University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

Fanny McDermot might have lain down and died in the
extremity of her despair at finding herself finally deserted, or
in her self-condemnation she might have done violence to her
life; but her child was God's argument to reason, patience,
calmness, and exertion.

She sat herself to consider what could be done. In all
this great city, Mrs. O'Roorke was her only acquaintance,
and though poor and ignorant, she was too her friend, and
Fanny was in a strait to know the worth of that word friend.

“She can, perhaps, tell me where to find employment,”
thought Fanny, “and certainly she will be kind to me.” And
to her she determined to go. She laid aside all her fine
clothes, which were now unfit for her, and had become disgusting
to her, and putting on a gingham dressing-gown, and
over it a black and white plaid cloak, which, with a neat
straw bonnet (her aunt's last gifts), seemed, as she looked at
herself in them, in some degree to restore her self-respect,
“Dear, honest old friends,” she exclaimed, “would that I had

never laid you aside!” It was with a different feeling that
she took up and laid down, one after another, the pretty
frocks she had delicately made and daintily trimmed for her
baby. “She looks so pretty in them,” she thought; “and I
am sure there is no sin in her looking pretty!” But after a
little shrinking, she dressed the baby in a cotton night-gown,
and took off her coral necklace, bracelets, and bells. She then
wrapped her warmly in shawls, and left the house, and after
walking two squares, she reached a railroad car. There were
several persons in the car when she entered, and as usual,
they turned their eyes on the new comer, but not, as usual,
turned them away again. Those exquisite features arrested
the dullest eye, and there was something in the depth of expression
on that young face, to awaken interest in the dullest
soul. One man touched his neighbour, who was absorbed in
his newspaper, and directed his eyes to Fanny. Two young
women interchanged expressions of wonder and curiosity with
their eyes fixed on her. A good little boy, feeling an instinctive
sympathy with something, he knew not what, expressed
it by offering her some pea-nuts, and when she looked
up to thank him, she became for the first time conscious of
the general gaze; and thankful she was, when, at the intersection
of Houston-street, the car stopped to let her out.
“Have a care,” said a Quaker woman at her side, as she rose,
“thee art young, child, to be trusted with a baby.” Fanny,
overcome with emotion and fatigue—for it was long since she
walked out—was ready to sink, when, after having walked
nearly a mile down Houston-street, she came to her former
home. The O'Roorke's were not there. “They had moved
many months since,” her informer said, “down into Broome-street,
near the North River.” “Was it far?” Fanny asked.
“Faith! it was!” “Might she come in and rest herself?”
“Indeed isn't she welcome; and a shame it is for any lady
to send such a delicate cratur out with a baby in her arms.”

When Fanny entered and saw the stairs she had so often,
in her childhood, trodden, the tears started to her eyes; and,
when her baby waked, and would not be quieted without food
from her breast, she perceived the women exchanging significant
nods and looks, and overcome by weakness and a gush
of emotion, she burst into hysterical sobbings. “Poor young
cratur! poor young cratur! God help you!” exclaimed the
woman, with a true Irish gush of feeling: “and what is't
you're wanting? Here's a drink of milk; take it, honey
dear; it will strengthen you better than whiskey. We've
done with that, thank God and Father Matthew.”

Fanny made a violent effort, calmed herself, drank the milk,
and asked if a cab could not be got for her. There was one
passing, and at the next instant she was in it, and driving to
Broome-street. She found the house, but the O'Roorkes had
flitted, and in another and distant quarter of the city, she
found the second dwelling to which she was directed. Again
they had moved, and whither, no one could tell; and feeling
as if the last plank had gone from under her feet, she returned
to her home. Home! alas, that sacred word had now no
meaning to poor Fanny. She had scarcely entered her room
and thrown herself on the sofa with her baby, when Mrs. Tilden,
her remarkably red-faced landlady, threw open the door and
said—

“Are you back? I did not expect you alone.”

“Not expect me alone? What do you mean?”

“Why it's customary for some kind of folks, you know,
when they lose one husband, to take another.”

Fanny looked up; a sickening feeling came over her;
the words she would have answered died away on her lips.

“I suppose you are sensible,” continued Mrs. Tilden,
“that honest folks must be paid just debts, and as there's no
finding that Mr. Stafford of yours, I have 'strained upon
your wearing apparel, that being answerable for rent as well
as furniture; and all the furniture belonging to me already,
except the sofa and the Psyche, and the vases and the dressing
case,—them things will help out, but the whole quarter's
rent, and eight days over, is due.”

Fanny said nothing.

“I am never ungenerous to nobody. So I have taken
out enough baby linen to serve you, and a change for yourself—the
rest is under my lock and key, and I shall keep it,
may be, a month or more before I sell it; and if Mr. Stafford
pays me in that time—and I don't misdoubt he will,
sooner or later—but them kind of fine gentlemen are slow
coaches in paying, you know, but I don't question his honor;
he has always been highly honourable to me; and I have
been highly honourable to him; he is a real gentleman, there's
no mistake—as I was saying, as soon as he pays me, you
shall have your things—or—the worth of them again;
you shall have it all, bating some little reward for my
trouble—the Psyche, or dressing-case—or so.”

“Well,” said Fanny, perceiving Mrs. Tilden had paused
for an answer.

