The gentleman (?) whom she had expected to marry some day proved untrue as soon as her riches fled.
Just at a time when her employer had gently informed her of her inability to fill her position of governess satisfactorily and of her (the employer's) intention of dismissing her, the tempter, in the form of an unprincipled but well-to-do man about to make a trip to the Pacific Coast, crossed her path and ensnared her. Under promise of marriage, she agreed to go with him. After telling her now blind father, who was being provided for out of her earnings, that she had secured a position for better pay, but that it would take her away from New York for a time, she bade him a tearful farewell.
Before long the rich reprobate deserted her, but he was merciful enough not to leave her penniless. With a considerable sum at her disposal, and for advisers one or two whose morals were at a low ebb, she came North and furnished the house in which I was now sitting.
She was in constant correspondence with her father, who supposed that she was married and that the fifty dollars or more (never less) which he monthly received came from his wealthy son-in-law. And now hear her own words:
"Mrs. Roberts, I believe you will give me an honest answer to my earnest question. Would it be possible for me to secure any honorable position whereby I might continue to send my dear father fifty dollars a month, as well as live respectably myself?"
Reader, what answer would you, had you been in my place, have made? I was in an awkward position—in the presence of one who had never attended any but a fashionable church and hence—who knew little or nothing of God and his Son, one who had never been taught anything which in the event of accidents or business failures would prove practical. She was indeed and in truth to be pitied. My reply was a question:
"Could you not have kept a respectable lodging-house, my dear Miss
Loraine?"
"Perhaps, had I been advised by the right kind of people, but I met the wrong ones," she replied. "As long as my dear father lives," she added, "I must send him this sum for rent and ordinary comforts. The moment word reaches me of his demise, I will forever cease living such a life. I will quietly disappear to some remote corner of the globe."
Then she showed me a letter just received, one beginning, "My dear Son and Daughter." How my heart ached as I silently prayed to know what to do!
"What about the inmates of your house. Miss Loraine? How do you procure them?"