“‘Pardon me, sir,’ said she, ’but as I know you think it strange that I have adopted this humble calling, I will tell you in brief how it happened.  A change came over my father’s fortunes, and from being a rich and influential merchant, he was, by what is called endorsing for others, reduced to a state of poverty, and so harassed by his creditors, who in their grasping for what he had would give him no chance to retrieve his fortunes, that he put an end to a miserable existence by hanging himself.  My father was a man of simple tastes, and set a higher value upon his good name than upon the worldly show which was coming into fashion at that time.  With my mother, it was quite different, for although she was much given to the church, and subscribed largely for the support of an expensive clergyman, she had a love of worldly show and ostentation, that not only reduced my father’s means, but grievously distressed him.  The sudden turn in our circumstances produced but little change in my mother, who set great value upon the good looks she imagined me possessing; and having some money of her own, we took board with Mrs. Marmaduke, who kept a boarding house for people of distinction, in Fifth Avenue, and was famous for the style and luxury of her establishment, which had been the scene of several rich matrimonial alliances.

“’Having previously formed the acquaintance of a poor but respectable young artist and poet, whose kindness and sincerity, as well as the great love he bore his art, in which he had already gained celebrity, so won my affections, that it seemed as if I could be happy with none other.  And when my mother discovered how our inclinations were bent, she forbid him coming to the house.  He had no money, she said, and painters were, in addition to being very generally fools, a shabby class of men, who were thought little of among rich merchants, and never took rank in the aristocracy-at least, not in this country.  Putting these things together, she could not think of giving her consent to an alliance with such a person.  In truth, sir, though my narrative may not interest you, I may mention that she more than once declared that painters and poets were such a shiftless set that they ought to be bundled into the sea together.  ‘Think!  Maria,’ she would say, ’of a thing with a weasel of dirty paints in his hands, and a bit of canvas, cut, may be, from some old ship’s sail, before him, and he trying to get some curious notion upon it!  A pretty person to go into society with, indeed!’ This did not deter me from my purpose, so we would meet in saloons on Broadway, and exchange our affections, and concert measures for our mutual relief.