AN OUTCAST;

OR,

VIRTUE AND FAITH.

BY

F. COLBURN ADAMS.

"Be merciful to the erring."

NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY M. DOOLADY,
49 WALKER STREET.
1861.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861,
By M. Doolady,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

PREFACE.

When reason and conscience are a man's true guides to what he undertakes, and he acts strictly in obedience to them, he has little to fear from what the unthinking may say. You cannot, I hold, mistake a man intent only on doing good. You may differ with him on the means he calls to his aid; but having formed a distinct plan, and carried it out in obedience to truth and right, it will be difficult to impugn the sincerity of his motives. For myself, I care not what weapon a man choose, so long as he wield it effectively, and in the cause of humanity and justice. We are a sensitive nation, prone to pass great moral evils over in silence rather than expose them boldly, or trace them to their true sources. I am not indifferent to the duty every writer owes to public opinion, nor the penalties he incurs in running counter to it. But fear of public opinion, it seems to me, has been productive of much evil, inasmuch as it prefers to let crime exist rather than engage in reforms. Taking this view of the matter, I hold fear of public opinion to be an evil much to be deplored. It aids in keeping out of sight that which should be exposed to public view, and is satisfied to pass unheeded the greatest of moral evils. Most writers touch these great moral evils with a timidity that amounts to fear, and in describing crimes of the greatest magnitude, do it so daintily as to divest their arguments of all force. The public cannot reasonably be expected to apply a remedy for an evil, unless the cause as well as the effect be exposed truthfully to its view. It is the knowledge of their existence and the magnitude of their influence upon society, which no false delicacy should keep out of sight, that nerves the good and generous to action. I am aware that in exciting this action, great care should be taken lest the young and weak-minded become fascinated with the gilding of the machinery called to the writer's aid. It is urged by many good people, who take somewhat narrow views of this subject, that in dealing with the mysteries of crime vice should only be described as an ugly dame with most repulsive features. I differ with those persons. It would be a violation of the truth to paint her thus, and few would read of her in such an unsightly dress. These persons do not, I think, take a sufficiently clear view of the grades into which the vicious of our community are divided, and their different modes of living. They found their opinions solely on the moral and physical condition of the most wretched and abject class, whose sufferings they would have us hold up to public view, a warning to those who stand hesitating on the brink between virtue and vice. I hold it better to expose the allurements first, and then paint vice in her natural colors—a dame so gay and fascinating that it is difficult not to become enamored of her. The ugly and repulsive dame would have few followers, and no need of writers to caution the unwary against her snares. And I cannot forget, that truth always carries the more forcible lesson. But we must paint the road to vice as well as the castle, if we would give effect to our warning. That road is too frequently strewn with the brightest of flowers, the thorns only discovering themselves when the sweetness of the flowers has departed. I have chosen, then, to describe things as they are. You, reader, must be the judge whether I have put too much gilding on the decorations.

I confess that the subject of this work was not congenial to my feelings. I love to deal with the bright and cheerful of life; to leave the dark and sorrowful to those whose love for them is stronger than mine. Nor am I insensible to the liabilities incurred by a writer who, having found favor with the public, ventures upon so delicate and hazardous an undertaking. It matters not how carefully and discreetly he perform the task, there will always be persons enough to question his sincerity and cast suspicion upon his motives. What, I have already been asked, was my motive for writing such a book as this? Why did I descend into the repulsive haunts of the wretched and the gilded palaces of the vicious for the material of a novel? My answer is in my book.

New York, January 1st, 1861.

AN OUTCAST.

CHAPTER I.

CHARLESTON.

This simple story commences on a November evening, in the autumn of 185-. Charleston and New York furnish me with the scenes and characters.

Our quaint old city has been in a disquiet mood for several weeks. Yellow fever has scourged us through the autumn, and we have again taken to scourging ourselves with secession fancies. The city has not looked up for a month. Fear had driven our best society into the North, into the mountains, into all the high places. Business men had nothing to do; stately old mansions were in the care of faithful slaves, and there was high carnival in the kitchen. Fear had shut up the churches, shut up the law-courts, shut up society generally. There was nothing for lawyers to do, and the buzzards found it lonely enough in the market-place. The clergy were to be found at fashionable watering-places, and politicians found comfort in cards and the country. Timid doctors had taken to their heels, and were not to be found. Book-keepers and bank-clerks were on Sullivan's Island. The poor suffered in the city, and the rich had not a thought to give them. Grave-looking men gathered into little knots, at street corners, and talked seriously of Death's banquet. Old negroes gathered about the kitchen-table, and terrified themselves with tales of death: timid ones could not be got to pass through streets where the scourge raged fiercest. Mounted guardsmen patrolled the lonely streets at night, their horses' hoofs sounding on the still air, like a solemn warning through a deserted city.

Sisters of Mercy, in deep, dark garments, moved noiselessly along the streets, by day and by night, searching out and ministering to the sick and the dying. Like brave sentinels, they never deserted their posts. The city government was in a state of torpor. The city government did not know what to do. The city government never did know what to do. Four hundred sick and dying lay languishing in the hospital. The city government was sorry for them, and resolved that Providence would be the best doctor. The dead gave place to the dying by dozens, and there has been high carnival down in the dead-yard. The quick succession of funeral trains has cast a shade of melancholy over the broad road that leads to it. Old women are vending pies and cakes at the gates, and little boys are sporting over the newly-made graves, that the wind has lashed into furrows. Rude coffins stand about in piles, and tipsy negroes are making the very air jubilant with the songs they bury the dead to.

A change has come over the scene now. There is no more singing down in the dead-yard. A bright sun is shedding its cheerful rays over the broad landscape, flowers deck the roadside, and the air comes balmy and invigorating. There has been frost down in the lowlands. A solitary stranger paces listlessly along the walks of the dead-yard, searching in vain for the grave of a departed friend. The scourge has left a sad void between friends living and friends gone to eternal rest. Familiar faces pass us on the street, only to remind us of familiar faces passed away forever. The city is astir again. Society is coming back to us. There is bustle in the churches, bustle in the law courts, bustle in the hotels, bustle along the streets, bustle everywhere. There is bustle at the steamboat landings, bustle at the railway stations, bustle in all our high places. Vehicles piled with trunks are hurrying along the streets; groups of well-dressed negroes are waiting their master's return at the landings, or searching among piles of trunks for the family baggage. Other groups are giving Mas'r and Missus such a cordial greeting. Society is out of an afternoon, on King street, airing its dignity. There is Mr. Midshipman Button, in his best uniform, inviting the admiration of the fair, and making such a bow to all distinguished persons. Midshipman Button, as he is commonly called, has come home to us, made known to us the pleasing fact that he is ready to command our "navy" for us, whenever we build it for him. There is Major Longstring, of the Infantry, as fine a man in his boots as woman would fancy, ready to fight any foe; and corporal Quod, of the same regiment, ready to shoulder his weapon and march at a moment. We have an immense admiration for all these heroes, just now; it is only equalled by their admiration of themselves. The buzzards, too, have assumed an unusual air of importance—are busy again in the market; and long-bearded politicians are back again, at their old business, getting us in a state of discontent with the Union and everybody in general.

There is a great opening of shutters among the old mansions. The music of the organ resounds in the churches, and we are again in search of the highest pinnacle to pin our dignity upon. Our best old families have been doing the North extensively, and come home to us resolved never to go North again. But it is fashionable to go North, and they will break this resolution when spring comes. Mamma, and Julia Matilda have brought home an immense stock of Northern millinery, all paid for with the hardest of Southern money, which papa declares the greatest evil the state suffers under. He has been down in the wilderness for the last ten years, searching in vain for a remedy. The North is the hungry dog at the door, and he will not be kicked away. So we have again mounted that same old hobby-horse. There was so much low-breeding at the North, landlords were so extortionate, vulgarity in fine clothes got in your way wherever you went, servants were so impertinent, and the trades people were so given to cheating. We would shake our garments of the North, if only some one would tell us how to do it becomingly.

Master Tom and Julia Matilda differ with the old folks on this great question of bidding adieu to the North. Tom had a "high old time generally," and is sorry the season closed so soon. Julia Matilda has been in a pensive mood ever since she returned. That fancy ball was so brilliant; those moonlight drives were so pleasant; those flirtations were carried on with such charming grace! A dozen little love affairs, like pleasant dreams, are touching her heart with their sweet remembrance. The more she contemplates them the sadder she becomes. There are no drives on the beach now, no moonlight rambles, no promenades down the great, gay verandah, no waltzing, no soul-stirring music, no tender love-tales told under the old oaks. But they brighten in her fancy, and she sighs for their return. She is a prisoner now, surrounded by luxury in the grim old mansion. Julia Matilda and Master Tom will return to the North when spring comes, and enjoy whatever there is to be enjoyed, though Major Longstring and Mr. Midshipman Button should get us safe out of the Union.

Go back with us, reader, not to the dead-yard, but to the quiet walks of Magnolia Cemetery, hard by. A broad avenue cuts through the centre, and stretches away to the west, down a gently undulating slope. Rows of tall pines stand on either side, their branches forming an arch overhead, and hung with long, trailing moss, moving and whispering mysteriously in the gentle wind. Solemn cypress trees mark the by-paths; delicate flowers bloom along their borders, and jessamine vines twine lovingly about the branches of palmetto and magnolia trees. An air of enchanting harmony pervades the spot; the dead could repose in no prettier shade. Exquisitely chiselled marbles decorate the resting-places of the rich; plain slabs mark those of the poor.

It is evening now. The shadows are deepening down the broad avenue, the wind sighs touchingly through the tall pines, and the sinking sun is shedding a deep purple hue over the broad landscape. A solitary mocking-bird has just tuned its last note, and sailed swiftly into the dark hedgerow, down in the dead-yard.

A young girl, whose fair oval face the sun of eighteen summers has warmed into exquisite beauty, sits musingly under a cypress tree. Her name is Anna Bonnard, and she is famous in all the city for her beauty, as well as the symmetry of her form. Her dress is snowy white, fastened at the neck with a blue ribbon, and the skirts flowing. Her face is like chiselled marble, her eyes soft, black, and piercing, and deep, dark tresses of silky hair fall down her shoulders to her waist. Youth, beauty, and innocence are written in every feature of that fair face, over which a pensive smile now plays, then deepens into sadness. Here she has sat for several minutes, her head resting lightly on her right hand, and her broad sun-hat in her left, looking intently at a newly sodded grave with a plain white slab, on which is inscribed, in black letters—"Poor Miranda." This is all that betrays the sleeper beneath.

"And this is where they have laid her," she says, with a sigh. "Poor Miranda! like me, she was lost to this world. The world only knew the worst of her." And the tears that steal from her eyes tell the tale of her affection. "Heaven will deal kindly with the outcast, for Heaven only knows her sorrows." She rises quickly from her seat, casts a glance over the avenue, then pats the sods with her hands, and strews cypress branches and flowers over the grave, saying, "This is the last of poor Miranda. Some good friend has laid her here, and we are separated forever. It was misfortune that made us friends." She turns slowly from the spot, and walks down the avenue towards the great gate leading to the city. A shadow crosses her path; she hesitates, and looks with an air of surprise as the tall figure of a man advances hastily, saying, "Welcome, sweet Anna—welcome home."

He extends his gloved hand, which she receives with evident reluctance. "Pray what brought you here, Mr. Snivel?" she inquires, fixing her eyes on him, suspiciously.

"If you would not take it impertinent, I might ask you the same question. No, I will not. It was your charms, sweetest Anna. Love can draw me—I am a worshipper at its fountain. And as for law,—you know I live by that."

Mr. Snivel is what may be called a light comedy lawyer; ready to enter the service of any friend in need. He is commonly called "Snivel the lawyer," although the profession regard him with suspicion, and society keeps him on its out skirts. He is, in a word, a sportsman of small game, ready to bring down any sort of bird that chances within reach of his fowling-piece. He is tall of figure and slender, a pink of fashion in dress, wears large diamonds, an eye-glass, and makes the most of a light, promising moustache. His face is small, sharp, and discolored with the sun, his eyes grey and restless, his hair fair, his mouth wide and characterless. Cunning and low intrigue are marked in every feature of his face; and you look in vain for the slightest evidence of a frank and manly nature.

"Only heard you were home an hour ago. Set right off in pursuit of you. Cannot say exactly what impelled me. Love, perhaps, as I said before." Mr. Snivel twirls his hat in the air, and condescends to say he feels in an exceedingly happy state of mind. "I knew you needed a protector, and came to offer myself as your escort. I take this occasion to say, that you have always seen me in the false light my enemies magnify me in."

"I have no need of your escort, Mr. Snivel; and your friendship I can dispense with, since, up to this time, it has only increased my trouble," she interposes, continuing down the avenue.

"We all need friends——"

"True friends, you mean, Mr. Snivel."

"Well, then, have it so. You hold that all is false in men. I hold no such thing. Come, give me your confidence, Anna. Look on the bright side. Forget the past, and let the present serve. When you want a friend, or a job of law, call on me." Mr. Snivel adjusts his eye-glass, and again twirls his hat.

The fair girl shakes her head and says, "she hopes never to need either. But, tell me, Mr. Snivel, are you not the messenger of some one else?" she continues.

