CHAPTER XVII.

THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE.--AGNES.

"All things are pure to those who are pure."

"Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile."

Perhaps some of my readers have been sufficiently interested to inquire, "Who is Agnes, and what of her?" Perhaps there may be some, who, like Mrs. McTravers, think she is not a proper character to introduce into a respectable family, coming as she did from a house which gives an air of taint, spoiled, lost, ruined, to every character that is found within its walls. I am aware that there is room for suspicion, but suspicion is not proof. In the case of Athalia, her acknowledged sin is no more proof of moral turpitude than any other act of a deranged mind. A lunatic may kill, yet it is not murder. A drunken husband may beat his loving wife, and love her still. It was not the man who struck the blow, it was the demon Rum! It was not Athalia who lost her virtue, it was the worse than demon who robbed her--intoxicated her--destroyed her reason--enslaved her mind--but he did not, could not, destroy her virtuous, benevolent heart. Her conduct toward Agnes, is alone sufficient to prove this. And if she had known as much as I did of Agnes, that there might be some ground of suspicion against her, it would have made no odds; she would have taken her in and taken care of her in the same way, if she had known that she was a great sinner; that is the true way to work reformation; and then she would have said, "Go, daughter, and sin no more."

But she knew nothing against Agnes; even after I had told her of the trunk, she said, all may yet be right. She was unwilling to believe that all was wrong. How triumphantly she met me as I came home in the evening--how a woman does love to triumph over us in a good cause, proving herself what she is in all the purest qualities of the heart,--our superior.

"I told you so," said Athalia. "I knew there had been some base deception, some wickedness practiced towards that poor girl to inveigle her into that house. Come up stairs, and you shall hear her story from her own lips; she is quite smart now, and able to sit up and talk, and looks so pretty--she is pretty, and that has been the great cause of her trouble. But she is a good girl; I have heard a good deal about her to-day, besides what she has told me. Phebe and Peter, have both been here, and such a meeting, oh! it would have done your heart good to have been here, and to see these poor blacks' conduct towards this girl, after I had told them the story of her adventures last evening: they hugged her, and kissed her with as much affection as though she had been one of their own; and then Peter went to see the lady where she had been living, at the place he got for her, the next day after your first interview with her, and the lady was terribly alarmed about the poor girl, and so she would not let Peter come back until she had the carriage up, and then she took him in--only to think, such a sweet, nice, pretty lady did not feel herself in the least disgraced to ride with a poor, old, negro wood-sawyer in her fine carriage, to visit a poor sick servant girl. And so she came, and such a time! why, if she had been her own child, she could not have been more affectionate. And then Agnes told us her story, and then I told Mrs. Meltrand, that is her name, about Mrs. De Vrai, and how that same man, who treated Agnes so badly, tried to steal Mrs. De Vrai's little girl, and then she said, 'how singular,' and then of course I said, what is so singular?"

"Ah me, it is a long story, and would not interest you, but I was robbed of a dear little girl, fifteen years ago, in England, by just such a man, in just the same way, but it could not have been this man, his name was Brentnall."

"Brentnall, why that is my name," said Agnes.

"Your name, why you never told me that before."

"No, ma'am, you never asked me, and I did not suppose that you cared to know anything about me, only that I was a good girl, and did your work well, and answered to the name of Agnes."

True. How little interest we all take in our servants; they come and go and we never know that they have any name but one that is most convenient to call them by, and we take no interest in them, hardly enough to know that they possess souls as precious as our own.

"And so, your name is Brentnall, what was your father's name?"

"I don't know, ma'am, as I ever had any, or mother either."

"But you must have had both."

"Oh yes, I suppose I must, to have been born, but I mean I never saw any."

"Where did you live, and who brought you up?"

"I lived with an uncle, near Belfast, and came over with him and his family, and every one of them died of ship fever on the voyage, and when I landed here in this great city, I was utterly alone, and almost penniless. Oh dear!"

"And then Mrs. Meltrand, said, 'Oh dear,' and she went away feeling sad. I do wish I knew what it could be in that name that made her feel so sad. Some reminiscence connected with the loss of her little girl, I suppose. It is very sad, to lose a child by death, it must be very much more sad to have one stolen away, and never know what becomes of it, whether dead or alive; and if the mother should meet her own child in the street not to know it; but dear me, how I am running on while you are eating your supper, as though you had nothing to think of but the things that interest me so much. But if you have been able to eat while I have been talking, come up to my room and see my protégé and hear her story."

