“After vainly trying for some time to solve this riddle, I concluded that I must be the victim of my own imagination; and I turned my attention to making the best possible use of my sudden fortune. On the same day, I took a little room in the Faubourg St. Denis; and I bought myself a sewing-machine. Before the week was over, I had work before me for several months. Ah! this time it seemed indeed that I had nothing more to apprehend from destiny; and I looked forward, without fear, to the future. At the end of a month, I was earning four to five francs a day, when, one afternoon, a stout man, very well dressed, looking honest and good-natured, and speaking French with some difficulty, made his appearance at my room. He was an American he stated, and had been sent to me by the woman for whom I worked. Having need of a skilled Parisian work-woman, he came to propose to me to follow him to New York, where he would insure me a brilliant position. “But I knew several poor girls, who, on the faith of dazzling promises, had expatriated themselves. Once abroad, they had been shamefully abandoned, and had been driven, to escape starvation, to resort to the vilest expedients. I refused, therefore, and frankly gave him my reasons for doing so. “My visitor at once protested indignantly. Whom did I take him for? It was a fortune that I was refusing. He guaranteed me in New York board, lodging, and two hundred francs a month. He would pay all traveling and moving expenses. And, to prove to me the fairness of his intentions, he was ready, he said, to sign an agreement, and pay me a thousand down. “These offers were so brilliant, that I was staggered in my resolution. “‘Well,’ I said, ‘give me twenty-four hours to decide. I wish to see my employer.’ “He seemed very much annoyed; but, as I remained firm in my purpose, he left, promising to return the next day to receive my final answer. “I ran at once to my employer. She did not know what I was talking about. She had sent no one, and was not acquainted with any American. “Of course, I never saw him again; and I couldn’t help thinking of this singular adventure, when, one evening during the following week, as I was coming home at about eleven o’clock, two policemen arrested me, and, in spite of my earnest protestations, took me to the station-house, where I was locked up with a dozen unfortunates who had just been taken up on the Boulevards. I spent the night crying with shame and anger; and I don’t know what would have become of me, if the justice of the peace, who examined me the next morning, had not happened to be a just and kind man. As soon as I had explained to him that I was the victim of a most humiliating error he sent an agent in quest of information, and having satisfied himself that I was an honest girl, working for my living, he discharged me. But, before permitting me to go,