"It was pride, foolish wicked pride, that led me to go to a fashionable hotel, and put up, with my two children and nurse, as Madame De Vrai, from Paris. How soon five hundred dollars melt away, even with prudent living, at a New York hotel. I did not live prudently. I drank to excess, gave late suppers, and gambled. This could not last long, though many hundreds of the dollars worse than wasted in those few weeks, were won from others equally guilty of this besetting wickedness and folly with myself. Such a life could not last. My first step down was to a cheap lodging in Crosby street. I cannot tell how I lived there. I only know that my valuables, my clothes, everything went to the pawnbroker, and I went to that wretched hole where you first saw me in Cow Bay, from whence I drove my poor little Katy out in the streets at midnight, to sell Hot Corn. It was there that my poor child died. It was there that you received her dying blessing, and I her dying forgiveness for all the wrongs that I had heaped upon her poor innocent head. It was then by her death that I was awakened to consciousness and I felt and saw my own deep soul and body destroying degradation. It was through her death and translation to a home in heaven, that I have obtained a hope that my Father may forgive what my child has forgiven, and that, I may yet see her again. It was Him, it must have been Him that opened your ear to that little plaintive cry of 'Hot Corn,' that rose up through your window on its way to the home of angels watching over a child whom her mother had forsaken. "It was His power--no earthly power could have aroused my mind from its lethargy, that awakened me one moment before it was too late. It was a bitter trial, but nothing else but the death of that sweet child would have been sufficient to save her wicked mother; I cannot mourn her loss, because I feel that she is now so much better off than while singing her nightly cry through the streets, of 'Hot Corn, Hot Corn, here's your nice hot corn!' Speaking of singing, have you seen the new song, just published, called 'The Dying Words of Little Katy, or Will He Come?" "Oh it is beautiful. Here it is, do read it:-- "Here's hot corn, nice hot corn!" a voice was crying! Sweet hot corn, sweet hot corn! the breeze is sighing! Come buy, come buy--the world's unfeeling-- How can she sell while sleep is stealing? "Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn!" All alone, all alone, she sat there weeping; While at home, while at home, her sister's sleeping, "Come buy, come buy, I'm tired of staying; Come buy, come buy, I'm tired of saying, Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn!" Often there, often there, she sat so drear'ly With one thought, for she loved her sister dearly: Did'st hate, did'st hate--how could she ever, How could she hate her mother?--never. "Hot corn, come buy my nice hot corn!"