So we went up, and found the invalid almost recovered, looking so sweet, for she looked grateful, and that, when it beams out like the sunlight, will make any face look beautiful.

"I told you," said Mrs. Morgan, "about her landing here penniless and alone, and I want she should tell you--there now, there is the bell, how I do hope that is uncle--yes it is--it is; do you hear him talking to Bridget? that is his step, now--"

Now the door opens, and now she is in his arms, and now there are more questions than answers:--

"When did he arrive? How did he find things out West? Has he been to supper? What is the news?"

"Now you are a perfect woman, you are enough to confuse a whirlwind. Sit down, and be quiet, and I will tell you all that you need to know. But first tell me who is this young lady; you forgot to introduce me."

"So I did, but of course she knows by this time that you are my uncle, and you will know directly all about her, for she was just going to tell part of her story, and I shall tell the rest before you go to bed."

"I will warrant that. Perhaps you would like to hear mine, and where I have been since I arrived."

"Yes, indeed, do tell me, and why you did not come right home?"

"I have been to jail, since I arrived; locked up in the criminal cells. It is a little singular too, how I got there. It is all owing to the newspapers."

"Owing to the newspapers, uncle, I do not understand how the papers should get you in prison."

"Very well I do. I saw an item in one of them this evening, about the arrest of a person whose name struck me very forcibly as being that of a man whom I once knew in Europe, and who I was very anxious to see, for I felt the deepest interest to know what had become of his wife. For him I cared nothing, I knew he was a villain, and felt rejoiced to think he had met his deserts at last; but his wife was a sweet good woman, a victim of unfortunate circumstances all through her life, and when I saw her last I had reason to fear that she was falling into a course adopted by many, many others, of drowning sorrow in wine. But I shall not tell my story now; I will sit down and hear yours."

"Well then, Agnes, tell what you did after landing."

At the sound of her name, Mr. Lovetree gave a little start, and said, "Agnes! oh, pshaw!" and sunk back again in his easy chair, as though he had been affected by the name, and thought it very foolish that he had been so. Agnes, said: "Indeed, ma'am, I don't think the gentlemen will be at all interested to hear anything about me."

"Yes, yes, I have promised them."

"Well, then, after my uncle died, and all my friends, I felt dreadful; it is dreadful for a young girl to be left all alone in a strange country. So when the ship landed, or rather when she came to anchor, the people from shore came aboard, and I saw how many of the poor emigrants had friends to welcome them, and that I had none; it was then that I felt the dreadful loneliness of my situation, and I sat down and cried, for I could not help it, and then a man came and spoke to me very pleasantly, and asked me where I wanted to go, and all about it, and then I told him all my troubles, and then he said it was the luckiest thing in the world that I had met with him, for he was an emigrant agent, appointed by law, and he would take charge of me and take me ashore to a boarding-house, and do everything for me. And then he asked me how much money I had, and I told him that I had but a few shillings, of my own, but that I had three gold sovereigns that were my uncle's--he had more, a great deal more, when he died, but somebody must have taken it away--and that was all I had in the world besides their chests of clothes and things. And then he said, that it was very lucky for me that I had that, for he would have to pay half a guinea head-money for each passenger, no matter how many were dead, and then he would have to pay the custom-house duty, and the wharfage and the cartage, and the week in advance for the board, and that would take all the money and more too, but he would pay that and hold the things until I could pay him back. So I gave him the money, and he got the chests, all but my trunk, I would keep that, and took them ashore, and took me to a boarding-house, and that was the last I ever saw of him, or the money or chests either, he had robbed me of all of my poor uncle's things, and my three gold sovereigns; so the landlady said, and he never paid her a cent of board. I did not know what to do; I was willing to work, but how should I find a place. The landlady said, I must go to the 'Intelligence office.' I thought I should like to go somewhere to get intelligence of the man who had run away with my things, or any other intelligence that would be of any benefit to a poor stranger in this great Babel of a city. And I asked her to tell me the way to the 'Intelligence office,' and I went there. It was a great room, divided into two parts; one was full of men, and the other of girls, sitting on long benches. I went in and sat down among them, and I suppose, I looked sad--I felt so, and I felt worse when I heard some of the girls snickering, and overheard them say, 'there is a green one.' If that was an 'Intelligence' office, I thought it a very queer way of giving it to one so much in need of it as I was. After a while, one of the girls came and sat down by me, and spoke kindly, and asked where I came from, and a good many questions; I was almost afraid to answer her, for fear that she was 'an emigrant agent,' too, and had some plan to cheat me, or practice some deception, but I became convinced in a little while that she meant kindly; and then I told her all about myself. Then, she said, that I must get my name registered. I did not know what that was for, but I went up to the bookkeeper, and told him my name, and age, and where I came from, and what I could do, and he wrote it all down in a book and then told me to give him half a dollar, and when I got a place I must give him another one; I did not know what for; he gave me no intelligence about how I was to get a place, but he told me to go and sit down again. So I did, all that day and all the three next days, waiting for somebody to pick me out of the lot. Every hour, somebody came and looked over all the girls, for all the world just as I have seen the people do in the pig-market, at an Irish fair, until they found one that would suit. One objected to me because I was 'green;' another, because I had never been at service in this country; another, because I had no recommend; and then a girl whispered to me, and told me she knew a man who would write me just as many recommends as I wanted, for a shilling a piece. If that is the way recommends are made, I don't see what good they are. At last, after being looked over day after day, like a lot of damaged goods, a lady, at least, I thought she was a lady, selected me the very first one, and for the very reason that twenty others had rejected me--because I was too good-looking. When she found that I had no friends in this country, and no father or mother in the world, she seemed still more anxious to have me, which I thought so kind of her, and then she told me that the work would be very light, only some rooms to take care of, and wait upon company a little, and she knew I should like the place; I thought I should; I did at first, but, I don't want to tell, before the gentlemen, why I did not like to live there; this one knows already."

