the rocking-chair. Then she determined
to hasten homewards to communicate her good fortune to her friends; and
on her way she could not help thinking of the beautiful young lady who
had given her the money, of her sweet smile, and the kind words she had
spoken; and wondered if she should really see her again the next day.
These thoughts, and the hope of seeing her benefactress again, made her
feel very happy; and she was hastening towards her home with a glad
heart, when her footsteps were arrested by a crowd of those dissolute
young females, who pervade every section of the city, and are
universally known as "apple girls."

These girls are usually from ten to fifteen years of age, and are
proverbial for their vicious propensities and dishonesty. Under pretence
of selling their fruit, they are accustomed to penetrate into the
business portions of the city particularly; and in doing this they have
two objects in view. In the first place, if on entering an office or
place of business, they find nobody in, an opportunity is afforded them
for plunder; and it is needless to say they are ever ready to steal and
carry off whatever they can lay their hands on. Secondly, these girls
have been brought up in vice from their infancy; they are, for the most
part, neither more nor less than common prostitutes, and will freely
yield their persons to whoever will pay for the same.--Should the
merchant, or lawyer, or man of business, into whose office one of these
"apple girls" may chance to intrude, solicit her favors (and there are
many miscreants, _respectable_ ones, too, who do this, as we shall
show,) and offer her a small pecuniary reward, he has only to lock his
door and draw his curtains, to accomplish his object without the
slightest difficulty. Thus, their ostensible employment of selling fruit
is nothing but a cloak for their real trade of prostitution and
thieving. The profanity and obscenity of their conversation alone, is a
sufficient evidence of their true character.

The girls whom we have mentioned as having encountered Fanny on her
return home, were a squalid and dirty set, though several of them were
not destitute of good looks, as far as form and features were
concerned. They surrounded her with many a fierce oath and ribald jest,
and it was easy to see that they were jealous of her superior
cleanliness of person and respectability of character.

"Ha, ha!" cried one, a dirty-faced wench of thirteen, clutching Fann