She was soon sufficiently recovered to leave the asylum. By the kind offices of the matron, she got employment in a cap-factory, and a plain but comfortable boarding-place in the lower part of the city. She worked at the shop, and left Franky during the day with her landlady, a kind-hearted but poor woman. Her earnings were but three dollars a week, and their board was two and a quarter; but on the balance she contrived to furnish herself and her child with clothes. The only luxury she indulged in was an occasional walk, on Sunday to Bloomingdale, to see her good friend the kind-hearted matron.
Thus things went on for two years; and if not happy, she was at least comfortable. Her father never relented; but her aunt wrote her often, and there was comfort in the thought that, at least, one of her early friends had not cast her off. The good lady, too, sent her now and again small remittances, but they came few and far between; for as the pious woman grew older, her heart gradually returned to its first love—the poor heathen.
To Kate Russell Fanny wrote as soon she left the asylum, telling her of all that had happened as far as she knew, and thanking her for all her goodness and kindness to her. She waited some weeks, but no answer came; then she wrote again, but still no answer came, though that time she waited two or three months. Fearing then that something had befallen her, she mustered courage to write Mr. Russell. Still she got no reply, and she reluctantly concluded—though she had not asked them for aid—that they had ceased to feel interested in her.
'They had not, madam. Kate has often spoken very kindly of you. She wanted to come here to-day, but I did not know this, and I could not bring her here!'
She looked at me with a strange surprise. Her eyes lighted, and her face beamed, as she said: 'And you know her, too!'
'Know her! She is to be my wife very soon.'
She wept as she said: 'And you will tell her how much I love her—how grateful I am to her?'
'I will,' I replied. I did not tell the poor girl, as I might have done, that Hallet had at that time access to Mr. Russell's mails, and that, knowing her hand-writing, he had undoubtedly intercepted her letters.
After a long pause, she resumed her story.
At the end of those two years, a financial panic swept over the country, prostrating the great houses, and sending want and suffering into the attics—not homes, for they have none—of the poor sewing-women. The firm that employed her failed, and Fanny was thrown out of work. She went to her good friend the matron, who interested some 'benevolent' ladies in her behalf, and they procured her shirts to make at twenty-five cents apiece! She could hardly do enough of them to pay her board; but she could do the work at home with Franky, and that was a comfort, for he was growing to be a bright, intelligent, affectionate boy.