"Well, well, you need not tell, we understand all about it. You have been treated just as a great many poor girls without friends have been treated before in this city; and you got just as much intelligence, and just as much profit from your application to the 'Intelligence office,' as a great many others have done before you."

Now, it was Athalia's turn to tell her uncle all that she knew about Agnes, and then he told about his visit to the prison.

"I found," said he, "the very man I expected, or rather hoped, it might be, and it is well that I acted upon the impulse of the moment, for if I had not, I should have been too late. It is the doctor's opinion, that he will not live till morning. It seems that he got into some difficulty with the police last night, and one of them, to prevent him from stabbing another man, broke his arm."

There was a little start of surprise on my part, and that of Mrs. Morgan; but we made no interruption, and Lovetree went on with his story. We thought, though, we could not help that.

"I expect he had been drinking hard, for he tore off the bandage from his arm in the night, and when the keeper opened his cell this morning, he found him almost dead with loss of blood and vital prostration. He cannot live. They had aroused him, and I found him quite rational when I went in, and was immediately placed beyond all doubt as to the identity of the man, for he called me by name the moment he saw me."

"I am glad you have come," said he, "I can trust you, and I want to make a clean breast of it before I die. My wife and child--my last one--are in this city, and when I am gone, I want you to go and see her, and tell her, that I shall never trouble her any more; she will be glad to hear it, for she saw me last night, and I left the old lady somewhat in a fright. I cannot tell you the exact number, but I can tell you so that you can find the house easy enough. It is in W-- street."

"Oh, dear, I cannot stand it any longer," said Mrs. Morgan.

"Cannot stand it? I don't see anything that you cannot stand. You surprise me."

"Not half as much as you surprise us. We know all about it. It was him," and she pointed to me, "that knocked the ruffian down; it was him that he was about to stab when the watchman broke his arm; and it is she, uncle, Mrs. De Vrai, his wife, who is the mother of Little Katy; now, you know all about it; we know all about it."

"No, not all, for he told me, that he believed his other wife was in this city, also, married here, and he wanted that I should look her up, too; and tell her where, perhaps, she may find her child."

"Tell her," said he, "that I left it with my brother, near Belfast, an Irish farmer, by the name of William Brentnall."

"William Brentnall!" said Agnes, her eyes opening with wild surprise.

"I do think," said Mr. Lovetree, "that I have lost my senses, or else some of the rest of you have. First, one, and then the other, fairly screams out some exclamation as though I were a conjurer, and you could cot comprehend my words or actions. Have you done now, shall I go on?"

"Yes, yes, uncle; I am dying with curiosity, and as for Agnes, she looks the very picture of wonder."

"Indeed I feel so."

