Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1858-12-13
d0lurtcster 4ailp Spp.
AN AFFECTING INCIDENT.

AN AFFECTING INCIDENT.
Mr.. Charles L. Bruce, Of the New York
Children's Aid Society, relates the following,
one among the many that go to make up life
in great city;
Some years ago, a young English girl, of
perhaps fifteen years, with refined manners
and a pretty though pale face, presented her
self at our Office, and nervously asked for some
place in a family in the country. She told
the usual story of poverty, and we only motto
ed that her hands were very thin and bony,
and her checks hollow, and that on being as
signed to an excellent home by Mr.. Macy, her
eyes filed with sudden tears of thankfulness.
Something was given her to eat, which she
received quietly, and on the next day went to
the place. Lately, on a revisit to the city, we
learned the particulars of her history. She
had been, in England, in good circumstances,
as her manner and language showed, had come
over after the death of her father and the
wasting of his property, to seek her fortune, as
do SO many others, in America. She sought
at once to enter some trade, and earn a living
for herself but without friends, and with the
crowded competition of the city, she could
find no opening. In the same way at the
intelligence offices, after waiting for many days,
she discovered no chance for herself. Each
day her means were being exhausted, and she
was at length forced to pawn all the ornaments
and relics of better times She was reduced
finally to living in a small attic room of ten
ement house, sleeping on some straw in one
corner. Hour after hour through the weary
day her little feet were traversing the streets,
as she followed advertisements and looked for
a chance to work.
At last she reached the point in which every
available means had been sacrificed, every
penny spent and hunger stared her in the face
She described her feelings most touchingly.-
One day she could get through quite comfort
ably without anything to eat, the second, she
says, she crouched herself in her bed-and, do
you know, sir, what l found best to stop hun
ger "Why, | drank tcater, and then prayed,
and somehow always felt better and stronger
after it. The third day, when it seemed as
though she could not hold out much longer,
she would go family down stairs to a woman
she knew in one of the lower rooms, and this
woman would offer her something to eat, which
she would take careessly, no one ever suspect
ing that the poor creature was being saved
from starvation. In this mode of life she
grew so weak she could scarcely walk, and as
thin, she says, as any skeleton. She was at
tackled, too, with terrible headaches, and some
days, she is sure, she was delirious, for she
now remembers how she seemed somtmes to
see angels and spirits in the little room bring
ing her food
Once or twice she determined to beg, though
she felt as if she would rather die and she
went into store, she said, gaspingly, "she
was hungry" The people were very kind,
and sat her in a chair, and gave her food, and
once, she recollects, acup of tea. Then, as she
lay on her heap of straw, thinking of the dear
old English home and the comfort there, the
mother and the days that were gone, she
would sometimes say, "What have l done to
deserve this Why should God pick me out
to make me suffer so? Why should l be so
deserted 2"
One day she had gone down into the lower
room, and sat there weak and despairing, when
gentleman entered whom she describes as
very grand and wealthy in his appearance He
spoke to her kindly said he had watched her
go in and out, and said she must be in misfor-
tuns; that he had so much admired her-yes,
and loved her She answered, gasping with
weakness, "Why do you come here to insult
me because am poor z" Then, as she de-
scribes it, he replied that he did not mean to
insult her, that he truly loved her-and in va
rious phrases he offered to her to live in a
splendid home with him, but not as his wife.
The poor girl, crouched down with her head in
her hands, confesSes that for a moment the
thought crossed her mind-What if she should
do this No one will know it. Here is COM
fort and hOme-an escape at length; and on
the other side, a long, weary, struggle and
starvation. But in the midst of this-she al
most believes it was real-there seemed to
come up before her figure of her mother-she
saw the face and the warning gesture almost
as distinctly as she ever saw any one She
seemed to call her away-and then she
thought of all she had ever told her of heaven
and OF God, and she started up and said, with
sobs and gasps-one may be sure eloquently,
for she tells the story now with eyes flowing
with tears and with tnnnc that thrill Tho baort
81 know / am poor-I have nothing-I have
nothing-l have no home andno friends-Iam
starving; but if you should give me all the
money in New York, heaped on ten times over,
/ would not do this thingl Why do you come
here to tempt me and insult me because l am
poor 2" and she almost fell down gasping, but
she says she saw the man start back with face
CHASTITY pale, saying, "My God what sin
you have saved me FRONT"
That day she heard accidentally of the socie-
ty to help children, and resolved to go there and
try for last chance. If she failed there, the
only thing left for her seemed to be self de-
struction or death. We know the happy re-
suit
The simple truthfulness and pathos of this
girls story cannot in any way be represented.
Ofall heroic scenes which the upper Powers
ever looked upon in this world, what can sur
pass that where this poor, weak, starving girl,
deserted of men, and, seemingly, almost aban-
doned by God, spurns from her the greatest of
all temptations and deliberately chooses star
walton rather than dishonor or wrong Per-
chance, among those in this day who sneer at
or bargain for woman's virtue, this little story
out of the real life of New York may show
what priceless pearl this virtue is, that the
lonely, famished child could choose the slow
pangs of famine rather than lose it.