They soon found that they wanted more dresses, and what was very remarkable, they did not want to go to the French dress-maker. What could be the reason? They had watched their brother; they had seen him go to Athalia's; they had seen him in the theatre with her; they had met them walking, arm in arm, in Broadway, "the shameless hussey;" and once they had entered Thompson's, and walked upstairs to take ice cream, "actually over our heads." Walter Morgan, the richest merchant's son, in New York, gallanting a seamstress--their own dress-maker. And every day some of their acquaintance were asking them, "Who is that beautiful girl I saw with Walter?" Of course they did not know; how could they tell that he had taken up with "such a thing?" In vain they talk to him, he was mum, or if he spoke of her, it was with the highest respect. Would he marry her? Ah, there was the rub. "It is a pity," said Elsie, "that he would not ruin her, and that would be the end of it." Did a spirit furnish that cue, or was it a wicked woman's own conceit? At any rate, it was a cue upon which they acted. Athalia was sent for, and the young ladies never were so affable before. Every opportunity was contrived for Walter to accomplish the purpose of a villain. Their schemes had the exact contrary effect desired. He had made such advances at first as "men about town" do make, and had met with such a decided repulse, not an angry one, but a virtuous one, that he never would try again. "I expected it," said she to his proposals, "I am used to it--I am almost every day exposed to such tempting offers, to escape a life of poverty--I have ceased to look upon them as insulting--nature, and fashion, and the state of society, are such in this city, that a girl with an unfortunate face like mine, must fall, unless she is possessed of such fortitude as but few young girls are naturally gifted with. You may ask me that question every day; every day you may, if you feel like wounding the feelings of a poor girl, repeat your question, and every day you will get the same answer." "Athalia, forgive me. Oh, forgive me; I never will repeat the question again; whether you forgive me or not, you need have no fear of that." What a failure then had his sisters made. They did just what they did not intend to do; they led Walter to think, that his family would approve a match with one so virtuous, so beautiful, so lovely, even if she was a sewing girl, and he began to build castles in the air upon this foundation. They were very sandy, and a storm was approaching that would soon beat upon the frail walls, and like all such fabrics, down they will tumble. CHAPTER IX. ATHALIA, THE SEWING GIRL. "One sorrow never comes but brings an heir, That may succeed as its inheritor." "Proper deformity seems not in the fiend So horrid, as in woman."