"Well, I don't understand why, but I suppose I might as well proceed. 'Tell her,' said he, 'that he is well known and easily found, and that I left the child with him, telling him that it was mine, and that its mother was dead.' Then I was a little surprised, for I thought his name was De Vrai, 'but that,' he said, 'was an assumed one, the name by which he married the woman that I knew, because he dared not marry her by his own name. Then, I asked him what was her name, who I should look for, and who she should inquire for, to find her child? Then he took a little card out of his pocket, as though he would write her name, and then he seemed to recollect his broken arm, and said, with a groan, 'my writing days are over, and all my days nearly.' Then, he told me, to take the card and write, and so I did, here it is--'this is the mother's name, and this is her daughter's, upon the truth of a dying man--tell her so, beg her to forgive and forget the dead.'"

"What are the names? Do tell us, uncle."

"Mrs. Meltrand--Agnes Brentnall."

Now there were at least two screams and one, "Oh how wonderful!"

Then Agnes said, "Mrs. Meltrand my mother!--that is wonderful!"

Then Mr. Lovetree looked surprised; all around him seemed to be a mass of mystery. Others began to see through it, he was now in the dark.

Athalia explained. There was one point that she was not quite clear upon, and she asked her uncle if Agnes was really De Vrai's daughter, or only Mrs. Meltrand's?

"His own. Mrs. Meltrand, was his lawful wife when he married Mrs. De Vrai."

"Oh my God! then Agnes is his own child."

None spoke--what each thought sent a thrill of icy horror to every heart. All groaned or wept, none could speak. There are moments in life of speechless agony, when the mind is completely horrified, when anything that breaks the silence comes as a relief. It came now in the sound of the door bell. It was a messenger to Mr. Lovetree. It brought relief to aching minds. It was very short. It only said, "he is dead." It is perhaps wrong to rejoice at the death of a fellow creature, but we could not feel regret.

After the first flush of excitement was over, a note was written to Agnes's mother, simply stating that if she would call at Mrs. Morgan's at her earliest convenience, she would meet with an individual who could tell her of her long-lost daughter. She made it convenient to come immediately, though it was then ten o'clock at night.

It is not reasonable to suppose that she could keep away till morning, particularly as she had heard a word or two at her first visit which left her mind uneasy.

I drop the curtain upon the scene when the mother acknowledges and receives to her arms her long-lost daughter, while I go to carry comfort to the heart of Mrs. De Vrai, the ill-treated wife--the widow of a villain--the mother of his child, soon to be an orphan.

What a load it lifted from her crushed heart, when I told her those three little words--"he is dead."

"Then my child will be safe, at least from his evil influences."

What a dreadful thing it is for a wife to feel upon the death of her husband that she is safe herself, that her child is safe, more safe among strangers than with its own father.

Why should she feel so? Why does she feel so? The answer is still shorter than that which gave her relief--which told her that her child's father was dead. That was composed of three words, this of one. That one word is--Rum!!

It was that which made a villain of him, a double villain to two wives and the children of both. It was that which made him attempt the greatest wrong that a father can do to his own child. Poor Agnes!

It was that which drove Mrs. De Vrai step by step from the paths of peaceful, youthful innocence, comfort and affluence, to--but I will not name the intermediate steps--to that wretched abode where the little girl who sold Hot Corn, and slept in the rain upon the cold stones, breathed her pure life away in prayers to that mother not to drink any more of that soul and body destroying rum.

It was that mother, who, upon her death bed, prayed me to tell the world the fruits that the traffic in rum produces. "Tell them to look at me, at my history, or a brief view of it; its details would fill a volume. Tell mothers to watch their daughters. Tell those who bring up children in hotels and public houses, that they are rearing their daughters to one chance of virtue, against ten of sin and woe. My mother was left early a widow, with a competence to raise her two daughters 'at home,' yet she seemed to delight in the excitement incident to a life in a hotel or great boarding-house. As children, we were petted and spoiled; as misses, we learned all that girls usually learn in such boarding-schools as fashionable mothers send them to; as young ladies, we were the flattered of fops and roués, and our mother allowed us to be in a constant flirtation at home, or out every night to parties, balls, soirées, theatres, concerts, and then to saloons, late suppers, and wines, and--oh dear!--what if I had had a home and a mother to keep me out of temptation; but I had not, and I met with the fate almost inevitable.