"Well, I confess," he replies, with a bow, "its partly so and partly not so. I came to put in one word for myself and two for the judge. Its no breach of confidence to say he loves you to distraction. At home in any court, you know, and stands well with the bar——"

"Love for me! He can have no love for me. I am but an outcast, tossed on the sea of uncertainty; all bright to-day, all darkness to-morrow. Our life is a stream of excitement, down which we sail quickly to a miserable death. I know the doom, and feel the pang. But men do not love us, and the world never regrets us. Go, tell him to forget me."

"Forget you? not he. Sent me to say he would meet you to-night. You are at the house of Madame Flamingo, eh?"

"I am; and sorry am I that I am. Necessity has no choice."

"You have left Mulholland behind, eh? Never was a fit companion for you. Can say that without offence. He is a New York rough, you know. Charleston gentlemen have a holy dislike of such fellows."

"He has been good to me. Why should I forsake him for one who affects to love me to-day, and will loathe me to-morrow? He has been my only true friend. Heaven may smile on us some day, and give us enough to live a life of virtue and love. As for the mystery that separates me from my parents, that had better remain unsolved forever." As she says this, they pass out of the great gate, and are on the road to the city.

A darker scene is being enacted in a different part of the city. A grim old prison, its walls, like the state's dignity, tumbling down and going to decay; its roof black with vegetating moss, and in a state of dilapidation generally,—stands, and has stood for a century or more, on the western outskirts of the city. We have a strange veneration for this damp old prison, with its strange histories cut on its inner walls. It has been threatening to tumble down one of these days, and it does not say much for our civilization that we have let it stand. But the question is asked, and by grave senators, if we pull it down, what shall we do with our pick-pockets and poor debtors? We mix them nicely up here, and throw in a thief for a messmate. What right has a poor debtor to demand that the sovereign state of South Carolina make a distinction between poverty and crime? It pays fifteen cents a day for getting them all well starved; and there its humanity ends, as all state humanity should end.

The inner iron gate has just closed, and two sturdy constables have dragged into the corridor a man, or what liquor has left of a man, and left him prostrate and apparently insensible on the floor. "Seventh time we've bring'd him 'ere a thin two months. Had to get a cart, or Phin and me never'd a got him 'ere," says one of the men, drawing a long breath, and dusting the sleeves of his coat with his hands.

"An officer earns what money he gits a commitin' such a cove," says the other, shaking his head, and looking down resentfully at the man on the floor. "Life'll go out on him like a kan'l one of these days." Officer continues moralizing on the bad results of liquor, and deliberately draws a commitment from his breast pocket. "Committed by Justice Snivel—breaking the peace at the house of Madame——" He cannot make out the name.

First officer interposes learnedly—"Madame Flamingo." "Sure enuf, he's been playin' his shines at the old woman's house again. Why, Master Jailer, Justice Snivel must a made fees enuf a this 'ere cove to make a man rich enough," continues Mr. Constable Phin.

"As unwelcome a guest as comes to this establishment," rejoins the corpulent old jailer, adjusting his spectacles, and reading the commitment, a big key hanging from the middle finger of his left hand. "Used to be sent up here by his mother, to be starved into reform. He is past reform. The poor-house is the place to send him to, 'tis."

"Well, take good care on him, Master Jailer, now you've got him. He comes of a good enough family," says the first officer.

"He's bin in this condition more nor a week—layin' down yonder, in Snug Harbor. Liquor's drived all the sense out on him," rejoins the second—and bidding the jailer good-morning, they retire.

The forlorn man still lies prostrate on the floor, his tattered garments and besotted face presenting a picture of the most abject wretchedness. The old jailer looks down upon him with an air of sympathy, and shakes his head.

"The doctor that can cure you doesn't live in this establishment," he says. The sound of a voice singing a song is heard, and the figure of a powerfully framed man, dressed in a red shirt and grey homespun trousers, advances, folds his arms deliberately, and contemplates with an air of contempt the prostrate man. His broad red face, flat nose, massive lips, and sharp grey eyes, his crispy red hair, bristling over a low narrow forehead, and two deep scars on the left side of his face, present a picture of repulsiveness not easily described. Silently and sullenly he contemplates the object before him for several minutes, then says:

"Dogs take me, Mister Jailer! but he's what I calls run to the dogs. That's what whisky's did for him."

"And what it will do for you one of these days," interrupts the jailer, admonishingly. "Up for disturbing the peace at Madame Flamingo's. Committed by Justice Snivel."

"Throwing stones by way of repentance, eh? Tom was, at one time, as good a customer as that house had. A man's welcome at that house when he's up in the world. He's sure a gittin' kicked out when he is down."

"He's here, and we must get him to a cell," says the jailer, setting his key down and preparing to lift the man on his feet.

"Look a here, Tom Swiggs,—in here again, eh?" resumes the man in the red shirt. "Looks as if you liked the institution. Nice son of a respectable mother, you is!" He stoops down and shakes the prostrate man violently.

The man opens his eyes, and casts a wild glance on the group of wan faces peering eagerly at him. "I am bad enough. You are no better than me," he whispers. "You are always here."

"Not always. I am a nine months' guest. In for cribbing voters. Let out when election day comes round, and paid well for my services. Sent up when election is over, and friends get few. No moral harm in cribbing voters. You wouldn't be worth cribbing, eh, Tom? There ain't no politician what do'nt take off his hat, and say—'Glad to see you, Mister Mingle,' just afore election." The man folds his arms and walks sullenly down the corridor, leaving the newcomer to his own reflections. There is a movement among the group looking on; and a man in the garb of a sailor advances, presses his way through, and seizing the prostrate by the hand, shakes it warmly and kindly. "Sorry to see you in here agin, Tom," he says, his bronzed face lighting up with the fires of a generous heart. "There's no man in this jail shall say a word agin Tom Swiggs. We have sailed shipmates in this old craft afore."

The man was a sailor, and the prisoner's called him Spunyarn, by way of shortness. Indeed, he had became so familiarized to the name, that he would answer to none other. His friendship for the inebriate was of the most sincere kind. He would watch over him, and nurse him into sobriety, with the care and tenderness of a brother. "Tom was good to me, when he had it;" he says, with an air of sympathy. "And here goes for lendin' a hand to a shipmate in distress." He takes one arm and the jailer the other, and together they support the inebriate to his cell. "Set me down for a steady boarder, and have done with it," the forlorn man mutters, as they lay him gently upon the hard cot. "Down for steady board, jailer—that's it."

"Steady, steady now," rejoins the old sailor, as the inebriate tosses his arms over his head. "You see, there's a heavy ground swell on just now, and a chap what don't mind his helm is sure to get his spars shivered." He addresses the the jailer, who stands looking with an air of commiseration on the prostrate man. "Take in head-sail—furl top-gallant-sails—reef topsails—haul aft main-sheet—put her helm hard down—bring her to the wind, and there let her lay until it comes clear weather." The man writhes and turns his body uneasily. "There, there," continues the old sailor, soothingly; "steady, steady,—keep her away a little, then let her luff into a sound sleep. Old Spunyarn's the boy what'll stand watch." A few minutes more and the man is in a deep, sound sleep, the old sailor keeping watch over him so kindly, so like a true friend.

CHAPTER II.

THE HOUSE OF A VERY DISTINGUISHED LADY.

The mansion of Madame Flamingo stands stately in Berresford street. An air of mystery hangs over it by day, and it is there young Charleston holds high carnival at night. It is a very distinguished house, and Madame Flamingo assures us she is a very distinguished lady, who means to make her peace with heaven before she dies, and bestow largely on the priests, who have promised to make her comfortable while on the road through purgatory. The house is in high favor with young Charleston, and old Charleston looks in now and then. Our city fathers have great sympathy for it, and protect it with their presence. Verily it is a great gate on the road to ruin, and thousands pass heedlessly through its decorated walks, quickly reaching the dark end.

It is evening, and thin fleecy clouds flit along the heavens. The gas sheds a pale light over the streets, and shadowy figures pass and repass us as we turn into the narrow street leading to the house of the old hostess. We have reached the great arched door, and stand in the shadow of a gas-light, playing over its trap, its network of iron, and its bright, silver plate. We pause and contemplate the massive walls, as the thought flashes upon us—How mighty is vice, that it has got such a mansion dedicated to its uses! Even stranger thoughts than these flit through the mind as we hesitate, and touch the bell timidly. Now, we have excited your curiosity, and shall not turn until we have shown you what there is within.

We hear the bell faintly tinkle—now voices in loud conversation break upon the ear—then all is silent. Our anxiety increases, and keeps increasing, until a heavy footstep is heard advancing up the hall. Now there is a whispering within—then a spring clicks, and a small square panel opens and is filled with a broad fat face, with deep blue eyes and a profusion of small brown curls, all framed in a frosty cap-border. It is the old hostess, done up in her best book muslin, and so well preserved.

"Gentlemen, or ain't ye gentlemen?" inquires the old hostess, in a low voice. "This is a respectable house, I'd have you remember. Gentlemen what ain't gentlemen don't git no show in this house—no they don't." She looks curiously at us, and pauses for a reply. The display of a kid glove and a few assuring words gain us admittance into the great hall, where a scene of barbaric splendor excites curious emotions. "There ain't nothin' but gentlemen gets into this house—they don't! and when they are in they behaves like gentlemen," says the hostess, bowing gracefully, and closing the door after us.

The time prints of sixty summers have furrowed the old hostess' brow, and yet she seems not more than forty—is short of figure, and weighs two hundred. Soft Persian carpets cover the floor, lounges, in carved walnut and satin, stand along the sides; marble busts on pedestals, and full-length figures of statesmen and warriors are interspersed at short intervals; and the ceiling is frescoed in uncouth and fierce-looking figures. Flowers hang from niches in the cornice; a marble group, representing St. George and the dragon, stands at the foot of a broad circular stairs; tall mirrors reflect and magnify each object, and over all the gas from three chandeliers sheds a bewitching light. Such is the gaudy scene that excites the fancy, but leaves our admiration unmoved.

"This is a castle, and a commonwealth, gentlemen. Cost me a deal of money; might get ruined if gentlemen forgot how to conduct themselves. Ladies like me don't get much credit for the good they do. Gentlemen will be introduced into the parlor when they are ready," says the old hostess, stepping briskly round us, and watching our every movement; we are new-comers, and her gaudy tabernacle is novel to us.

"Have educated a dozen young men to the law, and made gentlemen of a dozen more, excellent young men—fit for any society. Don't square my accounts with the world, as the world squares its account with me," she continues, with that air which vice affects while pleading its own cause. She cannot shield the war of conscience that is waging in her heart; but, unlike most of those engaged in her unnatural trade, there is nothing in her face to indicate a heart naturally inclined to evil. It is indeed bright with smiles, and you see only the picture of a being sailing calmly down the smooth sea of peace and contentment. Her dress is of black glossy satin, a cape of fine point lace covers her broad shoulders, and bright blue cap-ribbons stream down her back.

"Listen," says the old hostess—"there's a full house to-night. Both parlors are full. All people of good society!" she continues, patronizingly. "Them what likes dancin' dances in the left-hand parlor. Them what prefers to sit and converse, converses in the right-hand parlor. Some converses about religion, some converses about politics—(by way of lettin' you know my position, I may say that I go for secession, out and out)—some converses about law, some converses about beauty. There isn't a lady in this house as can't converse on anything." Madame places her ear to the door, and thrusts her fat jewelled fingers under her embroidered apron.

"This is my best parlor, gentlemen," she resumes; "only gentlemen of deportment are admitted—I might add, them what takes wine, and, if they does get a little in liquor, never loses their dignity." Madame bows, and the door of her best parlor swings open, discovering a scene of still greater splendor.

"Gentlemen as can't enjoy themselves in my house, don't know how to enjoy anything. Them is all gentlemen you see, and them is all ladies you see," says the hostess, as we advance timidly into the room, the air of which is sickly of perfumes. The foot falls upon the softest of carpets; quaint shadows, from stained-glass windows are flitting and dancing on the frescoed ceiling; curtains of finest brocade, enveloped in lace, fall cloud-like down the windows. The borderings are of amber-colored satin, and heavy cornices, over which eagles in gilt are perched, surmount the whole. Pictures no artist need be ashamed of decorate the walls, groups in bronze and Parian, stand on pedestals between the windows, and there is a regal air about the furniture, which is of the most elaborate workmanship. But the living figures moving to and fro, some in uncouth dresses and some scarce dressed at all, and all reflected in the great mirrors, excite the deepest interest. Truly it is here that vice has arrayed itself in fascinating splendors, and the young and the old have met to pay it tribute. The reckless youth meets the man high in power here. The grave exchange salutations with the gay. Here the merchant too often meets his clerk, and the father his son. And before this promiscuous throng women in bright but scanty drapery, and wan faces, flaunt their charms.

Sitting on a sofa, is the fair young girl we saw at the cemetery. By her side is a man of venerable presence, endeavoring to engage her in conversation. Her face is shadowed in a pensive smile;—she listens to what falls from the lips of her companion, shakes her head negatively, and watches the movements of a slender, fair-haired young man, who saunters alone on the opposite side of the room. He has a deep interest in the fair girl, and at every turn casts a look of hate and scorn at her companion, who is no less a person than Judge Sleepyhorn, of this history.

