A SOILED DOVE.
On the 1st of December, 1857, a funeral wended its slow passage along the crowded Broadway—for a few blocks, at least—challenging a certain share of the attention of the promenaders of that fashionable thoroughfare. There were but two carriages following the hearse, and the hearse itself contained all that remained of a young woman—a girl who had died in her eighteenth year, and whose name on earth had been Mary R——.
Mary R——, was the daughter of a poor couple in the interior of the State of New York. She was a girl of exquisite grace and beauty, but her life had been one of toil until her sixteenth year, when she attracted the attention of the son of a city millionaire, whose country seat was in the neighborhood. He was pleased with her beauty, and she simple and confiding, gave her heart to him without a struggle. She trusted him, and fell a victim to his arts. He took her to New York with him, and placed her in a neat little room in Sixth Avenue.
She was a 'soiled dove,' indeed, but the gentlest and dearest, and most devoted of 'doves,' 'soiled,' not by herself, but by others—soiled externally, but not impure within. There are many such doves as she— poor creatures to be pitied, not to be commended, not at all to be imitated, but not to be harshly or wholly condemned—more sinned against than sinning.
For a while Mary R——'s life in New York was a paradise—at least it was a paradise to her. She lived all day in her cosy little apartment, did her own little housework, cooked her own little dinner, sung her own little songs, and was as happy as a bird, thinking all the while of him, the man she loved—the man whose smile was all in all to her of earth. At night she would receive her beloved in her best dress and sweetest smile; and if he deigned to walk with her around the block, or take her with him to the Central Park, she would be supremely blessed, and dance around him with delight. She cost nothing, or next to nothing; her wants were simple, her vanity and love of amusement were vastly below the average of her sex, she only needed love, and there is an old saying that 'love is cheap.' But, alas! there is no more expensive luxury than love—for love requires what few men really possess, a heart—and this article of a heart was precisely what the merchant's son did not possess. In time, he wearied of this young girl and her affection; her tenderness became commonplace; besides he had discovered attractions elsewhere. And so he determined 'to end with Mary,' and he ended indeed. Though he knew that she worshipped the very ground that he trod on, though he knew that every unkind word he uttered went through her heart as would a stab though he knew that the very idea of his leaving her would blast her happiness like a lightning stroke; yet he boldly announced to her that their intimacy must cease, that 'he must leave her. True, he would see her comfortably provided for, during a while at least, until she could find another protector,' etc., etc.
"The agonized Mary could listen to naught more. For the first time in her life, out of the anguish and true love of her heart, she reproached the man to whom her every thought had been devoted—she reminded him of all his promises of affection, all his pledges of passion, she clung to him, and avowed by all that she considered holy, himself, that she would not let him go. In brief, she raised what 'fast men' style a scene, and a scene was just one of those things which irritated the merchant's son beyond his powers of control.
"The scoundrel, for such he was, though by birth, education, and position a gentleman, irritated at her entreaties, vexed with himself, despising the meanness of his own soul, and hating her for revealing it to him, raised his arm, and despite her look of love and sorrow, absolutely struck her to the earth. The poor girl never shrieked, never resisted, she even kissed, with an almost divinely tender forgiveness, his hand—his hand who struck her—and then fell to the floor of her pleasant, though humble little room, insensible.
"With a curse, half levelled at her and half at himself, the false 'lover' departed. The young millionaire never looked upon Mary R——'s face again. In three days there was no Mary R——'s face to look at; for the 'soiled dove' within that time had died—not from the blow, oh, no—that was a trifle; but from the unkindness of it; not from a fractured limb, or from a ruptured bloodvessel, but from a broken heart. She was buried at the expense of the woman of whom her destroyer had rented the little apartment on Sixth Avenue, where she had passed her happiest days and her last. The rich merchant's son heard of her death with a half sigh and then a shrug; but if ever the blood of a human being lay upon the head of another, that of poor Mary R—lies upon the head of the rich merchant's son, and will be required of him."
There are several associations in the city, whose object is to rescue lost women from their lives of shame. Prominent amongst these is the Midnight Mission.