Half way across the sea she came to the notice of an Irish sailor, and by some strange turn in the inexorable wheel of fate, they fell in love with each other; he with his brogue, and she with knowledge of no language except that of the Fatherland.
Their courtship was over a rugged road, but it came to a happy conclusion, for before the ship sailed on her return voyage they were married with the aid of an obliging minister assisted by a Castle Garden interpreter, and Connell—that was the sailor’s name—was looking for a job alongshore.
Two scantily furnished rooms was the best they ever knew, and in those two rooms the wife who talked broken English with a Limerick accent died, but not until she had left a blonde baby girl with the fair complexion of that dashing lieutenant.
As she grew up, the public school gave her an education, and when she was old enough she got work in an office. She was the belle of the ward, and that old longshoreman father was very proud of her. But before that she had one little adventure that is really worth a story by itself, and it shows the kind of a girl she is. She had a little love affair with a sailor on one of Uncle Sam’s warships, and when he was ordered to Cuba she took it into her head to go along. It was arranged that she was to take the name and place of a fellow who was about to desert. She came near getting away with the trick, and as it was she lasted for ten days before she was found. Then, after a brief interview with the commanding officer, she was put ashore when harbor was reached, and enough money was given her to get back to New York.
It was a clean case of throwback to the army ancestor, and the resemblance was so great that she might have been his sister. She held her head high, as became that one strain of good blood, good enough to stiffen her pride, but not good enough to shape her morals, for the taint was there in its full strength.
The elderly business man who employed her began flirting with her mildly, and he wound up by falling desperately in love, and so hard was he hit that at the end of six months she was installed in a handsome apartment at which he was a constant visitor. He took the one step that always leads to another, so that by the time twelve months had been rolled off on the calendar he had made her home his home, much to the detriment of his own respected domicile.
So great was the fascination of those black eyes that this sedate old gentleman forgot he ever had a home other than the one she was in; a wife, or even children. She became so necessary to his existence that she became a part of his life.
She might have walked this primrose path to the end had he not died. If he had lived there would have been no need for this story.
When he took that long, last journey her income came to an abrupt end and she was cast on her own resources with not even her longshoreman daddy to stand by and encourage her.
All this, you understand, is not a matter of fancy. It is, for the most part, court and police records.