in a few minutes, Frederick arose and said
to me--'Maria, I am going out for a little while, and in the meantime
you must do your best to entertain Mr. Rogers.' He then whispered in my
ear--'Let him do as he will with you, for he has paid me a good price;
now don't refuse him, or be in the least degree prudish, or by G---- it
shall be worse for you!' Scarcely had he taken his departure, when the
old wretch, who had _purchased_ me, clasped me in his palsied arms, and
prepared to debauch me; in reply to my entreaties to desist, and my
appeals to his generosity, he only shook his head, and said--'No, no,
young lady, I have given fifty dollars for you, and you are mine!' The
old brute had neither shame, nor pity, nor honor in his breast; he
forced me to comply with his base wishes, and a life of prostitution was
for the first time opened to me.

'After this event, I attempted no further opposition to my husband's
infamous scheme of prostituting myself for his support. Almost nightly,
he brought home with him some _friend_ of his, who had previously paid
him for the use of my person. The money he gains in this way he expends
in gambling and dissipation; allowing me scarcely anything for the
common necessaries of life, and I am in consequence obliged to solicit
private aid from such gentlemen as are disposed to enjoy my favors. My
husband rarely sleeps at home, and I see but very little of him; this is
a source of no regret to me, for I have ceased to feel the slightest
regard for him.

'And now, sir, you have heard the particulars of my history. You will do
me the justice to believe that I have been reduced to my present
unfortunate position, more through the influence of circumstances, than
on account of any natural depravity.--True, I am now what is termed a
woman of the town--but still I am not entirely destitute of delicacy or
refinement of feeling. I am an admirer of it in others. My parents I
have never seen, since the day I quitted their house; but I have heard
that my mother has since given birth to a fine boy, the very image of
the minister; and also that Jane, my father's paramour, has become the
mother of a child bearing an astonishing resemblance to the old
gentleman himself!

'If you ask me why I do not escape from my husband, and abandon my
present course of living, I would remind you that, as society is
constituted, I never can regain a respectable standing in the eyes of
the world. No, my course is marked