Hard she had tried to keep a home for the poor IDIOT, who sat in the chair--very hard. She had tried her pencil, and gained bread for awhile, thus; but her drawings ceased to command a price at the picture store, and this means of subsistence failed her. She had taught music, and had been a miserable dependent upon the rich; been insulted by their daughters, and been made the object of the insulting offers of their sons. And forced at length by the condition of her IDIOT FATHER, to remain with him, in their own home--to be constantly near him, day and night--she had sought work at the shirt store on Canal street, and been robbed of the treasure which she had accumulated through the summer; an immense treasure--FIVE DOLLARS. She had not a penny; there was no bread in the closet; there was no fire in the sheet iron stove which stood in one corner; her Idiot Father, her iron fate were before her--harsh and bitter realities. She was thinking. Apply to those rich relations, who had known her father in days of prosperity? No. Better death than that. She was thinking. Her forehead on her hand, her hair streaming over her shoulders, her bosom which had never known even the thought of pollution, heaving and swelling within her calico gown--she was thinking. And as she thought, and _thought_ her hair began to burn, and her blood to bound rapidly in her veins. Her face is shaded by her hand, and a portion of her hair falls over that hand; therefore you cannot tell her thoughts by the changes of her countenance. I would not like to know her thoughts. For there is a point of misery, at which but two doors of escape open to the gaze of a beautiful woman, who struggles with the last extreme of poverty: one door has the GRAVE behind it, and the other,---- Yes, there are some thoughts which it is not good to write on paper. It was in the midst of this current of dark and bitter thoughts, that the eye of the young woman wandered absently to the faded shawl which she had thrown across the table. "What is this? A letter! Pinned to my shawl--by whom?" It was indeed a letter, addressed to her, and pinned to her shawl by an unknown hand. She seized it eagerly, and opened it, and read. Her face, her neck, and the glimpse of her bosom, opening above her dress, all became scarlet with the same blush. Still her eyes grew brighter as she read the letter, and incoherent ejaculations passed from her lips. The letter was written--so it said--by the man who had taken her from the store on Canal street. Its contents we may not guess, save from the broken words of the agitated girl. "'_At twelve o'clock, at_ "THE TEMPLE," _whose street and number you will find on the inclosed card_.'" And a card dropped from the letter upon the table. She seized it eagerly and clasped it as though it was so much gold. "'THE TEMPLE,'" she murmured again, and her eyes instinctively wandered to the face of her father. Then she burst into a flood of tears.