When Fanny found herself once more in the open street, out of the power of her persecutor, and on the way to her home and friends, her gratitude to her deliverer knew no bounds; she thanked the good Corporal a thousand times, and spoke of the approaching meeting with her grandfather and brother with rapture. Soon they reached their place of destination; once more the young girl stood in the humble apartment wherein all her affections were centered;--once more her aged grandfather clasped her in his arms, and again did she receive the fond kiss of fraternal love from the lips of her brother. As soon as they had left the residence of the Honorable Mr. Tickels, in South street, the gentleman locked himself up in his study, threw himself into a chair, and actually began tearing his hair with rage and vexation. "Hell and furies!" cried he--"to be thus fooled and baffled at the very moment when my object was about to be accomplished--to have that luscious morsel snatched from my grasp, when I was just about to taste its sweets. The thought is madness! And, in the name of wonder, how came HE to know that she was here, and why does _he_ interest himself in her at all? I dare not trifle with _him_! Were some poor, poverty-stricken devil to constitute himself her champion, I might crush him at once; but _he_ is above my reach. No matter; she shall yet be mine--I swear it, by all the powers of hell! I care not whether by open violence, or secret abduction, or subtle stratagem; I shall gain possession of her person, and once in my power, not all the angels in heaven, or men on earth, or fiends in hell, shall tear her from my grasp.--Ah, by Beelzebub, well tho't of!--I know the mistress of a house of prostitution (of which house I am the _owner_,) beneath whose den, as she has often told me, there is a secret cellar, which she has had privately constructed, and to which there is no access except through a panel in her chamber--which panel and the method of opening it, are known only to her, and a few persons in whom she can place implicit confidence.--This brothel-keeper told me, too, that she had the cellar made as a safe depository for young females who had been abducted from their homes,--a place of security from the search of friends, and the police. In that subterranean retreat, (which she informed me, is luxuriantly furnished, although the light of day never penetrates there,) these stolen girls are compelled to receive the visits of their lovers; and there, amid the gloom and silence of that underground prison they are initiated in all the mysteries of prostitution. By heaven 'tis the very place for my little fruit girl; she shall be abducted and conveyed there--and once safely lodged in these secret "Chambers of Love," HE who spoiled by sport to-day, shall in vain search for her. Let him come, bringing with him the myrmidons of the law; and let them search my house--then let them, if they choose, go to the brothel, beneath the foundation of which