"On entering the hotel, the landlord kindly pointed me to my baggage, which he had brought down, having much need of his rooms, and carefully set in the office. This put an end to our acquaintance, as well as left me without courage enough to request the loan I had contemplated. I own the whole thing was done with much shrewdness, and was a decided improvement on being kicked into the street. But though I was neither a rogue nor a highwayman, I took up my valise and proceeded into the street, feeling like one whose dignity was never to be restored to him. After wandering about for some time, like one crazed with some religious phantasy, I found myself in front of a little house on Greene Street, with a paper on the walls, setting forth that lodgings were to be had within. I was in a mood to find comfort any where, so knocked at the shabby little door, and was admitted by a negro wench of great fatness, into a greasy little entry, from whence I was shown into a dingy parlor, crowded with well worn furniture. The mistress of the house, the negress said, would soon be home; and pointing me to some books that stood upon a dusty table, and interposed between a dilapidated sofa and an old fashioned tˆte-…-tˆte, bid me amuse myself. Then she gave me a broken fan, and seemed very generally anxious to make me comfortable. I took a seat in a dyspeptic arm chair, that kept up a curious clicking, and after waiting for some time, perplexed a little at first, consoled myself that others had troubles, perhaps worse than mine. Then I dropped into a nap, and forgot all my cares until the door bell tinkled, and I awoke, feeling sure the mistress of the house was arrived; but it turned out to be the boy with the Evening Post, a journal I always admired for its admirable morals. Indeed I may say I regard it an excellent journal to read in an hour of distress, its philosophy being soothingly profound. I seized the paper, and read from outside to inside, until my courage was quite restored, and I began humming an air which sent me into the happiest of moods.
"Presently my eye caught a portrait I fancied to be a likeness of the landlady, hung with dusty crape upon the wall, and having the appearance of a specter peering through the mist. I was curious to see the quality of her beauty, and advancing toward it, parted the crape in the center, and there beheld a face and bust of such exquisite loveliness that I felt sure the rogue of a painter must, in the outpouring of his love for the beautiful, have been trying his skill at flattering the vanity of some damsel with a likeness of Haidee. She had the bust of a Venus, and was dressed low enough in the neck to admit full scope to the devil's fancies. Her face, too, was so oval that nature could not have added one line more to its perfection; while her complexion was of deep olive, made ravishing by the carnatic flush of her cheeks. And she had what poets and lady novelists call great Italian eyes, beaming lustrous of soul and energy; and hair that floated in raven blackness over shoulders that seemed chiseled. I began to think myself the happiest of men, for my system had always a bit of poetic fire in it. And then these charms, which had already begun to rob my heart of its peace, were made more seductive by a calmly resolved and yet pensive expression of countenance. Indeed, at a second glance, it seemed to approach melancholy, and bespoke that frame of mind when sorrow feeds most upon the heart.
"I touched the frame, and instantly it fell to the floor, with a great noise. And while in the midst of my confusion, a key clicked in the door, and a lady of stately figure, dressed in deep mourning, advanced into the parlor, and, being deeply veiled, took a seat upon the sofa, quite like a stranger. I bowed and said, 'Madam, I am waiting for the mistress of the house. You are on a similar errand, I take it?' To which she replied in a voice of peculiar sweetness, that she was the person, and would have me make known my business. She then threw back one veil, and then another, until she discovered a face even more beautiful than that of the portrait I had just replaced on the wall. I must also mention that she seemed conscious of her charms, for with an air of much grace and dignity, she raised her jeweled fingers, so tapering, and smoothed the glossy black hair over her polished brow, while the diamonds of her bracelets sparkled through the white ruffles that hung from her wrists.
"'My name, madam,' said I, 'is Major Roger Sherman Potter, commonly called Major Roger Potter. I make no doubt you have heard of me, for enough has been said of me in the newspapers. But I will say no more of that just now, for it does not become a military man to speak of himself."
"'Your name, sir,' said she, condescending a bow and a smile, 'is quite familiar. Indeed, if you will pardon it in me, I may say that I have had great curiosity to see a gentleman so popular, for I was raised and educated among distinguished people, and am fond of their society, which I cannot now enjoy, since fortune has treated me unkindly, and I am not what I was, as you may see by my humble calling.'
"I begged she would take the most favorable view of her prospects, and at the same time not feel embarrassed.
"'But tell me, sir,' she resumed, with a look of great earnestness, 'did you come on business for my first husband, Mr. Primrose?'
"Not wishing to make her anxiety painful, (for I am not a man of evil inclinations,) I discovered my business to her, but said nothing of the state of my finances.
"'You have my thanks for the condescension you have vouchsafed, sir,' she replied, evidently much pleased at the prospect of so famous a lodger; 'but I fear my lodgings are far too humble for one of your position. They are small, and furnished according to my scanty means.'
"I at once told her that obscurity was my object, and that it was enough that there was peace in the house, for I was engaged over a mighty project, which I could not perfect with so many striving to do me honor. If she was before pleased, she now became exultant, and nimbly led the way up two pair of narrow stairs, entering more freely into conversation, and saying the parlor was at my service when company called. 'Now these are not large, but comfortable rooms,' she continued, showing me into a little ten by twelve nook; 'I have six lodgers similarly situated, and they are all genteel men, doing a large business.' She then began giving me an account of their various business pursuits, which was so confused and indefinite as to render it impossible clearly to understand whether they were bankers, doctors, clergymen, or stock brokers. In truth, by her own showing, they conversed of stocks, chips, sermons, and splits, with equal facility. But there was something I could not exactly understand, in the manner of her thanking God, that though reduced to this humble style of living she was comfortable, and expected soon to see the day when she would be restored to the rank in society from which she had fallen. 'There was, as I am a lady,' she added, with a look of sorrow shadowing her face, 'a time when every button on my father's coat cost a dollar, and our family servants all wore as nice liveries as could be seen in Fifth Avenue, for we had them changed a number of times, until we got them unlike any one else's.' She was evidently distressed with some past trouble; and when I said, 'Madam, I will do myself the honor to become an inmate of your house,' she seemed so overjoyed that it was with difficulty she could withhold her tears. On inquiring her name and what business her husband followed, she replied that her name was Mrs. Pickle, (she having dropped Primrose for sufficient cause,) and that of her husband, Mr. Stephen Pickle, of the young American Banking House of Pickle, Prig, & Flutter, doing business near Wall Street. We returned to the parlor, and when the valise bearing my name, which I took good care to keep in sight, was sent up stairs, and I had told her how the accident to her portrait was caused, she blushed and was so ready to unbosom her griefs, that she immediately proceeded to give me an account of herself, and how it was that she was Mrs. Pickle and Mr. Primrose still living.