“She was always of a melancholy turn, used to say life was but a burden to her-that she could see nothing in the future that did not seem dark and tortuous.  The lot into which she was cast of necessity others might have mistaken for that which she had chosen.  It was not.  The hard hand of necessity had forced her into this quicksand of death; the indifference of a naturally generous community, robbed her of the light of intelligence, and left her a helpless victim in the hands of this cultivator of vice.  How could she, orphan as she was called, and unencouraged, come to be a noble and generous-hearted woman?  No one offered her the means to come up and ornament her sex; but tyrannical society neither forgets her misfortunes nor forgives her errors.  Once seal the death-warrant of a woman’s errors, and you have none to come forward and cancel it; the tomb only removes the seal.  Anna took a liking to me, and was kind to me, and looked to me to protect her.  And I loved her, and our love grew up, and strengthened; and being alike neglected in the world, our condition served as the strongest means of cementing our attachment.

“Hag Zogbaum then sent Anna away to the house up the alley, in Elizabeth street, where she sent most of her girls when they had reached the age of eleven and twelve.  Hag Zogbaum had many places for her female pupils.  The very best looking always went a while to the house in the alley; the next best looking were sure to find their way into the hands of Miss Brown, in Little Water street, and Miss Brown, they said, sold them to the fairies of the South, who dressed them in velvet and gold; and the ‘scrubs,’ as the old woman used to call the rest, got, by some mysterious process, into the hands of Paddy Pie and Tim Branahan, who kept shantees in Orange street.

“Anna had been away some time, and Mr. Tom Toddleworth had several times been seen to look in and inquire for her.  Mr. Toddleworth said he had a ripping bid for her.  At that time I was ignorant of its meaning.  Harry Rooney and me were sent to the house in Elizabeth street, one morning, to bring Anna and another girl home.  The house was large, and had an air of neatness about it that contrasted strangely with the den in ‘Scorpion Cove.’  We rang the bell and inquired for the girls, who, after waiting nearly an hour, were sent down to us, clean and neatly dressed.  In Anna the change was so great, that though I had loved her, and thought of her day and night during her absence, I scarce recognized her.  So glad did she seem to see me that she burst into tears, flung her arms about my neck, and kissed me with the fondness of a sister.  Then she recounted with childlike enthusiasm the kind treatment she had received at the house of Madame Harding (for such it was called), between whom and Hag Zogbaum there was carried on a species of business I am not inclined to designate here.  Two kind and splendidly-dressed ladies, Anna said, called to see them nearly every day, and were going to take them away, that they might live like fairies all the rest of their lives.