She finished her repast.  I opened the church door for five minutes.  She passed out when she had enough examined the monuments, and at a respectable distance I followed her.  We joined each other, and took our accustomed morning walk; but then she resolutely said, “Good by,” for the day.  She would find work before night,—­work and a home.  And I must do the same.  Only when I pressed her to let me know of her success, she said she would meet me at the Astor Library just before it closed.  No, she would not take my money.  Enough, that for twenty-four hours she had been my guest.  When she had found her aunt and told her the story, they should insist on repaying this hospitality.  Hospitality, dear reader, which I had dispensed at the charge of six cents.  Have you ever treated Miranda for a day and found the charge so low?  When I urged other assistance she said resolutely, “No.”  In fact, she had already made an appointment at two, she said, and she must not waste the day.

I also had an appointment at two; for it was at that hour that Burrham was to distribute the cyclopaedias at Castle Garden.  The Emigrant Commission had not yet seized it for their own.  I spent the morning in asking vainly for Masons fresh from Europe, and for work in cabinet-shops.  I found neither, and so wrought my way to the appointed place, where, instead of such wretched birds in the bush, I was to get one so contemptible in my hand.

Those who remember Jenny Lind’s first triumph night at Castle Garden have some idea of the crowd as it filled gallery and floor of that immense hall when I entered.  I had given no thought to the machinery of this folly, I only know that my ticket bade me be there at two P.M. this day.  But as I drew near, the throng, the bands of policemen, the long queues of persons entering, reminded me that here was an affair of ten thousand persons, and also that Mr. Burrham was not unwilling to make it as showy, perhaps as noisy, an affair as was respectable, by way of advertising future excursions and distributions.  I was led to seat No. 3,671 with a good deal of parade, and when I came there I found I was very much of a prisoner.  I was late, or rather on the stroke of two.  Immediately, almost, Mr. Burrham arose in the front and made a long speech about his liberality, and the public’s liberality, and everybody’s liberality in general, and the method of the distribution in particular.  The mayor and four or five other well-known and respectable gentlemen were kind enough to be present to guarantee the fairness of the arrangements.  At the suggestion of the mayor and the police, the doors would now be closed, that no persons might interrupt the ceremony till it was ended.  And the distribution of the cyclopaedias would at once go forward, in the order in which the lots were drawn,—­earliest numbers securing the earliest impressions; which, as Mr. Burrham almost regretted to say, were a little better than the latest.  After these had been distributed two figures would be drawn,—­one green and one red, to indicate the fortunate lady and gentleman who would receive respectively the profits which had arisen from this method of selling the cyclopaedias, after the expenses of printing and distribution had been covered, and after the magazines had been ordered.