stened as I did while your daughter described her early years as
passed in shivering beggary, soliciting charity in the streets all day,
and at night, when the cold winter's wind pierced through the few rags
she wore, creeping to her bed of straw strewn in the corner of a
wretched garret; and when the horrible old hag who tortured her had
exhausted every other means of inflicting pain on her, what do you think
she did, madame? Why, wrenched out her teeth! And all this starving and
desolation was experienced by your own child, while you were revelling
in every sort of luxury, and indulging in ambitious dreams of sharing a
crown!"

"Oh, that I could die, and so escape the direful agony I suffer!"

"Nay you have more to hear! Escaping from the hands of the Chouette,
wandering about, penniless and starving, at the tender age of only ten
years she was taken up as a vagabond, and as such thrown into prison.
And yet, madame, that period was the happiest your poor deserted child
had ever known. And each night, though surrounded by her prison walls,
she gratefully thanked God that she no longer suffered from hunger,
thirst, or blows. It was in a prison she passed those years so precious
to the well-being of a young female, those years over which a good and
affectionate mother so carefully and anxiously watches. As her sixteenth
year commenced, your daughter, instead of being surrounded by the tender
solicitude of loving relatives, and enriched with all the gifts of
education, had seen and known nothing more edifying or elevated than the
brutal indifference of her gaolers. Yet this naturally pure-minded,
beautiful, and ingenuous creature was at that dangerous moment sent
forth from her safe asylum--a gaol--and left to wander unaided and
unprotected in a world of which she knew so little! Unfortunate,
deserted, friendless child!" continued Rodolph, giving free vent to the
swelling sobs which had continually impeded his voice, "yours was,
indeed, a bitter lot, thrown thus young and helpless amid the mire and
pollution of a great city!

[Illustration: "_They Took Her to Their Guilty Haunts_"
Original Etching by Mercier]

"Ah, madame!" cried he, addressing Sarah, "however cold, hard, and
selfish your heart may be, you could not have refrained from weeping at
the recital of your poor, neglected child's misery and privations! Poor,
hapless girl! Sullied, but not corrupted; chaste in heart even amid the
degradation into which she ha