all was hushed; no one enquired about the poor orphan, Martha Johnson.  In the hands of her creole owner, who held her as a price for licentious purposes, she associated with gentlemen of polite manners-of wealth and position.  Even this, though profane, had advantages, which she employed for the best of purposes; she learned to read and to write,—­to assimilate her feelings with those of a higher class.  Society had degraded her, she had not degraded herself.  One night, as the promiscuous company gathered into the drawing-room, she recognised a young man from her native village; the familiar face inspired her with joy, her heart leaped with gladness; he had befriended her poor mother-she knew he had kind feelings, and would be her friend once her story was told.  The moments passed painfully; she watched him restlessly through the dance,—­sat at his side.  Still he did not recognise her,—­toilet had changed her for another being; but she had courted self-respect rather than yielded to degradation.  Again she made signs to attract his attention; she passed and repassed him, and failed.  Have I thus changed, she thought to herself.

At length she succeeded in attracting his attention; she drew him aside, then to her chamber.  In it she disclosed her touching narrative, unfolded her sorrows, appealed to him with tears in her eyes to procure her freedom and restore her to her rights.  Her story enlisted the better feelings of a man, while her self-respect, the earnestness with which she pleaded her deliverance, and the heartlessness of the act, strongly rebuked the levity of those who had made her an orphan outcast in her own village.  She was then in the theatre of vice, surrounded by its allurements, consigned to its degradation, a prey to libertinism-yet respecting herself.  The object of his visit among the denizens was changed to a higher mission, a duty which he owed to his moral life,—­to his own manliness.  He promised his mediation to better her eventful and mysterious life, to be a friend to her; and nobly did he keep his promise.  On the following day he took measures for her rescue, and though several attempts were made to wrest her from him, and the mendacity of slave-dealers summoned to effect it, he had the satisfaction of seeing her restored to her native village,—­to freedom, to respectability.

We withhold the details of this too true transaction, lest we should be classed among those who are endeavouring to create undue excitement.  The orphan girl we here refer to was married to a respectable mechanic, who afterwards removed to Cincinnati, and with his wife became much respected citizens.