f a printer in Nassau street, who took
me into his office, and did well by me. My mind was bent on getting a
trade. I knew I could do well for myself with a trade to lean upon. Two
years I worked faithfully at the printer's, was approaching manhood, and
with the facilities it afforded me had not failed to improve my mind and
get a tolerable good knowledge of the trade. But the image of Anna, and
the singular manner in which she disappeared, made me unhappy.

"On my return from dinner one day I met in Broadway the lady who took
Anna away. The past and its trials flashed across my brain, and I turned
and followed her--found that her home was changed to Mercer street, and
this accounted for my fruitless watching in Leonard street.

"The love of Anna, that had left its embers smouldering in my bosom,
quickened, and seemed to burn with redoubled ardor. It was my first and
only love; the sufferings of our childhood had made it lasting. My very
emotion rose to action as I saw the woman I knew took her away. My
anxiety to know her fate had no bounds. Dressing myself up as
respectably as it was possible with my means, I took advantage of a dark
and stormy night in the month of November to call at the house in Mercer
street, into which I had traced the lady. I rung the bell; a
sumptuously-dressed woman came to the door, which opened into a
gorgeously-decorated hall. She looked at me with an inquiring eye and
disdainful frown, inquired who I was and what I wanted. I confess I was
nervous, for the dazzling splendor of the mansion produced in me a
feeling of awe rather than admiration. I made known my mission as best I
could; the woman said no such person had ever resided there. In that
moment of disappointment I felt like casting myself away in despair. The
associations of Scorpion Cove, of the house of the Nine Nations, of the
Rookery, of Paddy Pie's--or any other den in that desert of death that
engulphs the Points, seemed holding out a solace for the melancholy that
weighed me down. But when I got back into Broadway my resolution gained
strength, and with it I wept over the folly of my thoughts.

"Led by curiosity, and the air of comfort pervading the well-furnished
room, and the piously-disposed appearance of the persons who passed in
and out, I had several times looked in at the house of the 'Foreign
Missions,' as we used to call it. A man with a good-natured face used to
sit in the chair, and a wise-looking little man in spe