Margaret showed a disposition to devote herself with great industry to the acquirement of knowledge. In fact, at her first meeting with Dr. Kane, he found her conning over a French exercise in an interval of the public receptions which were given by herself and her mother. Dr. Kane easily enlisted her thoughts in a better and higher career. The deception which was required of her already appeared in something of its true light to her young mind, and she was restless under its abhorrent shackles. Dr. Kane's interest in her was certainly pure and elevated, and it led him to gloomy apprehensions of the fate of so fair, yet so misguided, a creature. He wrote in verse a prophecy that she would "live and die forlorn." There have been many times when the latter part of this warning seemed most likely to come true; and that, doubtless, would have been her fate had she not found in a final renunciation of her past, a solace to her heart for the lack of that falsely won prosperity which had been hers during but brief intervals. Dr. Kane was but an indifferent versifier; but some of the trifles in rhyme which he addressed to Margaret may well illustrate certain facts that I shall state at length hereafter. One day, he sent her "Thoughts that Ought to Be Those of Maggie Fox," the first refrain of which is as follows: "Dreary, dreary, dreary, Passes life away, Dreary, dreary, dreary, The day Glides on, and _weary Is my hypocrisy_." At the close of the second stanza were these lines: "Happy as the hopes Which filled my trusting heart, Before I knew a sinful wish Or learned a _sinful art_." Again: "So long this secret have I kept I can't forswear it now. It festers in my bosom, It cankers in my heart, _Thrice cursed is the slave fast chained To a deceitful art_!" And last: "Then the maiden knelt and prayed: 'Father, my anguish see; Oh, give me but one trusting hope Whose heart will shelter me; One trusting love to share my griefs, To snatch me from a life forlorn; That I may never, never, never, Thus endlessly from night to morn, Say that _my life is dreary With its hypocrisy_!'" Among the first words that Dr. Kane spoke to Margaret were these: "This is no life for you, my child." As their reciprocal attraction grew stronger, he bent all of his deep influence over her in one direction, to effect once and for all her release from the fatal snare of deceit that fate had cast about her. Only a few weeks later we find him writing her a note from New York, in which he says: