The "respectable lady" was drawn from the same house to which we have before had an introduction; in short, she was the same "lady" in whose room Athalia saw her husband from Nannette's room. With Otis she played the part of "clergyman's widow," and for that purpose always dressed in deep mourning, just as her sisters in sin do now every day in the fashionable promenades of this city; and she played it well, until one night, after having taken one bottle extra between them, for he had not yet learned that wine drinking was but little better than whiskey drinking, "she let out on him," in such a manner that his eyes were opened, and he determined to leave the house. But he had tasted sin, and who that has, but well knows how much harder it is afterwards to resist the temptation? So he came back. What an excuse he made to conscience as he did so!--That it was only to upbraid the woman for deceiving him. He deceived himself. First, in trusting himself in a deceitful woman's power; and, secondly, in supposing that after she had deceived him once, she would not again. This last visit was upon the very night in which Athalia was introduced into the house, and hence the lies to inflame his mind, and the art made use of to give him a stolen glance of her face. It is no wonder that the first man fell, when "tempted of a woman." It is idle to talk of our power to withstand their seductive arts. Otis was entrapped again. The sight of Athalia's beauty inflamed his already wine-heated blood, and he readily offered Mrs. Laylor a hundred dollars to bring about a successful negociation. This was just what she intended--what she expected--she had baited her trap high, and the game was already caught. And he was not the only one she intended to catch with the same bait. She intended to use her as a profitable investment upon all her "regular customers"--for all such houses boast of such--as long as she could make the lie of "fresh from the country," pass as current coin. She little thought, and cared less, how many lies she had to contrive and tell Athalia, before she could accomplish her purpose. It does seem as though, when a woman loses her own virtue, that she imagines all her sex have lost or would lose theirs just as easy as herself. "I drag down," should be graven upon the brow of every one of her class. Whether man or woman, whoever comes within their influence--and who does not, since they are permitted to go forth at noonday through the thoroughfares of this city, seeking whom they may devour, and all night long they show their brazen faces in the streets, "picking up" poor fools for victims, whom they drag down--true, they go willingly--to their dens of destruction.