“Well,” that's all—only if you and I can agree, you can
stay down stairs, as a boarder—till”

“No—not a moment—only let me remain in the room
to-night, and to-morrow I will try to find a service place.”

“A service place! My service to you!” said Mrs. Tilden,
with a sort of ogress grin.

“Oh, don't look so at me! Mrs. Tilden, do you think,
that, after all, I have any pride?”

“Pride, pride! Why, you foolish child, don't you know
that `after all,' as you call it, there is but one kind of service
left for you? Ladies won't take the like of us into
their houses.”

“The like of us,” thought Fanny, and shuddered.

“They are dreadful partic'lar about any little false step
of their own sex. If you but dampen the soles of your feet,
it is as bad as if you are up to your neck in the mire; but
men may plunge in over their head and ears, and they are
just as welcome to their houses, and as good husbands for
their daughters, as your Josephs—”

“Is it so? Can it be? I do not know what will become
of me! Oh, baby, baby! But may I stay here to-night?”

“Why, yes; but you must be off pretty early, for there's
a lady coming to look at the rooms at ten.”

Poor Fanny, left alone, sank on her knees, with one arm
round her sleeping baby, and sent out from her penitent and
humble heart, a cry for forgiveness and pity, that we
doubt not was heard by Him whose compassions fail not.
She then threw herself on the bed and fell asleep. Thank
God, no degree of misery can drive sleep away from a wearied
young creature.

The next morning she laid her plans, and strengthening
her good resolutions by prayer, she went forth feeling a new
strength; and having paid the fee with two of the only four
shillings left to her,[1] to the master of an intelligence office,
who stared curiously at her, she received references to
three ladies—“the very first-rate of places, all,” as the man

assured her. She first went to a lady who wanted a wet
nurse as a supplement to her own scanty supplies. She met
a young lady in the hall, whom she heard say to her mother,
“Oh, mamma! such a pretty young creature has come for
wet nurse to sis—do take her.” Fanny was called in, and
having given satisfactory answers as to her supplies, she was
asked for references. She immediately did what she had before
purposed, and confessing she had no references to give,
told truly so much of her sad story as explained her present
position. The lady heard her through, possibly not believing
a word she said, but the fact of her transgression; and when
she had finished, she said to her, “Did you really expect that
such a person as you could get a place in a respectable family?”
She rung the bell, and added coolly, “Thomas, show
this person out. This is the last time I go to an intelligence
office.”

Poor Fanny sighed as she left the door, but pressing her
baby to her bosom, she said softly, “We'll not be discouraged
with one failure, will we, baby?” The child smiled on her,
and she went on with a lighter step. Her next application
was to a milliner, whom the master of the intelligence office
had told her “was a very strict religious lady, who says she
is very particular about the reputation of her girls.” It is
close by, thought Fanny. “I have but little hope, but I
must save my steps, and I will go to her.” Again, bravely
and simply she told the truth. The milliner heard her with
raised brows. “I am sorry for you, if you tell the truth,
young woman,” she said. “I know this city is a dreadful
place for unprincipled girls, and I make it a rule never to
take any such into my establishment. I hope you do mean to reform,
but I can do nothing for you; I advise you to apply to
the Magdalen Society.”

Again Fanny went on. She had now to go from Williamstreet
to the upper part of the city; and precious as her sixpences
had become, she felt it was utterly impossible for her to
walk. She, therefore, on reaching Broadway, got into an
omnibus, and was soon at the door of Mrs. Emly's fine
house in Waverley Place, and was shown into a room where
that lady was sitting in her peignior, looking over with
her sister some dresses that were to be trimmed for a party
the following evening. A very elegant young woman was
sitting at a table drawing.

“A sempstress, ma'am, from the intelligence office,” said
the servant, announcing Fanny.

“A sempstress, with a child!” exclaimed Mrs. Emly.

The young lady looked up at Fanny as she entered; she
was struck by her beauty, with her excessive delicacy, and
with the gushing of the blood to her pale cheek at Mrs. Emly's
exclamation. She rose, handed Fanny a chair, and saying
most kindly, “What a very pretty child, mamma;” she
offered to take it. The little creature stretched out its
hands in obedience to the magnetic influence of beauty,
youth, and a countenance most expressive of cheerful kindness.
If, as is sometimes said, a voice may be “full of
tears,” this lovely young creature's was “full of smiles.”
Fanny looked up most gratefully, as the young lady took her
infant, saying to her, “You must be very tired—is it not
very tiresome to carry a baby?”

“The baby does not seem to tire me; but I am not very
strong,” replied Fanny, wiping away the tears that were
gathering at the gentleness addressed to her.

“You do not look strong, nor well,” said the young lady,
and she poured out a glass of wine and water, and insisted
on Fanny taking that, and some more solid refreshment, from

the waiter on which a servant had just served lunch. It was
well for poor Fanny that she accepted the hospitality, for she
needed to be fortified for what followed. Fanny had been so
thoroughly drilled in sewing by her aunt, who, it may be remembered,
was a tailoress, that she answered very confidently,
as to her abilities as a sempstress. She should be
content, she said, with any wages, or no wages, for the present,
if Mrs. Emly would put up with the inconvenience of
her child.”

