nean.' And it was here I met poor Tom Swiggs,
distracted and giving himself up to drink, in the fruitless search after
the girl of his love, from whom he had been separated, as he said, by
his mother. He had loved the girl, and the girl returned his love with
all the sincerity and ardor of her soul. But she was poor, and of poor
parents. And as such people were reckoned nothing in Charleston, his
mother locked him up in jail, and she was got out of the way. Tom opened
his heart to me, said foul means had been resorted to, and the girl had
thrown herself away, because, while he was held in close confinement,
falsehoods had been used to make her believe he had abandoned her. To
have her an outcast on his account, to have her leading the life of an
abandoned woman, and that with the more galling belief that he had
forsaken her, was more than he could bear, and he was sinking under the
burden. Instead of making him an object of my criminal profession, his
story so touched my feelings that I became his protector, saw him to his
lodgings in Green street, and ultimately got him on board a vessel bound
to Charleston.

"Not many weeks after this, I, being moneyless, was the principal of a
plot by which nearly a thousand dollars was got of the old man in Wall
street, who had been Anna's friend; and fearing it might get out, I
induced her to accompany me to Charleston, where she believed I had a
prospect of bettering my condition, quitting my uncertain mode of
living, and becoming a respectable man. Together we put up at the
Charleston Hotel. But necessity again forced me to reveal to her my
circumstances, and the real cause of my leaving New York. Her hopes of
shaking off the taint of her former life seemed blasted; but she bore
the shock with resignation, and removed with me to the house of Madame
Flamingo, where we for a time lived privately. But the Judge sought her
out, followed her with the zeal of a knight, and promised, if she would
forsake me, to be her protector; to provide for her and maintain her
like a lady during her life. What progress he has made in carrying out
his promise you have seen. The English baronet imposed her upon the St.
Cecilia, and the Judge was the first to betray her."

CHAPTER XI.

IN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO MR. ABSALOM McARTHUR.

You must know, reader, that King street is our Boulevard of fashion; and
though not the handsomest street in the world, nor the widest, nor the
best