To cut the tale short, I will only add, that Mr. Redding unbent, in the course of a day or two, sufficiently to let Phillips off, on his promise to go at once to New Orleans, where he had relations, and never show his face again in New York.
The goods were returned—made and unmade dresses, and all; and the jewelry amounted to nearly enough to cover the best estimate of the losses which we could make. Phillips made a full confession of how he did things. He was sly and wily, and easily abstracted such goods as he desired, and doing them up himself, sent them off by the porter, when sending out other packages. One of the porters remembered to have gone many times with packages for Mr. or Mrs. William Bruce; and he also, he said, sent packages to various hotels, to impossible names, and marked on the corner, "To be called for;" and being able to describe the goods, if any query arose as to the propriety of giving the package to him, always succeeded in getting it. It was thus he managed.
The house, at my suggestion, very generously furnished Mrs. Bruce with three months' support, out of compliment to her giving up the goods without resistance, and in order to give her time to turn about and find something to do; for, though unmarried, by legal formula, to Phillips, as Mr. Bruce, she supposed herself his legal wife under the laws of the State, and was by no means a bad woman. Indeed, she was a good woman at heart; and after in vain trying to get together a little private school, as the widow of William Bruce,—for she insisted on being called Mrs. Bruce,—she turned to dressmaking, and did very well; and being a fine-looking, indeed, a showy woman, succeeded, in the course of two years after Phillips's flight, in winning the affections of a much older man than Phillips, but a wealthy and honest one; and was duly, and this time, with much ceremony, married.
I did not meet Sarah Crogan again for over five years from the time I last saw her at 19th Street; but she had not forgotten the Croton Water Company's man. She had married meanwhile; but she vowed that it came "nare breakin' her heart, so it did," when she discovered that the "bould officer of the law" was her sweetheart of a day or two before, and had but "thricked" her into letting him go all over the house, "like a wild rover!"
A FORCED-MARRIAGE SCHEME DEFEATED.
GOSHEN, CONN.—A LADY STRANGER THERE—A PILGRIMAGE TO GOSHEN, VIA THE FAR-FAMED MOUNTAIN TOWN OF LITCHFIELD—THE BEAUTIFUL WIDOW—AN UNPLEASANT REMINISCENCE OF DR. IVES, LATE BISHOP OF NORTH CAROLINA—MORE ABOUT THE WIDOW—SHE LEAVES FOR NEW YORK—AT THE "MANSION HOUSE," LITCHFIELD—A MARKED CHARACTER ENCOUNTERED THERE—MR. "C. B. LE ROY" STUDIED AND WEIGHED—THE BEAUTIFUL WIDOW AND LE ROY MEET—HER FACE DISCLOSES CONFLICTING EMOTIONS—MR. LE ROY AND THE BEAUTIFUL WIDOW, MRS. STEVENS, TAKE A WALK DOWN SOUTH STREET, IN THE "PARADISE OF LOAFERS"—SYMPATHIES SILENTLY EXCHANGED—WE ALL START FOR THE "STATION"—THE STAGE-COACH "TURNS OVER"—THE AFFRIGHTED LE ROY REVEALS HIS MANNERS—A PECULIAR SCENE IN THE CARS—AT BRIDGEPORT I PRESENT MYSELF TO MRS. STEVENS—AT NEW YORK AGAIN—A TALE OF COMPLICATIONS—MRS. STEVENS IN DEEP TROUBLE—A FRIEND OF HERS SEEKS ME—REVELATIONS—A FEARFUL STORY—A SECRET MARRIAGE AND UNHAPPY CONSEQUENCES—THE WRETCH LE ROY WANTS THE WIDOW'S MONEY—A TRAP SET FOR LE ROY—HE FALLS INTO IT—THE WEDDING SCENE DISARRANGED—THE WIDOW SAVED, AND THE INTENDED FORCED MARRIAGE DEFEATED.
In the summer of 185-, I had occasion to visit my brother, who was a clerk in a wholesale grocery store of one Lyman, on Water Street, I think, and who, being consumptively inclined, had, at Mr. Lyman's suggestion, and through his kindness, gone to the town of Goshen, Litchfield County, Connecticut, to spend a few weeks in the genial family of Mr. Lyman's father, and taste the bracing air of the hills of Litchfield County, so far-famed. So delighted was my brother with his "country home," as he called it, that he wrote me as often as once a week, and sometimes twice, varying his letters, in the enthusiasm with which they were filled over the mountain scenery, the fresh air, the excellent hunting, the rides and drives, with now and then a word about a beautiful, mysterious lady, supposed to be from New York, and by some supposed to be a widow,—a gentle, sweet, good woman,—who bore some grief or other in her soul, as was evident, he said, but who, with excellent good sense, kept her affairs to herself, and would not obligingly recite the history of her life to the gossiping villagers of that country town, who, like those of all other towns away from the centres of business, and not even on the line of any great thoroughfare, "must have something to busy themselves about," and therefore mind each other's business considerably.