“Oh, the child will not be in my way, said Mrs. Emly;”
you'll be up in the attic, and I shan't hear it; so, if you will
give me a satisfactory reference, I will try you.”

“I have never lived out,” answered Fanny. Discouraged
by the rebuffs she had already received, she shrunk from a
direct communication of her position.

“Well, where do your parents live? If I find you have
decent parents, that will be enough.”

“My parents died—long ago—I lived with my aunt—
and she is dead—and I am—friendless.”

“Aha!” said Mrs. Emly,” with an emphatic nod of her
head to her sister, who screwed up her mouth, and nodded
back again. The young lady walked up to her mother, and
said to her in a low voice, and with an imploring look—

“Mamma, for Heaven's sake don't say any more to her;
I am sure she is good.”

“Ridiculous, Augusta; you know nothing about it,” replied
Mrs. Emly aloud. And turning to Fanny, she said,
“How comes it that you are friendless and alone in the
world? Have you not a husband?”

“No,” answered Fanny, some little spirit mounting with
her mounting colour. “I never had a husband, I have been

betrayed and forsaken—I am no farther guilty,—no more innocent.”

“Quite enough! quite enough! I can't of course take
any such person into my house.”

“Then my baby and I must die, for nobody will take us
in,” said Fanny, bursting into tears, and gathering her cloak
about her.

“Oh, mamma,” said Augusta Emly, “for pity's sake let
her stay. I will answer for her.”

“Pshaw! Augusta, how very absurd you are! No respectable
lady would take a person of that kind into her house.”

“Then what is their respectability worth, mamma, if it
cannot give help to a weak fellow-creature?”

“Miss Augusta,” said a servant, opening the door, “Mr.
Sydney is below.”

“Tell Mr. Sydney I am engaged, Daniel.”

“Augusta,” said her mother, “you are not going to send
away Russel Sydney in that nonchalant manner. What do
you mean? Give the child to its mother, and go down.
“It's a lucky moment for her,” she said, in a whisper to her
sister. “She has such a beautiful glow on her cheek.”

It was a beautiful glow—the glow of indignant humanity.

“I cannot go down, mother. Daniel, say I am engaged.”

In another instant, Daniel returned with a request from
Mr. Sydney, that Miss Emly would ride with him the following
day; `he had purchased a charming lady's horse, and
begged she would try it.'

“Oh, what shall I say, mamma? I cannot go.”

Mrs. Emly, without replying to Augusta, opened the door,
and brushing by Fanny, who had risen to depart, she called
from the head of the stairs, “Mr. Sydney, excuse me; I am
in my dressing-gown and cannot come down. Will you come

to the staircase? We are so up to our eyes arranging with the
dressmaker for Mrs. Davies', that you must excuse Augusta
this morning. She is a little timid, since her accident about
riding. Are you sure of your horse?”

“Perfectly. Lord bless me! would I ask Miss Emly, if I
were not?”

At the sound of the responding voice, Fanny sprang forward,
and then staggering back again, leaned against the
door.

“Oh! very well, then,” said the compliant mamma, “she
will be ready for you at twelve. Good morning!”

“Good morning!” was answered, and Mrs. Emly turned
towards her apartment, elated with having settled the matter
according to her own wishes. Fanny grasped her arm,—
“For God's sake, tell me,” she said, in a voice scarcely audible,
“where does Mr. Sydney live? he it is that has deserted me.
Where can I find him?”

Mrs. Emly's spirit quailed before Fanny's earnestness—
her unmistakable truth; but after a single moment's hesitation,
she discreetly said—“I don't know; he lives somewhere
at lodgings. You have probably mistaken the person.”

“Mistaken,—oh Heaven!” exclaimed Fanny, and glided
down stairs as if there were wings to her feet; but before she
could reach the pavement, Sydney had mounted into his very
handsome new phaeton, and was driving proudly up the street,
gallantly bowing to some ladies at their balcony windows, and
poor Fanny crept on she knew not why nor whither.

“What did that poor girl say to you, mamma? Did she
mention Sydney's name?” asked Augusta Emly.

“Sydney's name? Why should she mention it? I did
not hear her. She might, perhaps—she muttered something.
She is a little beside herself, I think.”

“Do you, mamma?”

There could not be a stranger contrast, than Miss Emly's
earnest tone and her mother's flippant one.

“Poor—poor girl—how very beautiful she is! She reminded
me of Ophelia. I think she has her senses now, but
with that deep dejectedness, I should not wonder if she soon
lost them. May God be more merciful to her than we have
been. But, mamma, how could you say to Russel Sydney,
that I would ride with him?”

“Why, are you going to stay at home and sigh over this
lost damsel? You will ride with Sydney, unless you prefer
to hurt my feelings, and displease me seriously.”

“That I should be very sorry to do; but I cannot ride
with Mr. Sydney.”

“Cannot! and why?”

“How can you ask, mamma? How can you wish me to
associate intimately with the sort of man he is?”

“What windmills are you fighting now, Augusta? For a
sensible girl, you are the silliest I ever met with. What do
you mean?”

“You surely know what I mean, mamma! You know
that Russel Sydney has been one of the most dissipated men
in the city.”

“So have forty other men been who are very good husbands
now, or whose wives are too prudent to make a fuss
about it if they are not. Really, Augusta, I do not think it
very creditable to a young lady, to be seeking information of
this sort about young men.”

