The inmates of that house soon left. It was no longer a lucky house. The ghost of that murdered girl walked through every room. One in particular, it never allowed any one to occupy. It is said that that ghost still haunts that house. It is still an unlucky house. The old harridan who kept it—well known in that street when that girl was lost—went off to New Orleans, lost all her property, and then was lost herself. Camptown still lives. I saw him a few days ago, in the very street where that girl was lost, noticed in the "Tribune." Has he any connection with her loss? Reader, there is a girl lost. Ask where and why? Rum and gambling can answer.
Now, let us leave Agnes in the hands of the wood-sawyer and his wife, those good-hearted, kind Christians, that despised, because black-skinned, brother and sister, more worthy than many of the despisers, and return to Mrs. May, and see how she effected the rescue of another prisoner.
What Stella told her mother was sufficient to give her the most intense anxiety about Athalia. She was so well acquainted with the ways of the wicked in this city, that she felt satisfied that her friend wanted good counsel, and perhaps assistance, and she determined to give it to one who had often given such to her. As soon as it was sufficiently dark, she slipped on a shawl and hood, and went into a neighbor's and borrowed another just like her own.
"What in the world do you want of it?" said the woman.
"No matter, it shall come safe back to you, in the course of the evening."
So it did, and with it came Athalia, who, by that double, had eluded her jailers.
Lovetree went to his hotel in a state of mind not to be envied. He had found the strongest evidence that his niece had been in a house which pollutes all who breathe its atmosphere, and he had heard vile women speak of her as one of themselves, and he knew not how far she was like them. He had witnessed an exposition of character that night, such as he never had before conceived possible. He first saw Mrs. Laylor, a specimen of a high-bred lady,
Bland as the dewy morn
That opes the buds to flowers.
Then he saw her furious as the winds,
By Boreas rudely driven,
Wild as the storm, when Jove hurls down
His thunderbolts from Heaven.