Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York IllustratedRobinson, Solon
General
Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated
Robinson, Solon
New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Temperance -- Fiction
In some of the pullings down and diggings up in that street, all
that remains to earth will make another "Item" in a daily paper. It
will be headed "Human bones found."
The inmates of that house soon left. It was no longer a lucky house. The
ghost of that murdered girl walked through every room. One in
particular, it never allowed any one to occupy. It is said that that
ghost still haunts that house. It is still an unlucky house. The old
harridan who kept it--well known in that street when that girl was
lost--went off to New Orleans, lost all her property, and then was lost
herself. Camptown still lives. I saw him a few days ago, in the very
street where that girl was lost, noticed in the "Tribune." Has he any
connection with her loss? Reader, there is a girl lost. Ask where and
why? Rum and gambling can answer.
Now, let us leave Agnes in the hands of the wood-sawyer and his wife,
those good-hearted, kind Christians, that despised, because
black-skinned, brother and sister, more worthy than many of the
despisers, and return to Mrs. May, and see how she effected the rescue
of another prisoner.
What Stella told her mother was sufficient to give her the most intense
anxiety about Athalia. She was so well acquainted with the ways of the
wicked in this city, that she felt satisfied that her friend wanted good
counsel, and perhaps assistance, and she determined to give it to one
who had often given such to her. As soon as it was sufficiently dark,
she slipped on a shawl and hood, and went into a neighbor's and borrowed
another just like her own.
"What in the world do you want of it?" said the woman.
"No matter, it shall come safe back to you, in the course of the
evening."
So it did, and with it came Athalia, who, by that double, had eluded her
jailers.
Lovetree went to his hotel in a state of mind not to be envied. He had
found the strongest evidence that his niece had been in a house which
pollutes all who breathe its atmosphere, and he had heard vile women
speak of her as one of themselves, and he knew not how far she was like
them. He had witnessed an exposition of character that night, such as he
never had before conceived possible. He first saw Mrs. Laylor, a
specimen of a high-bred lady,
Bland as the dewy morn
That opes the buds to flowers.
Then he saw her furious as the winds,
By Boreas rudely driven,
Wild as the storm, when Jove hurls down
His thunderbolts from Heaven.
He trembled with fear that she would pursue Athalia, and drag her back,
and perhaps hide her where he could never find her. Undoubtedly she
would have exercised her vindictiveness upon Athalia in some way, if she
had known where she was. Lovetree had heard Mrs. Laylor swear that
Athalia had robbed her, and that she would have her punished, and
although he did not believe a word of such a charge, he believed that
vile woman wicked enough to swear away an innocent girl's life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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