“I have not sought it. I never dreamed,” Augusta looked
steadfastly in her mother's face, “that my mother would introduce
a man to me who, as we both have heard, on good
authority, has kept a mistress since he was eighteen, and

changed her as often as suited his caprice; but having heard
this, I surely will not disregard it.”

“You are absurdly scrupulous and very unjust, my dear.
Sydney has entirely given up all this sort of thing—he assured
me he had.”

“And you relying took his assurance, mamma, and
would not listen, for one moment, to that poor penitent girl's
assurance.”

“Oh that's quite a different thing.”

“I see no difference, excepting that the one is the strong
party, the other the weak,—the one the betrayer, the other
the betrayed. The fact of the girl seeking honest employment
is prima facie evidence in favour of her truth.”

“You talk so absurdly, Augusta! And, to speak plainly,
I do not think it over delicate,” continued Mrs. Emly, with a
pharisaical curl of her lip, “for an unmarried lady of nineteen
to be discussing subjects of this nature—though it may be
quite often your Aunt Emily's fashion to do so.”

“It is very much my Aunt Emily's fashion to strip off the
husk, and look for the kernel—to throw away the world's
current counterfeit, and keep the real gold. Probably she
would think it far more indelicate to receive a notoriously
licentious man into her society, than to express her opinion of
his vices: and I know she thinks it not only indelicate, but
irrational and unchristian, to tolerate certain vices in men, for
which women are proscribed and hunted down.”

“Mercy on us, what an oration for nothing! Truly, you
and your Aunt Emily, with your country-evening morals, are
very competent judges of town society. It seems to my poor
common-sense perceptions, that you are rather a partial distributor
of your charities. You are quite willing to receive
this equivocal young woman, with her confessedly illegitimate

child, and you would doubly bar and bolt the door against a
very charming young man, who has sown his wild oats.”

“Oh, surely mamma, this is not the true state of the case.
The one party is a man of fashion, received and current, the
other a poor young outcast, who seems more sinned against
than sinning—probably the victim of some such `charming'
young man as Sydney. As women, as professed followers of
Christ, my dear mother, ought we not to help her out of the
pit into which she has fallen? May we not guard her from
future danger and misery?”

Mrs. Emly stood for a moment silent and rebuked before
the gentle earnestness of her daughter; but after a moment,
she rallied and said with a forced laugh,—“You had best join
the Magdalen Society at once, Augusta; they will give you
plenty of this fancy-missionary work to do; I confess it is not
quite to my taste.”

Augusta made no reply; she was too much pained by her
mother's levity, and she took refuge in writing the incidents
of the morning to that “Aunt Emily,” in whose pure atmosphere
she had been reared.

Sickening with fatigue and disappointment, Fanny, helped
on her way by an omnibus, returned to the intelligence office
where she had left her bundle. The official gentleman there, on
hearing the story of her failure, said, “Well, it's no fault of mine
—you can't expect a good place without a good reference.”

“Oh, I expect nothing,” replied Fanny, “I hope for nothing,
but that my baby and I may lay down together and die—very
soon, if it please God!”

“I am sorry for you, I declare I am,” said the man,

who, though his sensibility was pretty much worn away by
daily attrition, could not look, without pity, upon the pale,
beautiful young creature, humble and gentle, and trembling in
every fibre with exhaustion and despair. “You are tired
out,” he said, “and your baby wants taking care of. There's
a decent lodging-house in the next street, No. 35, where you
may get a night's lodging for a shilling. To-morrow morning
you'll feel better,—the world will look brighter after a night's
sleep. Come back to me in the morning, and I will give you
some more chances. I won't go according to rule with you.”

Fanny thanked him, kissed her baby, and again, with
trembling, wavering steps, went forth. She had but just
turned the corner, when, overcome by faintness, she sat down
on a door-step. As she did so, a woman coming from the
pump turned to go down into the area of a basement-room.
She rested her pail on the step, and cast her eye inquisitively
on Fanny.

“God save us!” she cried, “Fanny McDermot, darlint!
I've found you at last—just as I expected! God punish them
that's wronged you! Can't you spake to me, darlint? Don't
you know Biddy O'Roorke?”

“Oh yes,” replied Fanny, faintly, “my only friend in this
world! Indeed I do know you.”

“And indeed, and indeed, you cannot come amiss to me—
you are welcome as if you were my own, to every thing I have
in the world. Rise up, darlint, give me the babby. God's
pity on it, poor bird;” and taking the infant in one arm, and
supporting and nearly carrying the mother with the other,
she conducted Fanny down the steps and laid her on her bed.
With discreet and delicate kindness, she abstained, for the
present, from inquiries, and contented herself with nursing the
baby, and now and then an irrepressible overflow of her heart

in expression of pity and love to Fanny, and indignation and
wrath against “bad craters, that had neither soul, nor heart,
nor feelings, nor any such thing in them!”

