, and half way to the next street, before that

voice, sent after me from the stair-head, of "Do stop him, Bridget, he

is crazy, to go out in this rain," had reached my ears. It did not stop

me--I was gone beyond the reach of her voice. The girl stood amazed. She

looked at the scrap of paper with about the same degree of astonishment

as did the savage tribe at the white man's paper talk.

"Bring it to me, Bridget."

"He is gone, ma'am."

"Yes, yes, I know he is gone, bring it to me."

"I can't ma'am, he is gone."

"Not him, Bridget, the paper, the paper. I want to see what is on it,

that has driven that man out at this hour, in such a rainy night."

The girl looked at the door just closed, shutting the man out in the

rain, then she examined the corner where the cane and umbrella usually

stood, to be sure they had gone out too, that she had not been dreaming

all the while; then she gave a glance at the table to satisfy herself

that the hat had gone with the cane and umbrella; then she looked again

at the paper, to see what magic power that might possess, to do such

midnight deeds. Papers have great power. Poor Bridget, she could not

read, but she could feel, and she knew that there was a cause--the

effect she had seen.

"Bridget, what is the matter? are you frightened to death?"

"Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am--only speechless. Did you ever see the like? that

that little dirty scrap of paper, I picked out of the gutter, should

send the gentleman out of the house faster than I ever saw him go before

in the year and a half I have been with you. What does it mean? Will you

please to tell me, what these little marks mean? What does it read?

There now, you can see them good. Please, read them to me, ma'am."

"Little Katy's Mother."

"Is that all?"

"Yes, and quite enough. I wonder not he went so quickly. I almost fancy

I can--

'By the lamp dimly burning, or the pale moonlight--

See where he goes--'

almost past whole house fronts at a single stride. If a cart is in the

way at the crossing he will not go around--two steps and he is over. If

there is a bell at the door, take care, or the wires will crack. If a

knocker, it will thunder loud this night. Woe to the watchman, who,

thinking he may be a runaway burglar, puts out a hand to stop him in his

walk. The bull, that butted the locomotive, made equal speed in his

intent. He went down--the steam went on."

"Is he mad, ma'am?"

"No, Bridget, only enthusiastic. If he is mad,

'There is method in his madness,'

he is only very much interested about a woman."