"Hain't no better wine nowhere, than's got in this house," ejaculates the old hostess, calling our attention to a massive side-board, covered with cut-glass of various kinds. "A gentleman what's a gentleman may get a little tipsy, providin' he do it on wine as is kept in this house, and carry himself square." Madame motions patronizingly with her hand, bows condescendingly, and says, "Two bottles I think you ordered, gentlemen—what gentlemen generally call for."

Having bowed assent, and glad to get off so cheaply, Manfredo, a slave in bright livery, is directed to bring it in.

Mr. Snivel enters, to the great delight of the old hostess and various friends of the house. "Mr. Snivel is the spirit of this house," resumes the old hostess, by way of introduction; "a gentleman of distinction in the law." She turns to Mr. Snivel inquiringly. "You sent that ruffin, Tom Swiggs, up for me to-day?"

"Lord bless you, yes—gave him two months for contemplation. Get well starved at fifteen cents a day——"

"Sorry for the fellow," interrupts the old hostess, sympathizingly. "That's what comes a drinkin' bad liquor. Tom used to be a first-rate friend of this house—spent heaps of money, and we all liked him so. Tried hard to make a man of Tom. Couldn't do it." Madame shakes her head in sadness. "Devil got into him, somehow. Ran down, as young men will when they gets in the way. I does my part to save them, God knows." A tear almost steals into Madame's eyes. "When Tom used to come here, looking so down, I'd give him a few dollars, and get him to go somewhere else. Had to keep up the dignity of the house, you know. A man as takes his liquor as Tom does ain't fit company for my house."

Mr. Snivel says: "As good advice, which I am bound to give his mother, I shall say she'd better give him steady lodgings in jail." He turns and recognizes his friend, the judge, and advances towards him. As he does so, Anna rises quickly to her feet, and with a look of contempt, addressing the judge, says, "Never, never. You deceived me once, you never shall again. You ask me to separate myself from him. No, never, never." And as she turns to walk away the judge seizes her by the hand, and retains her. "You must not go yet," he says.

"She shall go!" exclaims the fair young man, who has been watching their movements. "Do you know me? I am the George Mulholland you are plotting to send to the whipping-post,—to accomplish your vile purposes. No, sir, I am not the man you took me for, as I would show you were it not for your grey hairs." He releases her from the judge's grasp, and stands menacing that high old functionary with his finger. "I care not for your power. Take this girl from me, and you pay the penalty with your life. We are equals here. Release poor Langdon from prison, and go pay penance over the grave of his poor wife. It's the least you can do. You ruined her—you can't deny it." Concluding, he clasps the girl in his arms, to the surprise of all present, and rushes with her out of the house.

The house of Madame Flamingo is in a very distinguished state of commotion. Men sensitive of their reputations, and fearing the presence of the police, have mysteriously disappeared. Madame is in a fainting condition, and several of her heroic damsels have gone screaming out of the parlor, and have not been seen since.

Matters have quieted down now. Mr. Snivel consoles the judge for the loss of dignity he has suffered, Madame did not quite faint, and there is peace in the house.

Manfredo, his countenance sullen, brings in the wine. Manfredo is in bad temper to-night. He uncorks the bottles and lets the wine foam over the table, the sight of which sends Madame into a state of distress.

"This is all I gets for putting such good livery on you!" she says, pushing him aside with great force. "That's thirty-nine for you in the morning, well-laid on. You may prepare for it. Might have known better (Madame modifies her voice) than buy a nigger of a clergyman!" She commences filling the glasses herself, again addressing Manfredo, the slave: "Don't do no good to indulge you. This is the way you pay me for lettin' you go to church of a Sunday. Can't give a nigger religion without his gettin' a big devil in him at the same time."

Manfredo passes the wine to her guests, in sullen silence, and they drink to the prosperity of the house.

And now it is past midnight; the music in the next parlor has ceased, St. Michael's clock has struck the hour of one, and business is at an end in the house of the old hostess. A few languid-looking guests still remain, the old hostess is weary with the fatigues of the night, and even the gas seems to burn dimmer. The judge and Mr. Snivel are the last to take their departure, and bid the hostess good-night. "I could not call the fellow out," says the judge, as they wend their way into King street. "I can only effect my purpose by getting him into my power. To do that you must give me your assistance."

"Remain silent on that point," returns the other. "You have only to leave its management to me. Nothing is easier than to get such a fellow into the power of the law."

On turning into King street they encounter a small, youthful looking man, hatless and coatless, his figure clearly defined in the shadows of the gas-light, engaged in a desperate combat with the lamp-post. "Now, Sir, defend yourself, and do it like a man, for you have the reputation of being a craven coward," says the man, cutting and thrusting furiously at the lamp-post; Snivel and Sleepyhorn pause, and look on astonished. "Truly the poor man's mad," says Sleepyhorn, touching his companion on the arm—"uncommonly mad for the season."

Mr. Snivel whispers, "Not so mad. Only courageously tight." "Gentlemen!" says the man, reproachfully, "I am neither mad nor drunk." Here he strikes an attitude of defence, cutting one, two, and three with his small sword. "I am Mister Midshipman Button—no madman, not a bit of it. As brave a man as South Carolina ever sent into the world. A man of pluck, Sir, and genuine, at that." Again he turns and makes several thrusts at the lamp-post, demanding that it surrender and get down on its knees, in abject obedience to superior prowess.

"Button, Button, my dear fellow, is it you? What strange freak is this?" inquires Mr. Snivel, extending his hand, which the little energetic man refuses to take.

"Mister Midshipman Button, if you please, gentlemen," replies the man, with an air of offended dignity. "I'm a gentleman, a man of honor, and what's more, a Carolinian bred and born, or born and bred—cut it as you like it." He makes several powerful blows at the lamp-post, and succeeds only in breaking his sword.

"Poor man," says the judge, kindly, "he is in need of friends to take care of him, and advise him properly. He has not far to travel before he gets into the mad-house."

The man overhears his remarks, and with a vehement gesture and flourish of his broken sword, says, "Do you not see, gentlemen, what work I have made of this Northern aggressor, this huge enemy bringing oppression to our very doors?" He turns and addresses the lamp-post in a tone of superiority. "Surrender like a man, and confess yourself vanquished, Northern aggressor that you are! You see, gentlemen, I have gained a victory—let all his bowels out. Honor all belongs to my native state—I shall resign it all to her." Here the man begins to talk in so wild a strain, and to make so many demands of his imaginary enemy, that they called a passing guardsman, who, seeing his strange condition, replaced his hat, and assisted them in getting him to a place of safety for the night, when sleep and time would restore him to a sound state of mind.

CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH THE READER IS PRESENTED WITH A VARIED PICTURE.

Tom has passed a restless night in jail. He has dreamed of bottled snakes, with eyes wickedly glaring at him; of fiery-tailed serpents coiling all over him; of devils in shapes he has no language to describe; of the waltz of death, in which he danced at the mansion of Madame Flamingo; and of his mother, (a name ever dear in his thoughts,) who banished him to this region of vice, for what she esteemed a moral infirmity. Further on in his dream he saw a vision, a horrible vision, which was no less than a dispute for his person between Madame Flamingo, a bishop, and the devil. But Madame Flamingo and the devil, who seemed to enjoy each other's company exceedingly, got the better of the bishop, who was scrupulous of his dignity, and not a little anxious about being seen in such society. And from the horrors of this dream he wakes, surprised to find himself watched over by a kind friend—a young, comely-featured man, in whom he recognizes the earnest theologian, as he is plumed by the prisoners, whom he daily visits in his mission of good. There was something so frank and gentle in this young man's demeanor—something so manly and radiant in his countenance—something so disinterested and holy in his mission of love—something so opposite to the coldness of the great world without—something so serene and elevated in his youth, that even the most inveterate criminal awaited his coming with emotions of joy, and gave a ready ear to his kindly advice. Indeed, the prisoners called him their child; and he seemed not dainty of their approach, but took them each by the hand, sat at their side, addressed them as should one brother address another;—yea, he made them to feel that what was their interest it was his joy to promote.

The young theologian took him a seat close by the side of the dreaming inebriate; and as he woke convulsively, and turned towards him his distorted face, viewing with wild stare each object that met his sight, the young man met his recognition with a smile and a warm grasp of the hand. "I am sorry you find me here again—yes, I am."

"Better men, perhaps, have been here—"

"I am ashamed of it, though; it isn't as it should be, you see," interrupts Tom.

"Never mind—(the young man checks himself)—I was going to say there is a chance for you yet; and there is a chance; and you must struggle; and I will help you to struggle; and your friends—"

Tom interrupts by saying, "I've no friends."

"I will help you to struggle, and to overcome the destroyer. Never think you are friendless, for then you are a certain victim in the hands of the ruthless enemy—"

"Well, well," pauses Tom, casting a half-suspicious look at the young man, "I forgot. There's you, and him they call old Spunyarn, are friends, after all. You'll excuse me, but I didn't think of that;" and a feeling of satisfaction seemed to have come over him. "How grateful to have friends when a body's in a place of this kind," he mutters incoherently, as the tears gush from his distended eyes, and childlike he grasps the hand of the young man.

"Be comforted with the knowledge that you have friends, Tom. One all-important thing is wanted, and you are a man again."

"As to that!" interrupts Tom, doubtingly, and laying his begrimed hand on his burning forehead, while he alternately frets and frisks his fingers through his matted hair.

"Have no doubts, Tom—doubts are dangerous."

"Well, say what it is, and I'll try what I can do. But you won't think I'm so bad as I seem, and'll forgive me? I know what you think of me, and that's what mortifies me; you think I'm an overdone specimen of our chivalry—you do!"

"You must banish from your mind these despairing thoughts," replies the young man, laying his right hand approvingly on Tom's head. "First, Tom," he pursues, "be to yourself a friend; second, forget the error of your mother, and forgive her sending you here; and third, cut the house of Madame Flamingo, in which our chivalry are sure to get a shattering. To be honest in temptation, Tom, is one of the noblest attributes of our nature; and to be capable of forming and maintaining a resolution to shake off the thraldom of vice, and to place oneself in the serener atmosphere of good society, is equally worthy of the highest commendation."

Tom received this in silence, and seemed hesitating between what he conceived an imperative demand and the natural inclination of his passions.

"Give me your hand, and with it your honor—I know you yet retain the latent spark—and promise me you will lock up the
cup—"

"You'll give a body a furlough, by the way of blowing off the fuddle he has on hand?"

"I do not withhold from you any discretionary indulgence that may bring relief—"

Tom interrupts by saying, "My mother, you know!"

"I will see her, and plead with her on your behalf; and if she have a mother's feelings I can overcome her prejudice."

Tom says, despondingly, he has no home to go to. It's no use seeing his mother; she's all dignity, and won't let it up an inch. "If I could only persuade her—" Tom pauses here and shakes his head.

"Pledge me your honor you'll from this day form a resolution to reform, Tom; and if I do not draw from your mother a reconciliation, I will seek a home for you elsewhere."

"Well, there can't be much harm in an effort, at all events; and here's my hand, in sincerity. But it won't do to shut down until I get over this bit of a fog I'm now in." With childlike simplicity, Tom gives his hand to the young man, who, as old Spunyarn enters the cell to, as he says, get the latitude of his friend's nerves, departs in search of Mrs. Swiggs.

Mrs. Swiggs is the stately old member of a crispy old family, that, like numerous other families in the State, seem to have outlived two chivalrous generations, fed upon aristocracy, and are dying out contemplating their own greatness. Indeed, the Swiggs family, while it lived and enjoyed the glory of its name, was very like the Barnwell family of this day, who, one by one, die off with the very pardonable and very harmless belief that the world never can get along without the aid of South Carolina, it being the parthenon from which the outside world gets all its greatness. Her leading and very warlike newspapers, (the people of these United States ought to know, if they do not already,) it was true, were editorialized, as it was politely called in the little State-militant, by a species of unreputationized Jew and Yankee; but this you should know—if you do not already, gentle reader—that it is only because such employments are regarded by the lofty-minded chivalry as of too vulgar a nature to claim a place in their attention.

The clock of old Saint Michaels, a clock so tenacious of its dignity as to go only when it pleases, and so aristocratic in its habits as not to go at all in rainy weather;—a clock held in great esteem by the "very first families," has just struck eleven. The young, pale-faced missionary inquiringly hesitates before a small, two-story building of wood, located on the upper side of Church street, and so crabbed in appearance that you might, without endangering your reputation, have sworn it had incorporated in its framework a portion of that chronic disease for which the State has gained for itself an unenviable reputation. Jutting out of the black, moss-vegetating roof, is an old-maidish looking window, with a dowdy white curtain spitefully tucked up at the side. The mischievous young negroes have pecked half the bricks out of the foundation, and with them made curious grottoes on the pavement. Disordered and unpainted clapboards spread over the dingy front, which is set off with two upper and two lower windows, all blockaded with infirm, green shutters. Then there is a snuffy door, high and narrow (like the State's notions), and reached by six venerable steps and a stoop, carefully guarded with a pine hand-rail, fashionably painted in blue, and looking as dainty as the State's white glove. This, reader, is the abode of the testy but extremely dignified Mrs. Swiggs. If you would know how much dignity can be crowded into the smallest space, you have only to look in here and be told (she closely patterns after the State in all things!) that fifty-five summers of her crispy life have been spent here, reading Milton's Paradise Lost and contemplating the greatness of her departed family.