In the course of the day Fanny so far recovered as to tell
her friend her short, sad story, and to learn that affairs had
mended with the O'Roorkes; that the drunken husband was
dead, Pat and Ellen were out at service, and that the good
mother, with a little help from them, and by selling apples
and nuts, and now and then a windfall, got bread for herself
and three little noisy, thriving children. The scantiness of her
larder was only betrayed by her repeated assurances to Fanny
that “she had plenty—plenty, and to spare, oceans—oceans,”
and when Fanny the next morning manifested her intention
of going out again to seek a place, she said, “Na, na, my darlint,
it's not that ye shall be after. Is not the bit place big
enough for us all? It's but little ye're wanting to ate. Wait,
any way, till ye's stronger, and the babby is old enough to
wane, and then ye can lave it here to play with Anny and
Peggy.”

Fanny looked round upon the “bit place,” and it must be
confessed that she sickened at the thought of living in it,
even with the sunny kindness of its inmates, or of leaving her
little snowdrop of a baby there. The windows were dim with
dirt, the floor was unwashen—a heap of kindlings were in one
corner, potatoes in another, and coals under a bed, none of the
tidiest. Broken victuals on broken earthen plates stood on
the table, and all contrasted too strongly with the glossy neatness
of her aunt's apartment. Surely Fanny was not fastidious.

“Oh, no, Mrs. O'Roorke,” she said, “I can never, never leave
my baby. I am better; and you are so kind to me, that I'll wait
till to-morrow.” And she did wait another day, but no persuasion
of Mrs. O'Roorke could induce her to leave the infant.

She insisted that she did not feel its weight,—and that
“looking on it was all that gave her courage to go among
strangers,”—and “that now she felt easier, and more in
heart, knowing she had such a kind friend to come to at
night.”

Finding Fanny resolved, Mrs. O'Roorke said,—“Now
don't be after telling them your misfortunes; just send them
to me for your charackter. It's ten to one they'll not take
the trouble to come; and if they do, I'll satisfy them complately.”

“And how?” asked Fanny, with a faint smile.

“Why, won't I be after telling them just the truth—how
the good old lady brought you up like a nun, out of sunshine
and harm's way; how you were always working with your
needle, and quiet-like and dove-like—and how the ould lady
doted on you, and that you were the best and beautifullest
that ever crossed a door-sill.”

“But oh, dear Mrs. O'Roorke, how will you ever come to
the dreadful truth?”

“And I'll not be after just that. If they bother with
questions, can't I answer them civilly, Fanny McDermot?
How will it harm a body in all the world just to be tould that
ye's married your man, what died with consumption or the
like of that?”

Fanny shook her head.

“Now what's the use, Fanny McDermot,” continued Mrs.
O'Roorke, “of a tongue, if we can't serve a friend with it?
Lave it all to me, darlint. You know I would not tell a lie
to wrong one of God's craters. Would I be after giving you
a charackter if you did not desarve it?”

“I know how kind and good you are to me, Mrs. O'Roorke,”
said Fanny; “but I pray you say nothing for me but

the truth. I have asked God's forgiveness and blessing on
me and my baby, and we must try to earn it. Promise me,
will you?”

“Oh, be aisy, darlint, be aisy, and I'll be after doing what
you wish.” She wrapped the baby in its blanket, carried it
up the steps, and put it in the mother's arms. “There, God
guide you, Fanny McDermot. The truth!” continued Mrs.
O'Roorke, as her streaming eyes followed Fanny; “and what's
truth good for but to serve the like of her that's been wronged
by a false-hearted villain, bad luck to him!”

It would take a very nice casuist to analyze the national
moral sense of good Mrs. O'Roorke. The unscrupulous flexibility
of the Irish tongue is in curious contrast with the truth
of the Irish heart—a heart overflowing with enthusiasm, and
generosity, and often instinctively grasping the best truth of
life.

“I am thinking,” said the master of the intelligence office,
as he was doling out two or three references to Fanny, to
families residing in different and distant parts of the city, “I
am thinking you don't know much of the world, young
woman?”

“I do not,” replied Fanny, mournfully.

“Well then, I do, and I'll give you a hint or two. It's a
world, child, that's looking out pretty sharp for number one;
where each shows their fairest side, and looks all round their
fellow creturs—where them that have the upper hand—you
understand—them what employs others—thinks they have a
right to require that they shall be honest and true and faithful,
and so on to the end of the chapter of what they call good
character; and not only that they be so, but that they have
been so all their lives. The man that holds the purse may
snap his fingers, and be and do what he likes. Now, there

can't be friendship in this trade, so what are the weak party
to do but to make fight the best way they can? But I
see you don't altogether take my idees,” he continued, perceiving
Fanny was but half attentive, and replacing his spectacles,
which he had taken off in beginning his lecture on the
social system; “you'll see my meaning in the application.
Now, `I've asked no questions, and you've told no lies,' as the
saying is, but I know pretty much what's come and gone—
you see I understand all sorts of advertisements—by your
beauty, by your cast-down eyes, with the tears standing on
the eaves—by the lips that, though too pretty for any thing
but smiles, look as if they would never smile again; by the—”

“Oh, please, sir, give me the papers and let me go.”

“Wait—I have not come to it yet—to the pith. I feel
like a father to you, child—I do. Now, my advice is, hold
up your head; you've as much right, and more, I can tell you,
than many a mistress of a fine house. Look straight forward,
speak cheery, and say you're a widow.”