"Among the boarders at the hotel, where we stopped at Saratoga, was an Englishman, who claimed, and I believe rightly, to be one of the nobility, for he wrote his name, Sir Charles R----, and had a well-known coat of arms upon his seal, which he used publicly. Of course, I was flattered, proud, vain of the attentions of an English nobleman, young, handsome, full of money, and ardent in his professions of love, which I have no reason to think of otherwise than as sincere; I was seventeen, tall, straight, handsome form, face, and figure, and always dressed with taste. My eyes were black; cheeks, rosy; and hair like the wing of a crow. I was well bred, and well read, and could talk and sing to captivate. So could he, and we were both equally affected. When we left the Springs, he came with us to New York, and put up at the same hotel. Then I was innocent. Oh, mothers! mothers! how long can you answer for the innocence of your daughters who go to fashionable eating and drinking saloons, and leave them after midnight, with their young blood on fire, and in such a state of mind that they hardly know whether they go home to rest in their own room, or in some of the thousand traps for the unwary, in almost every street in the city?

"Oh, mothers, mothers, every one, With daughters free from sin, How can you look so coldly on The ways from virtue daughters win?

"Late suppers and wines, and constantly seeing others, who should set the young better examples, going the road that ruins virtue, had its effect. If I had been properly restrained by my mother, had been kept at home nights, and never learned to sip fashionable intoxicating drinks, my mother would not have mourned 'a girl lost.'

"A few months after my first acquaintance with Sir Charles, I was living with him in a richly furnished house, in Eighteenth street, shamelessly passing as his wife, and treated as such by our acquaintance, although they knew that I was not. It was here that Katy was born, and received her first impressions of home and a fond father's love. Here I lived away my young womanhood in fashionable dissipation, and then Sir Charles died suddenly, and without a will. He had always said, he would make a will, and give his vast property to me and our child. But he put it off, as many others do, one day too long. Why do men defer this duty? A sacred duty to those they leave behind them, of their own flesh and blood. I knew, as his wife, I had rights; and I went to England to try and obtain them. I left my elegantly furnished house, which cost, I don't know how many thousand dollars to furnish, for my mother and my sister, and an uncle to occupy while I was gone. I found all the property in the hands of Sir Charles's brother, and he was unwilling to give up the share that rightfully belonged to his wife and child, because he said, we could not recover it by law. He did not say why, my conscience did. As a compromise, if I would give him a general release, he offered five thousand pounds. I would have taken it, but I had employed a lawyer, and he hooted at the idea; he looked for more than that for his fee when he recovered the full amount. I told him that I had no marriage certificate, and that the minister who married us was dead. So he was; Sir Charles was dead. I did not tell him that no other ever blessed our banns. I told him, that numerous persons would swear that they had heard him call me wife, and Katy his child. He said, that would do. I did not know that our opponents could produce as many more to swear, that they had heard Sir Charles say, that it was only a marriage of convenience. So, for an uncertainty of five hundred thousand as a mere prospect, I refused the certainty of five thousand, and went to law. The evidence stood so balanced that the judge could not decide. 'Let the wife be sworn. Let her say, upon her oath, that she was married to Sir Charles, and the case will be given in her favor.'

"There was a chuckling laugh just behind me, the tones of which went to my heart, and I fainted. It was De Vrai. He had known me in this city, and persecuted me with his importunities while Sir Charles was living. I had turned him off with a promise, all too common, 'when Sir Charles is dead.' Then he renewed his importunities, and I told him, to wait a respectful time. He followed me to England, and still pressed me, and I still put him off. He had hinted several times that if I recovered the suit, he well knew that he should lose his. It was him that furnished my opponent with a clue to the proof that we were never married. It was him that laughed in my ear when the case rested upon the question, whether I would swear that I was married or not. For a moment, for the sake of my child, I was tempted; that laugh recalled me partially, and I was carried away in a litter, and the case adjourned. For aught I know it still remains adjourned.

"De Vrai followed me to my hotel. I was in a state bordering upon distraction. With a foolish pride, to keep up appearances, as the wife of Sir Charles, I had exhausted all my means, and run awfully in debt. I had written to my uncle, in New York, to sell my furniture at auction, and send me the money. After a long delay I got five hundred dollars, and a very short letter, saying, that was all the nett proceeds. I felt, I cannot tell how. I knew I was cheated, and wrote a bitter letter back. Then, my own friends, those who had fawned around the rich mistress of Sir Charles, cast off the poor woman struggling to recover something for his child. In this she failed, because that child was not born in wedlock.