The old steps creak and complain as the young man ascends them, holding nervously on at the blue hand-rail, and reaching in due time the stoop, the strength of which he successively tests with his right foot, and stands contemplating the snuffy door. A knocker painted in villanous green—a lion-headed knocker, of grave deportment, looking as savage as lion can well do in this chivalrous atmosphere, looks admonitiously at him. "Well!" he sighs as he raises it, "there's no knowing what sort of a reception I may get." He has raised the monster's head and given three gentle taps. Suddenly a frisking and whispering, shutting of doors and tripping of feet, is heard within; and after a lapse of several minutes the door swings carefully open, and the dilapidated figure of an old negro woman, lean, shrunken, and black as Egyptian darkness—with serious face and hanging lip, the picture of piety and starvation, gruffly asks who he is and what he wants?

Having requested an interview with her mistress, this decrepit specimen of human infirmity half closes the door against him and doddles back. A slight whispering, and Mrs. Swiggs is heard to say—"show him into the best parlor." And into the best parlor, and into the august presence of Mrs. Swiggs is he ushered. The best parlor is a little, dingy room, low of ceiling, and skirted with a sombre-colored surbase, above which is papering, the original color of which it would be difficult to discover. A listen carpet, much faded and patched, spreads over the floor, the walls are hung with several small engravings, much valued for their age and associations, but so crooked as to give one the idea of the house having withstood a storm at sea; and the furniture is made up of a few venerable mahogany chairs, a small side-table, on which stands, much disordered, several well-worn books and papers, two patch-covered foot-stools, a straight-backed rocking-chair, in which the august woman rocks her straighter self, and a great tin cage, from between the bars of which an intelligent parrot chatters—"my lady, my lady, my lady!" There is a cavernous air about the place, which gives out a sickly odor, exciting the suggestion that it might at some time have served as a receptacle for those second-hand coffins the State buries its poor in.

"Well! who are you? And what do you want? You have brought letters, I s'pose?" a sharp, squeaking voice, speaks rapidly.

The young man, without waiting for an invitation to sit down, takes nervously a seat at the side-table, saying he has come on a mission of love.

"Love! love! eh? Young man—know that you have got into the wrong house!" Mrs. Swiggs shakes her head, squeaking out with great animation.

There she sits, Milton's "Paradise Lost" in her witch-like fingers, herself lean enough for the leanest of witches, and seeming to have either shrunk away from the faded black silk dress in which she is clad, or passed through half a century of starvation merely to bolster up her dignity. A sharp, hatchet-face, sallow and corrugated; two wicked gray eyes, set deep in bony sockets; a long, irregular nose, midway of which is adjusted a pair of broad, brass-framed spectacles; a sunken, purse-drawn mouth, with two discolored teeth protruding from her upper lip; a high, narrow forehead, resembling somewhat crumpled parchment; a dash of dry, brown hair relieving the ponderous border of her steeple-crowned cap, which she seems to have thrown on her head in a hurry; a moth-eaten, red shawl thrown spitefully over her shoulders, disclosing a sinewy and sassafras-colored neck above, and the small end of a gold chain in front, and, reader, you have the august Mrs. Swiggs, looking as if she diets on chivalry and sour krout. She is indeed a nice embodiment of several of those qualities which the State clings tenaciously to, and calls its own, for she lives on the labor of eleven aged negroes, five of whom are cripples.

The young man smiles, as Mrs. Swiggs increases the velocity of her rocking, lays her right hand on the table, rests her left on her Milton, and continues to reiterate that he has got into the wrong house.

"I have no letter, Madam—"

"I never receive people without letters—never!" again she interrupts, testily.

"But you see, Madam—"

"No I don't. I don't see anything about it!" again she interposes, adjusting her spectacles, and scanning him anxiously from head to foot. "Ah, yes (she twitches her head), I see what you are—"

"I was going to say, if you please, Madam, that my mission may serve as a passport—"

"I'm of a good family, you must know, young man. You could have learned that of anybody before seeking this sort of an introduction. Any of our first families could have told you about me. You must go your way, young man!" And she twitches her head, and pulls closer about her lean shoulders the old red shawl.

"I (if you will permit me, Madam) am not ignorant of the very high standing of your famous family—" Madam interposes by saying, every muscle of her frigid face unmoved the while, she is glad he knows something, "having read of them in a celebrated work by one of our more celebrated genealogists—"

"But you should have brought a letter from the Bishop! and upon that based your claims to a favorable reception. Then you have read of Sir Sunderland Swiggs, my ancestor? Ah! he was such a Baron, and owned such estates in the days of Elizabeth. But you should have brought a letter, young man." Mrs. Swiggs replies rapidly, alternately raising and lowering her squeaking voice, twitching her head, and grasping tighter her Milton.

"Those are his arms and crest." She points with her Milton to a singular hieroglyphic, in a wiry black frame, resting on the marble-painted mantelpiece. "He was very distinguished in his time; and such an excellent Christian." She shakes her head and wipes the tears from her spectacles, as her face, which had before seemed carved in wormwood, slightly relaxes the hardness of its muscles.

"I remember having seen favorable mention of Sir Sunderland's name in the book I refer to—"

She again interposes. The young man watches her emotions with a penetrating eye, conscious that he has touched a chord in which all the milk of kindness is not dried up.

"It's a true copy of the family arms. Everybody has got to having arms now-a-days. (She points to the indescribable scrawl over the mantelpiece.) It was got through Herald King, of London, who they say keeps her Majesty's slippers and the great seal of State. We were very exact, you see. Yes, sir—we were very exact. Our vulgar people, you see—I mean such as have got up by trade, and that sort of thing—went to a vast expense in sending to England a man of great learning and much aforethought, to ransack heraldry court and trace out their families. Well, he went, lived very expensively, spent several years abroad, and being very clever in his way, returned, bringing them all pedigrees of the very best kind. With only two exceptions, he traced them all down into noble blood. These two, the cunning fellow had it, came of martyrs. And to have come of the blood of martyrs, when all the others, as was shown, came of noble blood, so displeased—the most ingenious (the old lady shakes her head regrettingly) can't please everybody—the living members of these families, that they refused to pay the poor man for his researches, so he was forced to resort to a suit at law. And to this day (I don't say it disparagingly of them!) both families stubbornly refuse to accept the pedigree. They are both rich grocers, you see! and on this account we were very particular about ours."

The young man thought it well not to interrupt the old woman's display of weakness, inasmuch as it might produce a favorable change in her feelings.

"And now, young man, what mission have you besides love?" she inquires, adding an encouraging look through her spectacles.

"I am come to intercede—"

"You needn't talk of interceding with me; no you needn't! I've nothing to intercede about"—she twitches her head spitefully.

"In behalf of your son."

"There—there! I knew there was some mischief. You're a Catholic! I knew it. Never saw one of your black-coated flock about that there wasn't mischief brewing—never! I can't read my Milton in peace for you—"

"But your son is in prison, Madam, among criminals, and subject to the influence of their habits—"

"Precisely where I put him—where he won't disgrace the family; yes, where he ought to be, and where he shall rot, for all me. Now, go your way, young man; and read your Bible at home, and keep out of prisons; and don't be trying to make Jesuits of hardened scamps like that Tom of mine."

"I am a Christian: I would like to extend a Christian's hand to your son. I may replace him on the holy pedestal he has fallen from—"

"You are very aggravating, young man. Do you live in South Carolina?"

The young man says he does. He is proud of the State that can boast so many excellent families.

"I am glad of that," she says, looking querulously over her spectacles, as she twitches her chin, and increases the velocity of her rocking. "I wonder how folks can live out of it."

"As to that, Madam, permit me to say, I am happy to see and appreciate your patriotism; but if you will grant me an order of release—"

"I won't hear a word now! You're very aggravating, young man—very! He has disgraced the family; I have put him where he is seven times; he shall rot were he is! He never shall disgrace the family again. Think of Sir Sunderland Swiggs, and then think of him, and see what a pretty level the family has come to! That's the place for him, I have told him a dozen times how I wished him gone. The quicker he is out of the way, the better for the name of the family."

The young man waits the end of this colloquy with a smile on his countenance. "I have no doubt I can work your son's reform—perhaps make him an honor to the family—"

"He honor the family!" she interrupts, twitches the shawl about her shoulders, and permits herself to get into a state of general excitement. "I should like to see one who has disgraced the family as much as he has think of honoring it—"

"Through kindness and forbearance, Madam, a great deal may be done," the young man replies.

"Now, you are very provoking, young man—very. Let other people alone; go your way home, and study your Bible." And with this the old lady calls Rebecca, the decrepit slave who opened the door, and directs her to show the young man out. "There now!" she says testily, turning to the marked page of her Milton.

The young man contemplates her for a few moments, but, having no alternative, leaves reluctantly.

On reaching the stoop he encounters the tall, handsome figure of a man, whose face is radiant with smiles, and his features ornamented with neatly-combed Saxon hair and beard, and who taps the old negress under the chin playfully, as she says, "Missus will be right glad to see you, Mr. Snivel—that she will." And he bustles his way laughing into the presence of the old lady, as if he had news of great importance for her.

CHAPTER IV.

A FEW REFLECTIONS ON THE CURE OF VICE.

Disappointed, and not a little chagrined, at the failure of his mission, the young man muses over the next best course to pursue. He has the inebriate's welfare at heart; he knows there is no state of degradation so low that the victim cannot, under proper care, be reclaimed from it; and he feels duty calling loudly to him not to stand trembling on the brink, but to enter the abode of the victim, and struggle to make clean the polluted. Vice, he says to himself, is not entailed in the heart; and if you would modify and correct the feelings inclined to evil, you must first feed the body, then stimulate the ambition; and when you have got the ambition right, seek a knowledge of the heart, and apply to it those mild and judicious remedies which soften its action, and give life to new thoughts and a higher state of existence. Once create the vine of moral rectitude, and its branches will soon get where they can take care of themselves. But to give the vine creation in poor soil, your watching must exhibit forbearance, and your care a delicate hand. The stubbornly-inclined nature, when coupled with ignorance, is that in which vice takes deepest root, as it is, when educated, that against which vice is least effectual. To think of changing the natural inclination of such natures with punishment, or harsh correctives, is as useless as would be an attempt to stop the ebbing and flowing of the tide. You must nurture the feelings, he thought, create a susceptibility, get the heart right, by holding out the value of a better state of things, and make the head to feel that you are sincere in your work of love; and, above all, you must not forget the stomach, for if that go empty crime will surely creep into the head. You cannot correct moral infirmity by confining the victim of it among criminals, for no greater punishment can be inflicted on the feelings of man; and punishment destroys rather than encourages the latent susceptibility of our better nature. In nine cases out of ten, improper punishment makes the hardened criminals with which your prisons are filled, destroying forever that spark of ambition which might have been fostered into a means to higher ends.

And as the young man thus muses, there recurs to his mind the picture of old Absalom McArthur, a curious old man, but excessively kind, and always ready to do "a bit of a good turn for one in need," as he would say when a needy friend sought his assistance. McArthur is a dealer in curiosities, is a venerable curiosity himself, and has always something on hand to meet the wants of a community much given to antiquity and broken reputations.

The young theologian will seek this good old man. He feels that time will work a favorable revolution in the feelings of Tom's mother; and to be prepared for that happy event he will plead a shelter for him under McArthur's roof.

And now, generous reader, we will, with your permission, permit him to go on his errand of mercy, while we go back and see how Tom prospers at the old prison. You, we well know, have not much love of prisons. But unless we do now and then enter them, our conceptions of how much misery man can inflict upon man will be small indeed.

The man of sailor-like deportment, and whom the prisoners salute with the sobriquet of "Old Spunyarn," entered, you will please remember, the cell, as the young theologian left in search of Mrs. Swiggs, "I thought I'd just haul my tacks aboard, run up a bit, and see what sort of weather you were making, Tom," says he, touching clumsily his small-brimmed, plait hat, as he recognizes the young man, whom he salutes in that style so frank and characteristic of the craft. "He's a bit better, sir—isn't he?" inquires Spunyarn, his broad, honest face, well browned and whiskered, warming with a glow of satisfaction.

Receiving an answer in the affirmative, he replies he is right glad of it, not liking to see a shipmate in a drift. And he gives his quid a lurch aside, throws his hat carelessly upon the floor, shrugs his shoulders, and as he styles it, nimbly brings himself to a mooring, at Tom's side. "It's a hard comforter, this state. I don't begrudge your mother the satisfaction she gets of sending you here. In her eyes, ye see, yeer fit only to make fees out on, for them ar lawyer chaps. They'd keep puttin' a body in an' out here during his natural life, just for the sake of gettin', the fees. They don't care for such things as you and I. We hain't no rights; and if we had, why we hain't no power. This carry in' too much head sail, Tom, won't do—'twon't!" Spunyarn shakes his head reprovingly, fusses over Tom, turns him over on his wales, as he has it, and finally gets him on his beam's ends, a besotted wreck unable to carry his canvas. "Lost yeer reckoning eh, Tom?" he continues as that bewildered individual stares vacantly at him. The inebriate contorts painfully his face, presses and presses his hands to his burning forehead, and says they are firing a salute in his head, using his brains for ammunition.

"Well, now Tom, seein' as how I'm a friend of yourn—"

"Friend of mine?" interrupts Tom, shaking his head, and peering through his fingers mistrustfully.