Fanny looked up, with a glance of conscious integrity; and
he added, with a slight stammer—

“Why should you not say so? You are left, and that is
the main part of being a widow—left to provide for yourself
and your young one, and that's the distressing part of being
one. Every body pities the widow and orphan. And I
should like to have any body tell me which is most complete
a widow, a woman whose husband is dead, or you?—which the
completest orphan, a child whose father lies under ground, or
yours?”

Fanny stretched out her hand for the references, and took
them in silence; but when she reached the door, she turned,
and said, with a voice so sweet and penetrating that it was oil
to the wounded vanity of the man, “I thank you, sir, for

wishing to help us; but baby,” she added, mentally, straining
her little burden to her bosom, “we will be true—we will
keep our vow to God—won't we? He is merciful; Jesus
was merciful, even to that poor woman that was brought
before him by cruel men; and if nobody will take us in on
earth, God may take us to Himself—and I think He will
soon.”

She walked on slowly and perseveringly, turning many
streets, till she reached the first address to which she had been
referred. There, she was received and dismissed as she had
been on the previous day, and she went to look for the next;
but she soon began to feel sensations she had never felt
before, a pain and giddiness in the head, and a general tremulousness.
She dragged on a little way, and then sat down.
Gradually her mind became confused, and she determined
to turn back at once, and make the best of her way to
Mrs. O'Roorke, but to her dismay, she could not remember
the name of the street where she lived nor that of the intelligence-office.
“Oh, I am going mad,” she thought, “and they
will take my baby from me!” and making an effort to compose
herself, she sat down on a door-step, and, to test her
mind, she counted the panes in the windows opposite. “All
is right yet,” she thought, as she went steadily on and finished
her task; “but why cannot I remember the name of that
street? Do you know,” she asked timidly of a man who was
passing, and who looked like one of those persons who know
every thing of the sort,—“do you know any street beginning
with Van?”

“Bless me, yes, fifty. There's Vandam, and Vandewater,
and”—

“Oh, stop there—it's one of those. Are they near together?”

“As near as east and west—one is one side of the city,
and one the other.” And he passed briskly on.

Poor Fanny sat down, and repeated to herself the names
till she was more at a loss than ever. The passers-by looked
curiously at her, and two or three addressing insolent words to
her, she could endure it no longer, and she went slowly,
falteringly on. Her head throbbed violently, and she felt that
her lips were parched, and her pulse beating quick and hard.
Her baby began to cry for food, and seeing some upright
boards resting against a house, she crept under them to be
sheltered from observation while she supplied her child's
wants. There were two little girls there before her, eating
merrily and voraciously from an alms-basket.

“Oh, my baby!” said Fanny aloud, “I am afraid this is
the last time you will find any milk in your mother's breast.”

The little beggar-girls looked at her pitifully, and offered
her bread and meat.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, “but I cannot eat. If you
would only get me a drink of cold water.”

“Oh, that we can as easy as not,” said one of them; and
fishing up a broken teacup from the bottom of her basket, she
ran to a pump and filled it, and again and again filled it, as
Fanny drank it, or poured it on her burning, throbbing head.

“It's beginning to rain,” said one of the girls, “and I
guess we had all better go home. You look sick—we'll carry
your baby for you, if your home is our way.”

“My home! No, thank you; my home is not your way.”

The children went off slowly, looking back and talking in
a low tone, and feeling as they had never quite felt before.

It was early in February, and the days of course were
short. The weather had been soft and bright, but as the
evening approached, the sky became clouded and a chilling

rain began. Fanny crept out of her place of shelter, after
most anxiously wrapping up her baby, and at first, stimulated
by the fever, walked rapidly on. Now and then she sat down,
where an arched doorway offered a shelter, and remained
half oblivious, till urged on again by her baby's cries.

It was eleven o'clock, when she was passing before a brilliantly
lighted house. There was music within, and a line of
carriages without. A gentleman was at this moment alighting
from his carriage. Fanny shrunk back, and leaned against
the area-railing till he should pass. He sprung quickly up
the step to avoid the dropping eaves, and when in the doorway,
turned to say, “Be punctual, at one o'clock.” Fanny looked
up: the light from the bright gas lamps beside the door shone
in the speaker's face. “Oh, mercy, it is he!” she exclaimed,
and darting forward, mounted the step. It was he! Sydney!
He left the door ajar as he entered, and Fanny followed in;
and as she entered, she saw Sydney turn the landing of the
staircase. Above, was the mingled din of voices and music.
Fanny instinctively shrunk from proceeding. Through an
open door she saw the ruddy glow of the fire in the ladies'
cloak-room. It was vacant. “I might warm my poor baby
there,” she thought, “and it's possible,—it is possible I may
speak with him when he comes down,”—and she obeyed the
impulse to enter. Her reason was now too weak to aid her,
or she would not have placed herself in a position so exposed
to observation and suspicion. When she had entered, she
saw, to her great relief, a screen that divided a small portion
of the room from the rest. She crept behind it, and seated
herself on a cushion that had been placed there for the convenience
of the ladies changing their shoes.