"I was now poor indeed. What could I do, alone in a strange land? I knew that De Vrai had no affection for me, only such as one animal has for another, but in my despair I married him.

"His means of living were derived from the same source that hundreds of well-dressed gentlemen derive theirs from, in this city. He was a gambler; a genteel gambler. Such as you may find in every hotel in New York, in every public place, dressed in the very best style, living in the most expensive manner, with no trade, occupation, or exercise of mind or skill, except the skill of cheating at card playing.

"At first, we lived pleasantly; but pleasures with such men are short-lived, and must be often changed. If successful in business--that is what they call their nefarious employment--they are all smiles and affection to wife and children; but if 'luck is against them,' they are the most unhappy men in the world, and make everybody else unhappy around them. As for enduring conjugal affection, I believe the excitement of a gambler's life renders them incapable of feeling its influence. I can scarcely tell how the months passed which I lived with that man, for I drank wine to excess every day. Not to become intoxicated; only just fashionably excited. We lived in the best style of hotel life, often at the expense of the proprietors.

"A little before Sis was born, De Vrai met with 'a run of luck,' and we took a cottage out of town, and lived very comfortably for a year, upon the proceeds of that 'windfall.'

"What that run of luck was, may be guessed at from the following extract from a morning paper:--

"SUICIDE.--An American gentleman was found dead in his bed, at his lodgings, this morning, and it is supposed he died from poison, administered by himself, in consequence of immense losses at the gaming table, not only of his own money, but a sum which he had received in trust for a widow and orphans, in America. It is said, that he owes his losses to the wretched practice of drinking to intoxication, and that he was fairly robbed while in this condition, by a companion of his, one who made great pretence of friendship. He leaves a beautiful young wife, 'quite destitute,' 'tis said."

"I did not know then that this companion of his was my husband. I found that out afterwards, and that he was more than robbed.

"Soon after that event, De Vrai brought the widow of his victim to live in our house. I was the wife--she the mistress. I was blind at first, but I soon had my eyes opened. Opened not only to that fact, but that that wife had stood behind her husband's chair while he played with the villain who robbed him, and gave the signal of what cards he held; and afterwards, when he became sober enough to realize his ruin, she proposed that they should take poison, and die together.

"The result need not be told, only that he died and she lived.

"When I made these discoveries from an overheard conversation, I ordered the vile woman from my house.

"'My house, my house, ha, ha, you poor simpleton. Every article in this house and every cent of money that you or your husband has on earth belongs to me, and these are the papers.

"'Now if you behave yourself you can stay here, if not, you will have to tramp, both of you.'

"She shook the papers in my face, and laughed at my look of fear and astonishment. To finish my agony, when I began to talk something about the rights of an English wife, she coolly told me that she had just as good a right to my husband as I had, for he had one wife when I married him, and that rendered my marriage a nullity. What a shock for a wife--to hear that she is no wife, or if she is, the wife of a robber, adulterer, and murderer.

"I heard all this with a sort of indifference foreign to my very nature. It was well that I did, for it enabled me to perfect my plans, and carry them out with a degree of coolness worthy of a better purpose. I had been promising for some time to visit a friend for a week, and I set about packing up for the journey at once. I said not one word to De Vrai of what I heard, nor gave him one look of reproof. Fortune had made me acquainted with the secret hiding-place of the money this guilty pair had obtained from their poor victim, and I did not feel any compunctions of conscience in taking it from them. In three days afterwards I was in Paris. Here I lived a few months a wretched life of dissipation, and then De Vrai, tracked me to my hiding-place and I had to fly once more; this time across the ocean.

"I had five hundred dollars when I arrived in this city. What might I not have done with that sum, if I had used it prudently? What I did do, I must tell, that it may be a warning to others. It would be a source of consolation to me if I knew that the follies of my life could be illuminated and set up as a beacon light to my fellow creatures, to save them from the quicksands of dissipation upon which I have been wrecked--wrecked by my own folly and foolish pride.