"And this is a hard lee shore you've beached upon; I'll lend ye a hand to get in the head sail, and get the craft trimmed up a little. A dash of the same brine will help keep the ballast right, then a skysail-yard breakfast must be carefully stowed away, in order to give a firmness to the timbers, and on the strength of these two blocks for shoring up the hull, you must begin little by little, and keep on brightening up until you have got the craft all right again. And when you have got her right you must keep her right. I say, Tom!—it won't do. You must reef down, or the devil'll seize the helm in one of these blows, and run you into a port too warm for pea-jackets." For a moment, Spunyarn seems half inclined to grasp Tom by his collarless coat and shake the hydrophobia, as he calls it, out of him; then, as if incited by a second thought, he draws from his shirt-bosom a large, wooden comb, and humming a tune commences combing and fussing over Tom's hair, which stands erect over his head like marlinspikes. At length he gets a craft-like set upon his foretop, and turning his head first to the right, then to the left, as a child does a doll, he views him with an air of exultation. "I tell you what it is, Tom," he continues, relieving him of the old coat, "the bright begins to come! There's three points of weather made already."

"God bless you, Spunyarn," replies Tom, evidently touched by the frankness and generosity of the old sailor. Indeed there was something so whole-hearted about old Spunyarn, that he was held in universal esteem by every one in jail, with the single exception of Milman Mingle, the vote-cribber.

"Just think of yourself, Tom—don't mind me," pursues the sailor as Tom squeezes firmly his hand. "You've had a hard enough time of it—" Tom interrupts by saying, as he lays his hands upon his sides, he is sore from head to foot.

"Don't wonder," returns the sailor. "It's a great State, this South Carolina. It seems swarming with poor and powerless folks. Everybody has power to put everybody in jail, where the State gives a body two dog's-hair and rope-yarn blankets to lay upon, and grants the sheriff, Mr. Hardscrable, full license to starve us, and put the thirty cents a day it provides for our living into his breeches pockets. Say what you will about it, old fellow, it's a brief way of doing a little profit in the business of starvation. I don't say this with any ill-will to the State that regards its powerless and destitute with such criminal contempt—I don't." And he brings water, gets Tom upon his feet, forces him into a clean shirt, and regards him in the light of a child whose reformation he is determined on perfecting. He sees that in the fallen man which implies a hope of ultimate usefulness, notwithstanding the sullen silence, the gloomy frown on his knitted brow, and the general air of despair that pervades the external man.

"There!" he exclaims, having improved the personal of the inebriate, and folding his arms as he steps back apace to have a better view of his pupil—"now, don't think of being triced up in this dreary vault. Be cheerful, brace up your resolution—never let the devil think you know he is trying to put the last seal on your fate—never!" Having slipped the black kerchief from his own neck, he secures it about Tom's, adjusts the shark's bone at the throat, and mounts the braid hat upon his head with a hearty blow on the crown. "Look at yourself! They'd mistake you for a captain of the foretop," he pursues, and good-naturedly he lays his broad, browned hands upon Tom's shoulders, and forces him up to a triangular bit of glass secured with three tacks to the wall.

Tom's hands wander down his sides as he contemplates himself in the glass, saying: "I look a shade up, I reckon! And I feel—I have to thank you for it, Spunyarn—something different all over me. God bless you! I won't forget you. But I'm hungry; that's all that ails me now.

"I may thank my mother—"

"Thank yourself, Tom," interposes the sailor.

"For all this. She has driven me to this; yes, she has made my soul dead with despair!" And he bursts into a wild, fierce laugh. A moment's pause, and he says, in a subdued voice, "I'm a slave, a fool, a wanderer in search of his own distress."

The kind-hearted sailor seats his pupil upon a board bench, and proceeds down stairs, where, with the bribe of a glass of whiskey, he induces the negro cook to prepare for Tom a bowl of coffee and a biscuit. In truth, we must confess, that Spunyarn was so exceedingly liberal of his friendship that he would at times appropriate to himself the personal effects of his neighbors. But we must do him justice by saying that this was only when a friend in need claimed his attention. And this generous propensity he the more frequently exercised upon the effects—whiskey, cold ham, crackers and cheese—of the vote-cribber, whom he regards as a sort of cold-hearted land-lubber, whose political friends outside were not what they should be. If the vote-cribber's aristocratic friends (and South Carolina politicians were much given to dignity and bad whiskey) sent him luxuries that tantalized the appetites of poverty-oppressed debtors, and poor prisoners starving on a pound of bread a-day, Spunyarn held this a legitimate plea for holding in utter contempt the right to such gifts. And what was more singular of this man was, that he always knew the latitude and longitude of the vote-cribber's bottle, and what amount of water was necessary to keep up the gauge he had reduced in supplying his flask.

And now that Tom's almost hopeless condition presents a warrantable excuse, (the vote-cribber has this moment passed into the cell to take a cursory glance at Tom,) Spunyarn slips nimbly into the vote-cribber's cell, withdraws a brick from the old chimney, and seizing the black neck of a blacker bottle, drags it forth, holds it in the shadow of the doorway, squints exultingly at the contents, shrugs his stalwart shoulders, and empties a third of the liquid, which he replaces with water from a bucket near by, into his tin-topped flask. This done, he ingeniously replaces the bottle, slides the flask suspiciously into his bosom, saying, "It'll taste just as strong to a vote-cribber," and seeks that greasy potentate, the prison cook. This dignitary has always laid something aside for Spunyarn; he knows Spunyarn has something laid aside for him, which makes the condition mutual.

"A new loafer let loose on the world!" says the vote-cribber, entering the domain of the inebriate with a look of fierce scorn. "The State is pestered to death with such things as you. What do they send you here for?—disturbing the quiet and respectability of the prison! You're only fit to enrich the bone-yard—hardly that; perhaps only for lawyers to get fees of. The State'll starve you, old Hardscrabble'll make a few dollars out of your feed—but what of that? We don't want you here." There was something so sullen and mysterious in the coarse features of this stalwart man—something so revolting in his profession, though it was esteemed necessary to the elevation of men seeking political popularity—something so at variance with common sense in the punishment meted out to him who followed it, as to create a deep interest in his history, notwithstanding his coldness towards the inebriate. And yet you sought in vain for one congenial or redeeming trait in the character of this man.

"I always find you here; you're a fixture, I take it—"

The vote-cribber interrupts the inebriate—"Better have said a patriot!"

"Well," returns the inebriate, "a patriot then; have it as you like it. I'm not over-sensitive of the distinction." The fallen man drops his head into his hands, stabbed with remorse, while the vote-cribber folds his brawny arms leisurely, paces to and fro before him, and scans him with his keen, gray eyes, after the manner of one mutely contemplating an imprisoned animal.

"You need not give yourself so much concern about me—"

"I was only thinking over in my head what a good subject to crib, a week or two before fall election, you'd be. You've a vote?"

Tom good-naturedly says he has. He always throws it for the "old Charleston" party, being sure of a release, as are some dozen caged birds, just before election.

"I have declared eternal hatred against that party; never pays its cribbers!" Mingle scornfully retorts; and having lighted his pipe, continues his pacing. "As for this jail," he mutters to himself, "I've no great respect for it; but there is a wide difference between a man who they put in here for sinning against himself, and one who only violates a law of the State, passed in opposition to popular opinion. However, you seem brightened up a few pegs, and, only let whiskey alone, you may be something yet. Keep up an acquaintance with the pump, and be civil to respectable prisoners, that's all."

This admonition of the vote-cribber had a deeper effect on the feelings of the inebriate than was indicated by his outward manner. He had committed no crime, and yet he found himself among criminals of every kind; and what was worse, they affected to look down upon him. Had he reached a state of degradation so low that even the felon loathed his presence? Was he an outcast, stripped of every means of reform—of making himself a man? Oh no! The knife of the destroyer had plunged deep—disappointment had tortured his brain—he was drawn deeper into the pool of misery by the fatal fascinations of the house of Madame Flamingo, where, shunned by society, he had sought relief—but there was yet one spark of pride lingering in his heart. That spark the vote-cribber had touched; and with that spark Tom resolved to kindle for himself a new existence. He had pledged his honor to the young theologian; he would not violate it.

The old sailor, with elated feelings, and bearing in his hands a bowl of coffee and two slices of toasted bread, is accosted by several suspicious-looking prisoners, who have assembled in the corridor for the purpose of scenting fresh air, with sundry questions concerning the state of his pupil's health.

"He has had a rough night," the sailor answers, "but is now a bit calm. In truth, he only wants a bit of good steering to get him into smooth weather again." Thus satisfying the inquirers, he hurries up stairs as the vote-cribber hurries down, and setting his offering on the window-sill, draws from his bosom the concealed flask. "There, Tom!" he says, with childlike satisfaction, holding the flask before him—"only two pulls. To-morrow reef down to one; and the day after swear a dissolution of copartnership, for this chap (he points to the whiskey) is too mighty for you."

Tom hesitates, as if questioning the quality of the drug he is about to administer.

"Only two!" interrupts the sailor. "It will reduce the ground-swell a bit." The outcast places the flask to his lips, and having drank with contorted face passes it back with a sigh, and extends his right hand. "My honor is nothing to the world, Spunyarn, but it is yet something to me; and by it I swear (here he grasps tighter the hand of the old sailor, as a tear moistens his suffused cheeks) never to touch the poison again. It has grappled me like a fierce animal I could not shake off; it has made me the scoffed of felons—I will cease to be its victim; and having gained the victory, be hereafter a friend to myself."

"God bless you—may you never want a friend, Tom—and may He give you strength to keep the resolution. That's my wish." And the old sailor shook Tom's hand fervently, in pledge of his sincerity.

CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH MR. SNIVEL, COMMONLY CALLED THE ACCOMMODATION MAN, IS INTRODUCED, AND WHAT TAKES PLACE BETWEEN HIM AND MRS. SWIGGS.

Reader! have you ever witnessed how cleverly one of our mob-politicians can, through the all-soothing medium of a mint-julep, transpose himself from a mass of passion and bad English into a child of perfect equanimity? If not, perhaps you have witnessed in our halls of Congress the sudden transition through which some of our Carolina members pass from a state of stupidity to a state of pugnacity? (We refer only to those members who do their own "stumping," and as a natural consequence, get into Congress through abuse of the North, bad whiskey, and a profusion of promises to dissolve the Union.) And if you have, you may form some idea of the suddenness with which Lady Swiggs, as she delights in having her friends call her, transposes herself from the incarnation of a viper into a creature of gentleness, on hearing announced the name of Mr. Soloman Snivel.

"What!—my old friend! I wish I had words to say how glad I am to see you, Lady Swiggs!" exclaims a tall, well-proportioned and handsome-limbed man, to whose figure a fashionable claret-colored frock coat, white vest, neatly-fitting dark-brown trowsers, highly-polished boots, a cluster of diamonds set in an avalanche of corded shirt-bosom, and carelessly-tied green cravat, lend a respectability better imagined than described. A certain reckless dash about him, not common to a refined gentleman, forces us to set him down as one of those individuals who hold an uncertain position in society; and though they may now and then mingle with men of refinement, have their more legitimate sphere in a fashionable world of doubtful character.

"Why!—Mr. Snivel. Is it you?" responds the old woman, reciprocating his warm shake of the hand, and getting her hard face into a smile.

"I am so glad—But (Mr. Snivel interrupts himself) never mind that!"

"You have some important news?" hastily inquires Mrs. Swiggs, laying a bit of muslin carefully between the pages of her Milton, and returning it to the table, saying she has just been grievously provoked by one of that black-coated flock who go about the city in search of lambs. They always remind her of light-houses pointing the road to the dominions of the gentleman in black.

"Something very important!" parenthesises Soloman—"very." And he shakes his head, touches her significantly on the arm with his orange-colored glove,—he smiles insidiously.

"Pray be seated, Mr. Snivel. Rebecca!—bring Mr. Snivel the rocking-chair."

"You see, my good Madam, there's such a rumor about town this morning! (Soloman again taps her on the arm with his glove.) The cat has got out of the bag—it's all up with the St. Cecilia!—"

"Do, Rebecca, make haste with the rocking-chair!" eagerly interrupts the old woman, addressing herself to the negress, who fusses her way into the room with a great old-fashioned rocking-chair. "I am so sensitive of the character of that society," she continues with a sigh, and wipes and rubs her spectacles, gets up and views herself in the glass, frills over her cap border, and becomes very generally anxious. Mrs. Swiggs is herself again. She nervously adjusts the venerable red shawl about her shoulders, draws the newly-introduced arm-chair near her own, ("I'm not so old, but am getting a little deaf," she says), and begs her visitor will be seated.

Mr. Soloman, having paced twice or thrice up and down the little room, contemplating himself in the glass at each turn, now touching his neatly-trimmed Saxon mustache and whiskers, then frisking his fingers through his candy-colored hair, brings his dignity into the chair.

"I said it was all up with the St. Cecilia—"

"Yes!" interrupts Mrs. Swiggs, her eyes glistening like balls of fire, her lower jaw falling with the weight of anxiety, and fretting rapidly her bony hands.

Soloman suddenly pauses, says that was a glorious bottle of old Madeira with which he enjoyed her hospitality on his last visit. The flavor of it is yet fresh in his mouth.

"Thank you—thank you! Mr. Soloman. I've a few more left. But pray lose no time in disclosing to me what hath befallen the St. Cecilia."

"Well then—but what I say must be in confidence. (The old woman says it never shall get beyond her lips—never!) An Englishman of goodly looks, fashion, and money—and, what is more in favor with our first families, a Sir attached to his name, being of handsome person and accomplished manners, and travelling and living after the manner of a nobleman, (some of our first families are simple enough to identify a Baronet with nobility!) was foully set upon by the fairest and most marriageable belles of the St. Cecilia. If he had possessed a dozen hearts, he could have had good markets for them all. There was such a getting up of attentions! Our fashionable mothers did their very best in arraying the many accomplishments of their consignable daughters, setting forth in the most foreign but not over-refined phraseology, their extensive travels abroad—"

"Yes!" interrupts Mrs. Swiggs, nervously—"I know how they do it. It's a pardonable weakness." And she reaches out her hand and takes to her lap her inseparable Milton.

"And the many marked attentions—offers, in fact—they have received at the hands of Counts and Earls, with names so unpronounceable that they have outlived memory—"

"Perhaps I have them in my book of autographs!" interrupts the credulous old woman, making an effort to rise and proceed to an antique side-board covered with grotesque-looking papers.

Mr. Soloman urbanely touches her on the arm—begs she will keep her seat. The names only apply to things of the past. He proceeds, "Well—being a dashing fellow, as I have said—he played his game charmingly. Now he flirted with this one, and then with that one, and finally with the whole society, not excepting the very flirtable married ladies;—that is, I mean those whose husbands were simple enough to let him. Mothers were in a great flutter generally, and not a day passed but there was a dispute as to which of their daughters he would link his fortunes with and raise to that state so desirable in the eyes of our very republican first families—the State-Militant of nobility—"

"I think none the worse of 'em for that," says the old woman, twitching her wizard-like head in confirmation of her assertion. "My word for it, Mr. Soloman, to get up in the world, and to be above the common herd, is the grand ambition of our people; and our State has got the grand position it now holds before the world through the influence of this ambition."

"True!—you are right there, my dear friend. You may remember, I have always said you had the penetration of a statesman, (Mrs. Swiggs makes a curt bow, as a great gray cat springs into her lap and curls himself down on her Milton;) and, as I was going on to say of this dashing Baronet, he played our damsels about in agony, as an old sportsman does a covey of ducks, wounding more in the head than in the heart, and finally creating no end of a demand for matrimony. To-day, all the town was positive, he would marry the beautiful Miss Boggs; to-morrow it was not so certain that he would not marry the brilliant and all-accomplished Miss Noggs; and the next day he was certain of marrying the talented and very wealthy heiress, Miss Robbs. Mrs. Stepfast, highly esteemed in fashionable society, and the very best gossip-monger in the city, had confidentially spread it all over the neighborhood that Mr. Stepfast told her the young Baronet told him (and he verily believed he was head and ears in love with her!) Miss Robbs was the most lovely creature he had seen since he left Belgravia. And then he went into a perfect rhapsody of excitement while praising the poetry of her motion, the grace with which she performed the smallest offices of the drawing-room, her queenly figure, her round, alabaster arms, her smooth, tapering hands, (so chastely set off with two small diamonds, and so unlike the butchers' wives of this day, who bedazzle themselves all the day long with cheap jewelry,)—the beautiful swell of her marble bust, the sweet smile ever playing over her thoughtful face, the regularity of her Grecian features, and those great, languishing eyes, constantly flashing with the light of irresistible love. Quoth ye! according to what Mr. Stepfast told Mrs. Stepfast, the young Baronet would, with the ideal of a real poet, as was he, have gone on recounting her charms until sundown, had not Mr. Stepfast invited him to a quiet family dinner. And to confirm what Mr. Stepfast said, Miss Robbs had been seen by Mrs. Windspin looking in at Mrs. Stebbins', the fashionable dress-maker, while the young Baronet had twice been at Spears', in King Street, to select a diamond necklace of great value, which he left subject to the taste of Miss Robbs. And putting them two and them two together there was something in it!"

"I am truly glad it's nothing worse. There has been so much scandal got up by vulgar people against our St. Cecilia."

"Worse, Madam?" interpolates our hero, ere she has time to conclude her sentence, "the worst is to come yet."

"And I'm a member of the society!" Mrs. Swiggs replies with a languishing sigh, mistaking the head of the cat for her Milton, and apologizing for her error as that venerable animal, having got well squeezed, sputters and springs from her grasp, shaking his head, "elected solely on the respectability of my family."

Rather a collapsed member, by the way, Mr. Soloman thinks, contemplating her facetiously.

"Kindly proceed—proceed," she says, twitching at her cap strings, as if impatient to get the sequel.

"Well, as to that, being a member of the St. Cecilia myself, you see, and always—(I go in for a man keeping up in the world)—maintaining a high position among its most distinguished members, who, I assure you, respect me far above my real merits, (Mrs. Swiggs says we won't say anything about that now!) and honor me with all its secrets, I may, even in your presence, be permitted to say, that I never heard a member who didn't speak in high praise of you and the family of which you are so excellent a representative."

"Thank you—thank you. O thank you, Mr. Soloman!" she rejoins.

"Why, Madam, I feel all my veneration getting into my head at once when I refer to the name of Sir Sunderland Swiggs."

"But pray what came of the young Baronet?"

"Oh!—as to him, why, you see, he was what we call—it isn't a polite word, I confess—a humbug."

"A Baronet a humbug!" she exclaims, fretting her hands and commencing to rock herself in the chair.

"Well, as to that, as I was going on to say, after he had beat the bush all around among the young birds, leaving several of them wounded on the ground—you understand this sort of thing—he took to the older ones, and set them polishing up their feathers. And having set several very respectable families by the ears, and created a terrible flutter among a number of married dames—he was an adept in this sort of diplomacy, you see—it was discovered that one very distinguished Mrs. Constance, leader of fashion to the St. Cecilia, (and on that account on no very good terms with the vulgar world, that was forever getting up scandal to hurl at the society that would not permit it to soil, with its common muslin, the fragrant atmosphere of its satin and tulle), had been carrying on a villanous intrigue—yes, Madam! villanous intrigue! I said discovered: the fact was, this gallant Baronet, with one servant and no establishment, was feted and fooled for a month, until he came to the very natural and sensible conclusion, that we were all snobbs—yes, snobbs of the very worst kind. But there was no one who fawned over and flattered the vanity of this vain man more than the husband of Mrs. Constance. This poor man idolized his wife, whom he regarded as the very diamond light of purity, nor ever mistrusted that the Baronet's attentions were bestowed with any other than the best of motives. Indeed, he held it extremely condescending on the part of the Baronet to thus honor the family with his presence.

"And the Baronet, you see, with that folly so characteristic of Baronets, was so flushed with his success in this little intrigue with Madame Constance—the affair was too good for him to keep!—that he went all over town showing her letters. Such nice letters as they were—brim full of repentance, love, and appointments. The Baronet read them to Mr. Barrows, laughing mischievously, and saying what a fool the woman must be. Mr. Barrows couldn't keep it from Mrs. Barrows, Mrs. Barrows let the cat out of the bag to Mrs. Simpson, and Mrs. Simpson would let Mr. Simpson have no peace till he got on the soft side of the Baronet, and, what was not a difficult matter, got two of the letters for her to have a peep into. Mrs. Simpson having feasted her eyes on the two Mr. Simpson got of the Baronet, and being exceedingly fond of such wares as they contained, must needs—albeit, in strict confidence—whisper it to Mrs. Fountain, who was a very fashionable lady, but unfortunately had a head very like a fountain, with the exception that it ejected out double the amount it took in. Mrs. Fountain—as anybody might have known—let it get all over town. And then the vulgar herd took it up, as if it were assafœtida, only needing a little stirring up, and hurled it back at the St. Cecilia, the character of which it would damage without a pang of remorse.

"Then the thing got to Constance's ears; and getting into a terrible passion, poor Constance swore nothing would satisfy him but the Baronet's life. But the Baronet—"

"A sorry Baronet was he—not a bit like my dear ancestor, Sir Sunderland," Mrs. Swiggs interposes.

"Not a bit, Madam," bows our hero. "Like a sensible gentleman, as I was about to say, finding it getting too hot for him, packed up his alls, and in the company of his unpaid servant, left for parts westward of this. I had a suspicion the fellow was not what he should be; and I made it known to my select friends of the St. Cecilia, who generally pooh-poohed me. A nobleman, they said, should receive every attention. And to show that he wasn't what he should be, when he got to Augusta his servant sued him for his wages; and having nothing but his chivalry, which the servant very sensibly declined to accept for payment, he came out like a man, and declared himself nothing but a poor player.

"But this neither satisfied Constance nor stayed the drifting current of slander—"

"Oh! I am so glad it was no worse," Mrs. Swiggs interrupts again.

"True!" Mr. Soloman responds, laughing heartily, as he taps her on the arm. "It might have been worse, though. Well, I am, as you know, always ready to do a bit of a good turn for a friend in need, and pitying poor Constance as I did, I suggested a committee of four most respectable gentlemen, and myself, to investigate the matter. The thing struck Constance favorably, you see. So we got ourselves together, agreed to consider ourselves a Congress, talked over the affairs of the nation, carried a vote to dissolve the Union, drank sundry bottles of Champagne, (I longed for a taste of your old Madeira, Mrs. Swiggs,) and brought in a verdict that pleased Mrs. Constance wonderfully—and so it ought. We were, after the most careful examination, satisfied that the reports prejudicial to the character and standing of Mrs. Constance had no foundation in truth, being the base fabrications of evil-minded persons, who sought, while injuring an innocent lady, to damage the reputation of the St. Cecilia Society. Mr. Constance was highly pleased with the finding; and finally it proved the sovereign balm that healed all their wounds. Of course, the Knight, having departed, was spared his blood."

Here Mr. Soloman makes a pause. Mrs. Swiggs, with a sigh, says, "Is that all?"

"Quite enough for once, my good Madam," Mr. Soloman bows in return.

"Oh! I am so glad the St. Cecilia is yet spared to us. You said, you know, it was all up with it—"

"Up? up?—so it is! That is, it won't break it up, you know. Why—oh, I see where the mistake is—it isn't all over, you know, seeing how the society can live through a score of nine-months scandals. But the thing's in every vulgar fellow's lips—that is the worst of it."

Mrs. Swiggs relishes this bit of gossip as if it were a dainty morsel; and calling Rebecca, she commands her to forthwith proceed into the cellar and bring a bottle of the old Madeira—she has only five left—for Mr. Soloman. And to Mr. Soloman's great delight, the old negress hastily obeys the summons; brings forth a mass of cobweb and dust, from which a venerable black bottle is disinterred, uncorked, and presented to the guest, who drinks the health of Mrs. Swiggs in sundry well-filled glasses, which he declares choice, adding, that it always reminds him of the age and dignity of the family. Like the State, dignity is Mrs. Swiggs' weakness—her besetting sin. Mr. Soloman, having found the key to this vain woman's generosity, turns it when it suits his own convenience.

"By-the-bye," he suddenly exclaims, "you've got Tom locked up again."

"As safe as he ever was, I warrant ye!" Mrs. Swiggs replies, resuming her Milton and rocking-chair.

"Upon my faith I agree with you. Never let him get out, for he is sure to disgrace the family when he does—"

"I've said he shall rot there, and he shall rot! He never shall get out to disgrace the family—no, not if I live to be as gray as Methuselah, I warrant you!" And Mr. Soloman, having made his compliments to the sixth glass, draws from his breast pocket a legal-looking paper, which he passes to Mrs. Swiggs, as she ejaculates, "Oh! I am glad you thought of that."

Mr. Soloman, watching intently the changes of her face, says, "You will observe, Madam, I have mentioned the cripples. There are five of them. We are good friends, you see; and it is always better to be precise in those things. It preserves friendship. This is merely a bit of a good turn I do for you." Mr. Soloman bows, makes an approving motion with his hands, and lays at her disposal on the table, a small roll of bills. "You will find two hundred dollars there," he adds, modulating his voice. "You will find it all right; I got it for you of Keepum. We do a little in that way; he is very exact, you see—"

"Honor is the best security between people of our standing," she rejoins, taking up a pen and signing the instrument, which her guest deposits snugly in his pocket, and takes his departure for the house of Madame Flamingo.

CHAPTER VI.

CONTAINING SUNDRY MATTERS APPERTAINING TO THIS HISTORY.

If, generous reader, you had lived in Charleston, we would take it for granted that you need no further enlightening on any of our very select societies, especially the St. Cecilia; but you may not have enjoyed a residence so distinguished, rendering unnecessary a few explanatory remarks. You must know that we not only esteem ourselves the quintessence of refinement, as we have an undisputed right to do, but regard the world outside as exceedingly stupid in not knowing as much of us as we profess to know of ourselves. Abroad, we wonder we are not at once recognized as Carolinians; at home, we let the vulgar world know who we are. Indeed, we regard the outside world—of these States we mean—very much in that light which the Greeks of old were wont to view the Romans in. Did we but stop here, the weakness might be pardonable. But we lay claim to Grecian refinement of manners, while pluming all our mob-politicians Roman orators. There is a profanity about this we confess not to like; not that danger can befall it, but because it hath about it that which reminds us of the oyster found in the shell of gold. Condescending, then, to believe there exists outside of our State a few persons silly enough to read books, we will take it for granted, reader, that you are one of them, straightway proceeding with you to the St. Cecilia.