“How very fast you are sleeping, my baby,” she said,
“and yet,” she added, shivering herself, “how very cold you

are!” And wrapping around it a velvet mantle that had fallen
over the screen, she leaned her head against the wall, and
partly stupefied by the change from the chilling street to the
warm apartment, and partly from exhaustion, she fell asleep.
What a contrast was she, in her silent, lonely desolation, with
fever in her veins, and enveloped in cold, drenched, dripping
garments, to the gay young creatures above,—thoughtless of
any evil in life more serious than not having a partner for the
next waltz! She, a homeless, friendless wanderer; they, passing
from room to room amidst the rustling of satins, and soft
pressure of velvets, and floating of gossamer draperies, with
the luxury of delicious music, and an atmosphere sweet with
the breath of the costliest exotics, and crowding to tables
where Epicurus might have banqueted.

And such contrasts, and more frightful, are there nightly
in our city, separated, perhaps, by a wall, a street, or a square;
and knowing this, we sleep quietly in our beds, and spend
our days in securing more comforts for ourselves, and perhaps
complaining of our lot!

More than an hour had passed away, when Fanny was
awaked to imperfect consciousness by the murmuring of two
female voices outside the screen. Two ladies stood there in
their cloaks, waiting.

“How in the world,” asked one, “did you contrive to
make her waltz with him?”

“By getting her into a dilemma. She could not refuse
without rudeness to her hostess.”

“And so you made her ride with him yesterday? And
so you hope to decoy her into an engagement with him?”

“No, no. I merely mean to decoy her—if you choose
that word—into an intimacy, and then I will leave them to
make out the rest between them. He is really irresistible!
Stamford Smith's wife was over head and ears in love with
him; and you know poor Ellen Livermore made no secret of
her attachment to him.”

“Why did she not marry him?”

“Lord knows,” replied the lady, shrugging her shoulders.
“She did not play her cards well; and I believe, the truth is,
he has been a sad fellow.”

“Do you believe there was any truth in that girl's story
yesterday?”

“Very likely; pretty girls in her station are apt to go
astray, you know. But here is Augusta. Come in, Mr.
Sydney, there is no one here but us. Are you going so
early?”

“Yes. After I shall have seen you to your carriage, I have
no desire to stay.” There was a slight movement behind the
screen, but apparently not noticed by the parties outside.
“Oh, Miss Emly, allow me,” he said, dropping on his knee
before Augusta, who, the dressing-maid not being at her post,
was attempting to button her overshoe,—“allow me?”

“No, thank you; I always do these things for myself.”

“But I insist.”

“And I protest!” And Augusta Emly sprang behind
the screen.

Sydney, with a sort of playful gallantry, followed her.
Between them both the screen fell, and they all stood silent
and aghast, as if the earth had opened before them. There
still sat Fanny, beautiful as the most beautiful of Murillo's
peasant-mothers. The fever had left her cheek—it was as
colorless as marble; her lips were red, her eyes beaming

with a supernatural light, and her dark hair hung in matted
masses of ringlets to her waist. She cast one bewildered
glance around her, and then fixing her eyes on Sydney, she
sprang to him and laid her hand on his arm, exclaiming,
“Stafford! Stafford!” in a voice that vibrated on the ears of
all those who heard her, long after it was silent for ever!

Mrs. Emly locked the door. Truly the children of this
world are wise in their generation! Sydney disengaged his
arm, and said, in a scarcely audible voice, for his false words
choked him as he uttered them, “Who do you take me for?
The woman is mad!”

“No—I am not mad yet—but oh, my head, it aches so!
it is so giddy! Feel how it beats, Stafford. Oh, don't pull
your hand away from me! How many times you have kissed
these temples, and the curls that hung over them, and talked
about their beauty. What are they now? What will they
soon be? You feel it throb, don't you? Stafford, I am not
going to blame you now. I have forgiven you; I have prayed
to God to forgive you. Oh how deadly pale you are now,
Stafford! Now you feel for us! Now, look at our poor little
child!” She uncovered the poor little infant, and raised it
more from stupor than from sleep. The half-famished little
thing uttered a feeble, sickly moan. “Oh God! oh God—
she is dying! Is not she dying?” She grasped Augusta
Emly's arm. “Can't something be done for her? I have
killed her! I have killed my baby! It was you that were
kind to us yesterday—yes—it was you. I don't know where
it was. Oh—my head—my head!”

“For God's sake, mamma, let us take her home with us,”
cried Augusta, and she rushed to the door to look for her servant.
As she opened it, voices and footsteps were heard descending
the stairs. She heeded them not,—her mother did.

“Go now—go instantly, Sydney,” she said.

“Oh, no—no—do not go,” cried Fanny, attempting to
grasp him; but he eluded her, and unnoticed by them, passed
through the throng of servants at the door, threw himself into
the first hackney coach he saw, and was driven away.

Fanny uttered one piercing shriek, looked wildly around
her, and passing through the cluster of ladies pressing into
the cloak-room, she passed, unobserved by her, behind Miss
Emly, who stood, regardless of the pouring rain, on the door-step
ordering her coachman to drive nearer the door. When
she returned to the cloak-room, it was filled with ladies; and
in the confusion of the shawling, there was much talk among
them of the strange apparition that had glided out of the
room as they entered.

Mrs. Emly threw a cloak around her daughter. “Say
nothing, Augusta!” she whispered, imperatively, “they are
both gone.”

“Gone! together?”

Mrs. Emly did not, or affected not to hear her. The next
morning Miss Emly was twice summoned to breakfast before
she appeared. She had passed a sleepless and wretched
night, thinking of that helpless young sufferer, ruined, and
in her extreme misery, driven forth to the stormy elements.