"It was pride, foolish wicked pride, that led me to go to a fashionable hotel, and put up, with my two children and nurse, as Madame De Vrai, from Paris. How soon five hundred dollars melt away, even with prudent living, at a New York hotel. I did not live prudently. I drank to excess, gave late suppers, and gambled. This could not last long, though many hundreds of the dollars worse than wasted in those few weeks, were won from others equally guilty of this besetting wickedness and folly with myself. Such a life could not last. My first step down was to a cheap lodging in Crosby street. I cannot tell how I lived there. I only know that my valuables, my clothes, everything went to the pawnbroker, and I went to that wretched hole where you first saw me in Cow Bay, from whence I drove my poor little Katy out in the streets at midnight, to sell Hot Corn. It was there that my poor child died. It was there that you received her dying blessing, and I her dying forgiveness for all the wrongs that I had heaped upon her poor innocent head. It was then by her death that I was awakened to consciousness and I felt and saw my own deep soul and body destroying degradation. It was through her death and translation to a home in heaven, that I have obtained a hope that my Father may forgive what my child has forgiven, and that, I may yet see her again. It was Him, it must have been Him that opened your ear to that little plaintive cry of 'Hot Corn,' that rose up through your window on its way to the home of angels watching over a child whom her mother had forsaken.

"It was His power--no earthly power could have aroused my mind from its lethargy, that awakened me one moment before it was too late. It was a bitter trial, but nothing else but the death of that sweet child would have been sufficient to save her wicked mother; I cannot mourn her loss, because I feel that she is now so much better off than while singing her nightly cry through the streets, of 'Hot Corn, Hot Corn, here's your nice hot corn!' Speaking of singing, have you seen the new song, just published, called 'The Dying Words of Little Katy, or Will He Come?"

"Oh it is beautiful. Here it is, do read it:--

"Here's hot corn, nice hot corn!" a voice was crying! Sweet hot corn, sweet hot corn! the breeze is sighing! Come buy, come buy--the world's unfeeling-- How can she sell while sleep is stealing? "Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn!"

All alone, all alone, she sat there weeping; While at home, while at home, her sister's sleeping, "Come buy, come buy, I'm tired of staying; Come buy, come buy, I'm tired of saying, Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn!"

Often there, often there, she sat so drear'ly With one thought, for she loved her sister dearly: Did'st hate, did'st hate--how could she ever, How could she hate her mother?--never. "Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn!"

Often there, often there, while others playing, Hear the cry, "buy my corn," she's ever praying. "Pray buy, pray buy, kind hearted stranger, One ear, then home, I'll brave the danger; Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn!"

Now at home, now at home, her cry is changing! "Will he come, will he come?" while fever's raging. She cries, she cries, "pray let me see him; Once more, once more, pray let me see him. Hot corn, he'll buy my nice hot corn!"

"Will he come, will he come?" she's constant crying, "Will he come, will he come?" poor Katy's dying. "'Twas he, 'twas he, kind words was speaking Hot corn, hot corn, while I was seeking Hot corn, who'll buy my nice hot corn?"

"Midnight there, midnight there, my hot corn crying, Kindly spoke, first kind words, they stop'd my sighing. That night, that night, when sleep was stealing, Kind words, kind words--my heart was healing; Hot corn, he'll buy my nice hot corn!"

"Will he come, will he come?"--weak hands are feeling! "He has come, he has come--I see him kneeling-- One kiss--the light--how dim 'tis growing-- I thank--'tis dark--good bye--I'm going-- Hot corn--no more shall cry--hot corn!!!"

Drop a tear, drop a tear, for she's departed, Drop a tear, drop a tear, poor broken hearted, Now pledge, now pledge, the world is crying, Take warning, warning, by Katy's dying, "Hot corn, who'll buy my nice hot corn?"

"The music of this, as it is arranged for the piano, is one of the sweetest, plaintive things you ever heard."

"And besides that, there are a good many other songs and tales, so Agnes tells me, already written, which never would have been if my poor child had not been called away from her home of misery here on earth to one made for the innocent and good beyond the grave. Who knows how much good all those songs and stories may do in the world, to save others from the road which I took to destruction!"

"Oh, if the wretched, awful misery occasioned by rum, which I alone have seen, could be pictured to the world, it does seem to me that no sane man or woman could ever look upon the picture and live, without becoming so affected that they would foreswear all intoxicating beverages for ever afterwards."

"Oh, sir, I know that I am now on my death bed, and I feel as though I was talking from the spirit world, and I do pray you to tell my fellow creatures, one and all--tell my own sex who are just beginning this life of temptation, degradation, sin, shame, woe, and death, what it brought me to, what it will bring all to, sooner or later, who, indulge as I did, first in wine, and, finally, in anything, everything that could sink reason into forgetfulness."

Reader, have I obeyed that dying injunction?