But scarcely had sleep veiled the memory, before a portly, well dressed man, stealthily entered the room without a light, took off his clothes and crawled into the same bed! She waked not until his arms were firmly clasped around her form. Then she uttered a scream, but amid the tremendous noise of the boat’s machinery and the dash of the waters, that cry was drowned. She struggled furiously to get away from his grasp, but failed. Then he put his lips to her ear and whispered, “A free passage; you are without money, and I have an abundance; be quiet, and all shall go well with you.” Her brain was confused; her mouth was dum. She felt that her hour had come. He accomplished his purpose, and remained with her through that long, bewildering night.[6] Gaily broke the morning, and with its coming the boat landed at Foster’s wharf, in Boston. Maria had already risen. She went out, and up the stairway to the promenade deck, to look at Boston. The world seemed new to her. It was not that abode of honor, nor of love, nor of joy, which the years of her fancy had painted it. Boston! to her, a great and wonderful city. How much she had heard of Boston. It was before her, but she did not dream about it now as she had done so many, many times before, when her imagination played upon its hundred spires or traced it through and through. Her eye now drank the great reality, and the confused roar which she heard, and the still greater confusion of human beings and animal, which she saw, with the uneven, smutty-looking buildings, and the narrow avenues which threaded its pulsating heart, made her tremble. Oh! for a friend or a beggar to guide her footsteps. While in this state of uncertainty, a cab driver approached her, and very politely inquired if she wished to be taken to any part of the city? His pleasant and obliging demeanor gave her encouragement, and she frankly explained to him that she was here a stranger; that she must find a boarding house and secure a frugal sustenance by labor. At this he smiled and said “Certainly, step into my cab, and I will find you a good place without difficulty.” She assented; and the cab driver, sure of his prize, drove rapidly from the wharf, as a low and heartless laugh burst from the throats of a gang of starched loafers standing near, who knew both the purposes of the driver and the circumstances of the previous night.