You have been a fashionable traveller in Europe? You say—yes! rummaged all the feudal castles of England, sought out the resting places of her kings, heard some one say "that is poet's corner," as we passed into Westminster Abbey, thought they couldn't be much to have such a corner,—"went to look" where Byron was buried, moistened the marble with a tear ere we were conscious of it, and saw open to us the gulf of death as we contemplated how greedy graveyard worms were banqueting on his greatness. A world of strange fancies came over us as we mused on England's poets. And we dined with several Dukes and a great many more Earls, declining no end of invitations of commoners. Very well! we reply, adding a sigh. And on your return to your home, that you may not be behind the fashion, you compare disparagingly everything that meets your eye. Nothing comes up to what you saw in Europe. A servant doesn't know how to be a servant here; and were we to see the opera at Covent Garden, we would be sure to stare our eyes out. It is become habitual to introduce your conversation with, "when I was in Europe." And you know you never write a letter that you don't in some way bring in the distinguished persons you met abroad. There is something (no matter what it is) that forcibly reminds you of what occurred at the table of my Lady Clarendon, with whom you twice had the pleasure and rare honor of dining. And by implication, you always give us a sort of lavender-water description of the very excellent persons you met there, and what they were kind enough to say of America, and how they complimented you, and made you the centre and all-absorbing object of attraction—in a word, a truly wonderful person. And you will not fail, now that it is become fashionable, to extol with fulsome breath the greatness of every European despot it hath been your good fortune to get a bow from. And you are just vain enough to forever keep this before your up-country cousins. You say, too, that you have looked in at Almacks. Almacks! alas! departed greatness. With the rise of the Casino hath it lain its aristocratic head in the dust.

Well!—the St. Cecilia you must know (its counterparts are to be found in all our great cities) is a miniature Almacks—a sort of leach-cloth, through which certain very respectable individuals must pass ere they can become the elite of our fashionable world. To become a member of the St. Cecilia—to enjoy its recherché assemblies—to luxuriate in the delicate perfumes of its votaries, is the besetting sin of a great many otherwise very sensible people. And to avenge their disappointment at not being admitted to its precious precincts, they are sure to be found in the front rank of scandal-mongers when anything in their line is up with a member. And it is seldom something is not up, for the society would seem to live and get lusty in an atmosphere of perpetual scandal. Any amount of duels have come of it; it hath made rich no end of milliners; it hath made bankrupt husbands by the dozen; it hath been the theatre of several distinguished romances; it hath witnessed the first throbbings of sundry hearts, since made happy in wedlock; it hath been the shibolath of sins that shall be nameless here. The reigning belles are all members (provided they belong to our first families) of the St. Cecilia, as is also the prettiest and most popular unmarried parson. And the parson being excellent material for scandal, Mother Rumor is sure to have a dash at him. Nor does this very busy old lady seem over-delicate about which of the belles she associates with the parson, so long as the scandal be fashionable enough to afford her a good traffic.

There is continually coming along some unknown but very distinguished foreigner, whom the society adopts as its own, flutters over, and smothers with attentions, and drops only when it is discovered he is an escaped convict. This, in deference to the reputation of the St. Cecilia, we acknowledge has only happened twice. It has been said with much truth that the St. Cecilia's worst sin, like the sins of its sister societies of New York, is a passion for smothering with the satin and Honiton of its assemblies a certain supercilious species of snobby Englishmen, who come over here, as they have it (gun and fishing-rod in hand), merely to get right into the woods where they can have plenty of bear-hunting, confidently believing New York a forest inhabited by such animals. As for our squaws, as Mr. Tom Toddleworth would say, (we shall speak more at length of Tom!) why! they have no very bad opinion of them, seeing that they belong to a race of semi-barbarians, whose sayings they delight to note down. Having no society at home, this species of gentry the more readily find themselves in high favor with ours. They are always Oxonians, as the sons of green grocers and fishmongers are sure to be when they come over here (so Mr. Toddleworth has it, and he is good authority), and we being an exceedingly impressible people, they kindly condescend to instruct us in all the high arts, now and then correcting our very bad English. They are clever fellows generally, being sure to get on the kind side of credulous mothers with very impressible-headed daughters.

There was, however, always a distinguished member of the St. Cecilia society who let out all that took place at its assemblies. The vulgar always knew what General danced with the lovely Miss A., and how they looked, and what they said to each other; how many jewels Miss A. wore, and the material her dress was made of; they knew who polkaed with the accomplished Miss B., and how like a duchess she bore herself; they had the exact name of the colonel who dashed along so like a knight with the graceful and much-admired Mrs. D., whose husband was abroad serving his country; what gallant captain of dragoons (captains of infantry were looked upon as not what they might be) promenaded so imperiously with the vivacious Miss E.; and what distinguished foreigner sat all night in the corner holding a suspicious and very improper conversation with Miss F., whose skirts never were free of scandal, and who had twice got the pretty parson into difficulty with his church. Hence there was a perpetual outgoing of scandal on the one side, and pelting of dirt on the other.

When Mr. Soloman sought the presence of Mrs. Swiggs and told her it was all up with the St. Cecilia, and when that august member of the society was so happily disappointed by his concluding with leaving it an undamaged reputation, the whole story was not let out. In truth the society was at that moment in a state of indignation, and its reputation as well-nigh the last stage of disgrace as it were possible to bring it without being entirely absorbed. The Baronet, who enjoyed a good joke, and was not over-scrupulous in measuring the latitude of our credulity, had, it seems, in addition to the little affair with Mrs. Constance, been imprudent enough to introduce at one of the assemblies of the St. Cecilia, a lady of exceedingly fair but frail import: this loveliest of creatures—this angel of fallen fame—this jewel, so much sought after in her own casket—this child of gentleness and beauty, before whom a dozen gallant knights were paying homage, and claiming her hand for the next waltz, turned out to be none other than the Anna Bonard we have described at the house of Madame Flamingo. The discovery sent the whole assembly into a fainting fit, and caused such a fluttering in the camp of fashion. Reader! you may rest assured back-doors and smelling-bottles were in great demand.

The Baronet had introduced her as his cousin; just arrived, he said, in the care of her father—the cousin whose beauty he had so often referred to. So complete was her toilet and disguise, that none but the most intimate associate could have detected the fraud. Do you ask us who was the betrayer, reader? We answer,—

One whose highest ambition did seem that of getting her from her paramour, George Mullholland. It was Judge Sleepyhorn. Reader! you will remember him—the venerable, snowy-haired man, sitting on the lounge at the house of Madame Flamingo, and on whom George Mullholland swore to have revenge. The judge of a criminal court, the admonisher of the erring, the sentencer of felons, the habitue of the house of Madame Flamingo—no libertine in disguise could be more scrupulous of his standing in society, or so sensitive of the opinion held of him by the virtuous fair, than was this daylight guardian of public morals.

The Baronet got himself nicely out of the affair, and Mr. Soloman Snivel, commonly called Mr. Soloman, the accommodation man, is at the house of Madame Flamingo, endeavoring to effect a reconciliation between the Judge and George Mullholland.

CHAPTER VII.

IN WHICH IS SEEN A COMMINGLING OF CITIZENS.

Night has thrown her mantle over the city. There is a great gathering of denizens at the house of Madame Flamingo. She has a bal-masque to-night. Her door is beset with richly-caparisoned equipages. The town is on tip-toe to be there; we reluctantly follow it. An hundred gaudily-decorated drinking saloon are filled with gaudier-dressed men. In loudest accent rings the question—"Do you go to Madame Flamingo's to-night?" Gentlemen of the genteel world, in shining broadcloth, touch glasses and answer—"yes!" It is a wonderful city—this of ours. Vice knows no restraint, poverty hath no friends here. We bow before the shrine of midnight revelry; we bring licentiousness to our homes, but we turn a deaf ear to the cries of poverty, and we gloat over the sale of men.

The sickly gas-light throws a sicklier glare over the narrow, unpaved streets. The city is on a frolic, a thing not uncommon with it. Lithe and portly-figured men, bearing dominos in their hands, saunter along the sidewalk, now dangling ponderous watch-chains, then flaunting highly-perfumed cambrics—all puffing the fumes of choice cigars. If accosted by a grave wayfarer—they are going to the opera! They are dressed in the style of opera-goers. And the road to the opera seems the same as that leading to the house of the old hostess. A gaily-equipped carriage approaches. We hear the loud, coarse laughing of those it so buoyantly bears, then there comes full to view the glare of yellow silks and red satins, and doubtful jewels—worn by denizens from whose faded brows the laurel wreath hath fallen. How shrunken with the sorrow of their wretched lives, and yet how sportive they seem! The pale gas-light throws a spectre-like hue over their paler features; the artificial crimson with which they would adorn the withered cheek refuses to lend a charm to features wan and ghastly. The very air is sickly with the odor of their cosmetics. And with flaunting cambrics they bend over carriage sides, salute each and every pedestrian, and receive in return answers unsuited to refined ears. They pass into the dim vista, but we see with the aid of that flickering gas, the shadow of that polluting hand which hastens life into death.

Old Mr. McArthur, who sits smoking his long pipe in the door of his crazy-looking curiosity shop, (he has just parted company with the young theologian, having assured him he would find a place to stow Tom Swiggs in,) wonders where the fashionable world of Charleston can be going? It is going to the house of the Flamingo. The St. Cecilia were to have had a ball to-night; scandal and the greater attractions here have closed its doors.

A long line of carriages files past the door of the old hostess. An incessant tripping of feet, delicately encased in bright-colored slippers; an ominous fluttering of gaudy silks and satins; an inciting glare of borrowed jewelry, mingling with second-hand lace; an heterogeneous gleaming of bare, brawny arms, and distended busts, all lend a sort of barbaric splendor to that mysterious group floating, as it were, into a hall in one blaze of light. A soft carpet, overlain with brown linen, is spread from the curbstone into the hall. Two well-developed policemen guard the entrance, take tickets of those who pass in, and then exchange smiles of recognition with venerable looking gentlemen in masks. The hostess, a clever "business man" in her way, has made the admission fee one dollar. Having paid the authorities ten dollars, and honored every Alderman with a complimentary ticket, who has a better right? No one has a nicer regard for the Board of Aldermen than Madame Flamingo; no one can reciprocate this regard more condescendingly than the honorable Board of Aldermen do. Having got herself arrayed in a dress of sky-blue satin, that ever and anon streams, cloud-like, behind her, and a lace cap of approved fashion, with pink strings nicely bordered in gimp, and a rich Honiton cape, jauntily thrown over her shoulders, and secured under the chin with a great cluster of blazing diamonds, and rows of unpolished pearls at her wrists, which are immersed in crimped ruffles, she doddles up and down the hall in a state of general excitement. A corpulent colored man, dressed in the garb of a beadle,—a large staff in his right hand, a cocked hat on his head, and broad white stripes down his flowing coat, stands midway between the parlor doors. He is fussy enough, and stupid enough, for a Paddington beadle. Now Madame Flamingo looks scornfully at him, scolds him, pushes him aside; he is only a slave she purchased for the purpose; she commands that he gracefully touch his hat (she snatches it from his head, and having elevated it over her own, performs the delicate motion she would have him imitate) to every visitor. The least neglect of duty will incur (she tells him in language he cannot mistake) the penalty of thirty-nine well laid on in the morning. In another minute her fat, chubby-face glows with smiles, her whole soul seems lighted up with childlike enthusiasm; she has a warm welcome for each new comer, retorts saliently upon her old friends, and says—"you know how welcome you all are!" Then she curtsies with such becoming grace. "The house, you know, gentlemen, is a commonwealth to-night." Ah! she recognizes the tall, comely figure of Mr. Soloman, the accommodation man. He did not spring from among the bevy of coat-takers, and hood-retainers, at the extreme end of the great hall, nor from among the heap of promiscuous garments piled in one corner; and yet he is here, looking as if some magic process had brought him from a mysterious labyrinth. "Couldn't get along without me, you see. It's an ambition with me to befriend everybody. If I can do a bit of a good turn for a friend, so much the better!" And he grasps the old hostess by the hand with a self-satisfaction he rather improves by tapping her encouragingly on the shoulder. "You'll make a right good thing of this!—a clear thousand, eh?"

"The fates have so ordained it," smiles naively the old woman.

"Of course the fates could not ordain otherwise—"

"As to that, Mr. Soloman, I sometimes think the gods are with me, and then again I think they are against me. The witches—they have done my fortune a dozen times or more—always predict evil (I consult them whenever a sad fit comes over me), but witches are not to be depended upon! I am sure I think what a fool I am for consulting them at all." She espies, for her trade of sin hath made keen her eye, the venerable figure of Judge Sleepyhorn advancing up the hall, masked. "Couldn't get along without you," she lisps, tripping towards him, and greeting him with the familiarity of an intimate friend. "I'm rather aristocratic, you'll say!—and I confess I am, though a democrat in principle!" And Madame Flamingo confirms what she says with two very dignified nods. As the Judge passes silently in she pats him encouragingly on the back, saying,—"There ain't no one in this house what'll hurt a hair on your head." The Judge heeds not what she says.

