oming on Monday, she took her child and started for Louisville in
the first boat. She arrived at daylight, on Tuesday morning, in a
strange city, herself a total stranger to all therein, except her
husband, and perfectly ignorant as to where he was to be found. The
captain of the steamboat kindly attended her to a boarding-house,
and there she was left, without a single clue in her mind as to the
means of finding her husband. Inquiries were made of all in the
boarding-house, but no one had heard even the name of Joseph
Fletcher. As soon as she could make arrangements to get out, Mrs.
Fletcher visited all the dry-goods stores in the city, for in some
one of these she supposed her husband to be employed, although he
had never stated particularly the kind of business in which he was
engaged. This search, after being continued for a greater part of
the day, turned out fruitless. Night found the unhappy wife in an
agony of suspense and alarm. Some one at the boarding-house advised
her to have an advertisement for her husband inserted in a morning
paper. She did not hesitate long about this course. In the morning,
a brief advertisement appeared; and about nine o'clock a man called
and asked to see her.

She descended from her room to the parlour with a wildly throbbing
heart, but staggered forward and sank into a chair, weak almost as
an infant, when she saw that the man was a stranger, instead of her
husband, whom she had expected to meet.

"Are you Mrs. Fletcher?" he asked.

"I am," she faintly replied.

"You advertised for information in regard to your husband?"

"I did. Where is he? Oh, sir, has any thing happened to him?"

"No, ma'am, nothing serious. He has only been sick for a week or ten
days; that is, the man I refer to has. Your husband is a tailor?"

"Is the man you speak of a tailor?" eagerly asked Mrs. Fletcher.

"He is, ma'am; and has been working for me at No.--Fourth street."

"Then he is not my husband," replied the poor wife, bursting into
tears. "My husband is a clerk." In the bitterness of a keen
disappointment, rendered sharper by doubt and fear, Mrs. Fletcher
wept for some minutes. When she could command her feelings to some
extent, she thanked the tailor for calling, and repeated what she
had said, that the man at his house could not be her husband.

"He is from Cincinnati, ma'am; and goes there once in every two
weeks. I know that he has wife and child there," said the man.

"Still he cann