All day she had been calm; she had found it absolutely necessary, in order to keep herself so, to drink two or three glasses of wine. If it had been wine, such as the fermented juice of grapes will make, it had not done her material harm; but it was such as is made in this city, or "got up" expressly for this market; and she began to feel the effects of the alcohol it contained dying away. She felt as though she was dying, too. She did not, therefore, hesitate long, or refuse the pressing invitation of Mrs. Laylor to go home with her and stay all night. Although she began to suspect the character of Mrs. Laylor's house, she did not know it, or her either, or she would have spent the night where she stood rather than in her best room. She was still further induced to go, when she found that her companion was Nannette. True, there was a flash, a mere flash of thought across her mind, why so common a woman as Nannette should be in the carriage of so reserved a lady; one who, if she was guilty of slight improprieties herself would not be suspected for the world, and had no charity for the inmates of houses in M---- street. Little thought Athalia, that Nannette, when she visited Mrs. Laylor's, passed for "a very respectable married lady, who would not be known for anything--it would ruin her;" or else, when dressed in deep mourning, with a thick veil over her face, which nothing could induce her to remove, was a "very interesting young widow, of one of the first families in the city, who was obliged, by necessity, to accept the love of a gentleman--a married gentleman--who visited her house, but would not make the acquaintance of any woman except one in just such a condition as this 'sweet young widow.'" I know, I speak it boldly, a woman now living in this city, in up-town style, upon money obtained from six dupes, every one of whom she had "on a string" at the same time, and some of whom she used to meet at that very house, under just such guises. I say it, still more boldly and truly, for "old sores must be seen to be healed," that she has thus duped the whole six in one day. I know the woman--I know five of the dupes, and that each one of them has a wife. Two wear the title of Judge; one deals in flour; one in dry goods; and one has another employment I dare not speak so boldly of, for the sake of his children and unsuspecting wife. He drives fast horses, and truth, might drive a good woman to despair. Athalia little suspected all this; still less did she suspect that she had been watched all day; that her order for a carriage even had been intercepted, and Mrs. Laylor had come in its stead. She did not know then that the stable owner was the paramour of Mrs. Laylor, and Nannette the pimp of this most dangerous woman--dangerous, because she struck her game, both male and female, out of the upper class of society, giving them a fair start on the road down to a cellar in Cow Bay.