"My honor for it, Madame, but I think your guests highly favored, altogether! Fine weather, and the prospect of a bal-masque of Pompeian splendor. The old Judge, eh?"

"The gods smile—the gods smile, Mr. Soloman!" interrupts the hostess, bowing and swaying her head in rapid succession.

"The gods have their eye on him to-night—he's a marked man! A jolly old cove of a Judge, he is! Cares no more about rules and precedents, on the bench, than he does for the rights and precedents some persons profess to have in this house. A high old blade to administer justice, eh?"

"But, you see, Mr. Soloman," the hostess interrupts, a gracious bow keeping time with the motion of her hand, "he is such an aristocratic prop in the character of my house."

"I rather like that, I confess, Madame. You have grown rich off the aristocracy. Now, don't get into a state of excitement!" says Mr. Soloman, fingering his long Saxon beard, and eyeing her mischievously. She sees a bevy of richly-dressed persons advancing up the hall in high glee. Indeed her house is rapidly filling to the fourth story. And yet they come! she says. "The gods are in for a time. I love to make the gods happy."

Mr. Soloman has lain his hand upon her arm retentively.

"It is not that the aristocracy and such good persons as the Judge spend so much here. But they give eclat to the house, and eclat is money. That's it, sir! Gold is the deity of our pantheon! Bless you (the hostess evinces the enthusiasm of a politician), what better evidence of the reputation of my house than is before you, do you want? I've shut up the great Italian opera, with its three squalling prima donnas, which in turn has shut up the poor, silly Empresario as they call him; and the St. Cecilia I have just used up. I'm a team in my way, you see;—run all these fashionable oppositions right into bankruptcy." Never were words spoken with more truth. Want of patronage found all places of rational amusement closed. Societies for intellectual improvement, one after another, died of poverty. Fashionable lectures had attendance only when fashionable lecturers came from the North; and the Northman was sure to regard our taste through the standard of what he saw before him.

The house of the hostess triumphs, and is corpulent of wealth and splendor. To-morrow she will feed with the rich crumbs that fall from her table the starving poor. And although she holds poor virtue in utter contempt, feeding the poor she regards a large score on the passport to a better world. A great marble stairway winds its way upward at the farther end of the hall, and near it are two small balconies, one on each side, presenting barricades of millinery surmounted with the picturesque faces of some two dozen denizens, who keep up an incessant gabbling, interspersed here and there with jeers directed at Mr. Soloman. "Who is he seeking to accommodate to-night?" they inquire, laughing merrily.

The house is full, the hostess has not space for one friend more; she commands the policemen to close doors. An Alderman is the only exception to her fiat. "You see," she says, addressing herself to a courtly individual who has just saluted her with urbane deportment, "I must preserve the otium cum dignitate of my (did I get it right?) standing in society. I don't always get these Latin sayings right. Our Congressmen don't. And, you see, like them, I ain't a Latin scholar, and may be excused for any little slips. Politics and larnin' don't get along well together. Speaking of politics, I confess I rather belong to the Commander and Quabblebum school—I do!"

At this moment (a tuning of instruments is heard in the dancing-hall) the tall figure of the accommodation man is seen, in company of the venerable Judge, passing hurriedly into a room on the right of the winding stairs before described. "Judge!" he exclaims, closing the door quickly after him, "you will be discovered and exposed. I am not surprised at your passion for her, nor the means by which you seek to destroy the relations existing between her and George Mullholland. It is an evidence of taste in you. But she is proud to a fault, and, this I say in friendship, you so wounded her feelings, when you betrayed her to the St. Cecilia, that she has sworn to have revenge on you. George Mullholland, too, has sworn to have your life.

"I tell you what it is, Judge, (the accommodation man assumes the air of a bank director,) I have just conceived—you will admit I have an inventive mind!—a plot that will carry you clean through the whole affair. Your ambition is divided between a passion for this charming creature and the good opinion of better society. The resolution to retain the good opinion of society is doing noble battle in your heart; but it is the weaker vessel, and it always will be so with a man of your mould, inasmuch as such resolutions are backed up by the less fierce elements of our nature. Put this down as an established principle. Well, then, I will take upon myself the betrayal. I will plead you ignorant of the charge, procure her forgiveness, and reconcile the matter with this Mullholland. It's worth an hundred or more, eh?"

The venerable man smiles, shakes his head as if heedless of the admonition, and again covers his face with his domino.

The accommodation man, calling him by his judicial title, says he will yet repent the refusal!

It is ten o'clock. The gentleman slightly colored, who represents a fussy beadle, makes a flourish with his great staff. The doors of the dancing hall are thrown open. Like the rushing of the gulf stream there floods in a motley procession of painted females and masked men—the former in dresses as varied in hue as the fires of remorse burning out their unuttered thoughts. Two and two they jeer and crowd their way along into the spacious hall, the walls of which are frescoed in extravagant mythological designs, the roof painted in fret work, and the cornices interspersed with seraphs in stucco and gilt. The lights of two massive chandeliers throw a bewitching refulgence over a scene at once picturesque and mysterious; and from four tall mirrors secured between the windows, is reflected the forms and movements of the masquers.

Reader! you have nothing in this democratic country with which to successfully compare it. And to seek a comparison in the old world, where vice, as in this city of chivalry, hath a license, serves not our office.

Madame Flamingo, flanked right and left by twelve colored gentlemen, who, their collars decorated with white and pink rosettes, officiate as masters of ceremony, and form a crescent in front of the thronging procession, steps gradually backward, curtsying and bowing, and spreading her hands to her guests, after the manner of my Lord Chamberlain.

Eight colored musicians, (everything is colored here,) perched on a raised platform covered with maroon-colored plush, at the signal of a lusty-tongued call-master, strike up a march, to which the motley throng attempt to keep time. It is martial enough; and discordant enough for anything but keeping time to.

The plush-covered benches filing along the sides and ends of the hall are eagerly sought after and occupied by a strange mixture of lookers on in Vienna. Here the hoary-headed father sits beside a newly-initiated youth who is receiving his first lesson of dissipation. There the grave and chivalric planter sports with the nice young man, who is cultivating a beard and his way into the by-ways. A little further on the suspicious looking gambler sits freely conversing with the man whom a degrading public opinion has raised to the dignity of the judicial bench. Yonder is seen the man who has eaten his way into fashionable society, (and by fashionable society very much caressed in return,) the bosom companion of the man whose crimes have made him an outcast.

Generous reader! contemplate this grotesque assembly; study the object Madame Flamingo has in gathering it to her fold. Does it not present the accessories to wrong doing? Does it not show that the wrong-doer and the criminally inclined, too often receive encouragement by the example of those whoso duty it is to protect society? The spread of crime, alas! for the profession, is too often regarded by the lawyer as rather a desirable means of increasing his trade.

Quadrille follows quadrille, the waltz succeeds the schottish, the scene presents one bewildering maze of flaunting gossamers and girating bodies, now floating sylph-like into the foreground, then whirling seductively into the shadowy vista, where the joyous laugh dies out in the din of voices. The excitement has seized upon the head and heart of the young,—the child who stood trembling between the first and second downward step finds her reeling brain a captive in this snare set to seal her ruin.

Now the music ceases, the lusty-tongued call-master stands surveying what he is pleased to call the oriental splendor of this grotesque assembly. He doesn't know who wouldn't patronize such a house! It suddenly forms in platoon, and marshalled by slightly-colored masters of ceremony, promenades in an oblong figure.

Here, leaning modestly on the arm of a tall figure in military uniform, and advancing slowly up the hall, is a girl of some sixteen summers. Her finely-rounded form is in harmony with the ravishing vivacity of her face, which is beautifully oval. Seen by the glaring gas-light her complexion is singularly clear and pale. But that freshness which had gained her many an admirer, and which gave such a charm to the roundness of early youth, we look for in vain. And yet there is a softness and delicacy about her well-cut and womanly features—a childlike sweetness in her smile—a glow of thoughtfulness in those great, flashing black eyes—an expression of melancholy in which at short intervals we read her thoughts—an incessant playing of those long dark eyelashes, that clothes her charms with an irresistible, a soul-inspiring seductiveness. Her dress, of moire antique, is chasteness itself; her bust exquisite symmetry; it heaves as softly as if touched by some gentle zephyr. From an Haidean brow falls and floats undulating over her marble-like shoulders, the massive folds of her glossy black hair. Nature had indeed been lavish of her gifts on this fair creature, to whose charms no painter could give a touch more fascinating. This girl, whose elastic step and erect carriage contrasts strangely with the languid forms about her, is Anna Bonard, the neglected, the betrayed. There passes and repasses her, now contemplating her with a curious stare, then muttering inaudibly, a man of portly figure, in mask and cowl. He touches with a delicate hand his watch-guard, we see two sharp, lecherous eyes peering through the domino; he folds his arms and pauses a few seconds, as if to survey the metal of her companion, then crosses and recrosses her path. Presently his singular demeanor attracts her attention, a curl of sarcasm is seen on her lip, her brow darkens, her dark orbs flash as of fire,—all the heart-burnings of a soul stung with shame are seen to quicken and make ghastly those features that but a moment before shone lambent as summer lightning. He pauses as with a look of withering scorn she scans him from head to foot, raises covertly her left hand, tossing carelessly her glossy hair on her shoulder, and with lightning quickness snatches with her right the domino from his face. "Hypocrite!" she exclaims, dashing it to the ground, and with her foot placed defiantly upon the domino, assumes a tragic attitude, her right arm extended, and the forefinger of her hand pointing in his face, "Ah!" she continues, in biting accents, "it is against the perfidy of such as you. I have struggled. Your false face, like your heart, needed a disguise. But I have dragged it away, that you may be judged as you are. This is my satisfaction for your betrayal. Oh that I could have deeper revenge!" She has unmasked Judge Sleepyhorn, who stands before the anxious gaze of an hundred night revellers, pressing eagerly to the scene of confusion. Madame Flamingo's house, as you may judge, is much out in its dignity, and in a general uproar. There was something touching—something that the graver head might ponder over, in the words of this unfortunate girl—"I have struggled!" A heedless and gold-getting world seldom enters upon the mystery of its meaning. But it hath a meaning deep and powerful in its appeal to society—one that might serve the good of a commonwealth did society stoop and take it by the hand.

So sudden was the motion with which this girl snatched the mask from the face of the Judge, (he stood as if appalled,) that, ere he had gained his self-possession, she drew from her girdle a pearl-hilted stiletto, and in attempting to ward off the dreadful lunge, he struck it from her hand, and into her own bosom. The weapon fell gory to the floor—the blood trickled down her bodice—a cry of "murder" resounded through the hall! The administrator of justice rushed out of the door as the unhappy girl swooned in the arms of her partner. A scene so confused and wild that it bewilders the brain, now ensued. Madame Flamingo calls loudly for Mr. Soloman; and as the reputation of her house is uppermost in her thoughts, she atones for its imperiled condition by fainting in the arms of a grave old gentleman, who was beating a hasty retreat, and whose respectability she may compromise through this uncalled-for act.

A young man of slender form, and pale, sandy features, makes his way through the crowd, clasps Anna affectionately in his arms, imprints a kiss on her pallid brow, and bears her out of the hall.

By the aid of hartshorn and a few dashes of cold water, the old hostess is pleased to come to, as we say, and set about putting her house in order. Mr. Soloman, to the great joy of those who did not deem it prudent to make their escape, steps in to negotiate for the peace of the house and the restoration of order. "It is all the result of a mistake," he says laughingly, and good-naturedly, patting every one he meets on the shoulder. "A little bit of jealousy on the part of the girl. It all had its origin in an error that can be easily rectified. In a word, there's much ado about nothing in the whole of it. Little affairs of this kind are incident to fashionable society all over the world! The lady being only scratched, is more frightened than hurt. Nobody is killed; and if there were, why killings are become so fashionable, that if the killed be not a gentleman, nobody thinks anything of it," he continues. And Mr. Soloman being an excellent diplomatist, does, with the aid of the hostess, her twelve masters of ceremony, her beadle, and two policemen, forthwith bring the house to a more orderly condition. But night has rolled into the page of the past, the gray dawn of morning is peeping in at the half-closed windows, the lights burning in the chandeliers shed a pale glow over the wearied features of those who drag, as it were, their languid bodies to the stifled music of unwilling slaves. And while daylight seems modestly contending with the vulgar glare within, there appears among the pale revellers a paler ghost, who, having stalked thrice up and down the hall, preserving the frigidity and ghostliness of the tomb, answering not the questions that are put to him, and otherwise deporting himself as becometh a ghost of good metal, is being taken for a demon of wicked import. Now he pauses at the end of the hall, faces with spectre-like stare the alarmed group at the opposite end, rests his left elbow on his scythe-staff, and having set his glass on the floor, points to its running sands warningly with his right forefinger. Not a muscle does he move. "Truly a ghost!" exclaims one. "A ghost would have vanished before this," whispers another. "Speak to him," a third responds, as the musicians are seen to pale and leave their benches. Madame Flamingo, pale and weary, is first to rush for the door, shrieking as his ghostship turns his grim face upon her. Shriek follows shriek, the lights are put out, the gray dawn plays upon and makes doubly frightful the spectre. A Pandemonium of shriekings and beseechings is succeeded by a stillness as of the tomb. Our ghost is victor.

CHAPTER VIII.