There is not a sadder moment in life than that in which a
young, hopeful, generous creature discovers unsoundness, worldliness,
and heartlessness in those to whom nature has most
closely bound her,—than that, when, in the freedom of her own
purity and love of goodness, and faith in truth, she discovers
the compromising selfishness, the sordid calculations, the conventional
falsehood of the world. Happy for her, if, in misanthropic
disgust, she does not turn away from it; happy, if

use does not bring her to stoop from her high position; most
happy, if like Him who came to the sick, she fulfil her mission,
and remain in the world, not of it!

Augusta went through the form of breakfast, and taking
up the morning paper and passing her eye listlessly over it,
her attention was fixed by the following paragraph:

“Committals at the Tombs.—Fanny McDermot, a young
woman so calling herself, was taken up by a watchman during
the violence of the storm last night with a dead infant in her
arms. A rich velvet mantilla, lined with fur, was wrapped
round the child. Nothing but moans could be extracted from
the woman. She was committed for stealing the mantilla. A
jury of inquest is called to sit upon the child, which they have
not yet been able to force from the mother's arms.”

“Good Heavens, Augusta, what is the matter? Are you
faint?” asked the mother.

Augusta shook her head, and rang the bell, while she gave
Mrs. Emly the paragraph to read. “Daniel,” she said to the
servant who answered the bell, “Go to Dr. Edmunds, and ask
him to come to me immediately. Stop, Daniel—ask Gray as
you go along to send me a carriage directly.”

“What now, Miss Emly? Are you going to the Tombs?

“Yes.”

“Not with my permission.”

“Without it then, ma'am, unless you bolt the doors upon
me. The doctor will go with me. There is no impropriety,
and no Quixotism in my going, and I shall never be happy
again if I do not go. Oh, my dear mother,” continued she,
bursting into tears, “I have suffered agonies this night thinking
of that poor young woman; but they are nothing—nothing
to the misery of hearing you last night defend that bad man,
and bring me reason upon reason why `it was to be expected,'

and `what often happened,' and `what no one thought of condemning
a man for.' That he, loaded with God's good gifts,
should make a prey and victim of a trusting, loving, defenceless
woman; and she should be cast out of the pale of humanity—
turned from our doors—driven forth to perish in the storm.
Oh, it is monstrous!—monstrous!”

Augusta was too strong for her mother. She made no
further opposition, but merely murmured, in a voice that did
not reach her daughter's ear, “There does seem to be inconsistency,
but it appears different when one knows the world!”

The door of Fanny McDermot's cell was opened by the
turnkey, and Miss Emly and the physician were admitted.
It was a room twice the size of those allotted to single occupants,
and there were already two women of the most hardened
character in it, besides a young girl, not sixteen, committed
for infanticide. She, her eyes filled with tears, was bathing
Fanny's head with cold water, while the women, looking like
two furies, were accusing one another of having stolen from
Fanny, the one a handkerchief, the other a ring.

Fanny's dead infant was on her arm, while she, half raised
on her elbow, bent over it. She had wrapped her cloak and
the only blanket on the bed around it. “She is so cold,” she
said; “I have tried all night to warm her. She grows colder
and colder.”

“Cannot this young woman be moved to a more decent
apartment?” asked Miss Emly of the turnkey.

Fanny looked up at the sound of her voice. “Oh, you
have come—I thought you would,” she said. “You will
warm my baby, won't you.”

“Yes, indeed I will. Let me take her.”

“Take her away? No—I can't—I shall never see her
again! They tried to pull her away from me, but they could
not—we grew together! Bring me a little warm milk for
her. She has not sucked since yesterday morning, and then
my milk was so hot, I think it scalded her—I am sure it did
not agree with her.”

“Oh, pray,” said Augusta, to the turnkey, who had replied
to her inquiry, “that the next room was just vacated, and
could be made quite comfortable, “pray procure a bed and
blankets, and whatever will be of any use to her. I will pay
you for all your expense and trouble.”

“Nothing can be of use,” said the physician,” whose fingers
were on Fanny's pulse; “her heart is fluttering with its last
beats.”

“Thank God!” murmured Augusta.

“Put your hand on her head. Did you ever feel such
heat?”

“Oh dear, dear! it was that dreadful heat she spoke of
in all her mental misery last night.”

A quick step was heard along the passage; a sobbing
voice addressed the turnkey, and in rushed Mrs. O'Roorke.
She did not, as her people commonly do at the sight of a
dying creature, set up a howl, but she sunk on her knees, and
pressed her hand to her lips as if to hold in the words that
were leaping from her heart.

Fanny looked at her for a moment in silence, then, with a
faint smile on her quivering lips, she stretched her hand to
her. “You have found me. I could not find you. I walked
—and walked.” She closed her eyes and sunk back on her
pillow; her face became calmer, and when she again opened her
eyes it was more quiet. “Mrs. O'Roorke,” she said, quite

distinctly, directing her eyes to Augusta, “this lady believed
me—tell her about me.”

“Oh, I will—I will—I will.”

“Hush—not now. Come here,—my baby is dead. I—
God is good. I forgive—God is love. My baby—yes—God
—is—good.”

In that unfailing goodness the mother and the child repose
for ever.