The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-08-06
Better than n Novel-A New York
Romance.

Romance.
Correspondence of the Philadelphia Telegraph.
NEW YORK, August 3, 1868.
Several months ago fair-faced and
faxen- haired newspaper man, one of the
best Of the class of New York Bohemians,
managed by his perfect manners and quiet,
insinuating mode of speech flor he gave no
references) to obtain front room on the
third or uppermost story of one of the
most respectable of those very respectable
houses in Belfair Place, N. Y. Equally as
insinuating and pleasant hammered, how
ever flor she likewise gave no references) i,
must have been the young married lady
who q few days previously had taken the
back room Immediately opposite, these two
rooms being the only ones on the upper
most floor Three months passed on. The
Young man wrote hard oil day, and
either visited or had friends, young
or old, to see him of evenings. The
Young married lady sat in her room and
sewed or sang, and was never seen to re-
ceive any visitor, male or female, made no
acquaintances in the house, dressed with
plain richness, and paid her landlady pune
tually one month in advance. During the
hot June days the heat in these rooms next
the roof became intolerable. He left his
door half open, and she heard his quill
scratch while he wrote. She left her door
half open, and he heard her singing the
"Dites Ill.," and sometimes caught glimpse
of q white hand winging its way like car
rier-pigeon across some flmy blue fabric
like q sky. One day she was taken i'll, and
continued so for week, with no one to at
tend her but the doctor, the servants, and
the landlady, whose attentions were ex
tremely precarious. The young man, with
a very natural and gentlemanly interest,
INQUIRED after her from day to day, and
when she grew conyalescent learned from
some light reading, all the books she had
with her being of serious and devotional
turn. He sent her in, with his compli-
rnents, o package Of the latest magazines
and melodies. Perhaps there were some
poems. 1t must have been so, for few
days after he overheard her speaking to the
lady of the house of the very graceful pow
ers as q story writer and poet of the young
man who occupied the opposite room. This
unmeant, unconscious hattery was like
sweet-tasted lightning to him-enough.
They met; they looked they loved. l
have no sequel to relate which any one
need blush to read either in secret or
aloud. know that the general character
ascribed to newspaper men, or to any that
bear about them the slightest Bohemian
aroma, is not that of intense morality and
that young married ladies, lodging alone,
taking their meals out, and receiving no
visitors, are not cited by maternal heads Of
families as examples of the most shining
virtues. Yet that blessed exception which
is the proof Of so many accursed rules was
present in this case, and nothing passed
between this lonely young man and lonely
young woman but what good people every
where would declare no sin. Of course it
was imprudent for them to continue so close
together when he was burning with all the
unrestrainability of first love, and when
her husband was living. For it was so.
Four years ago she had married, and for
four years she had endured from her hus
band all the misunderstanding blows,
pennilessness, foul language, and name
less insult-which it is in the power of q
whiskey-maddened brute to confer. At
length resolving to leave him, she prepared
for it by secretly pawning her watch
and Jewels, and selling her most costly
dresses, the only articles which in his
most frenzied moments she had had the
pluck to keep out of his reach under lock
and key. With this very respectable sum
obtained, she secretly left the home he had
made wretched for her, and took that modest
room in Belfair Place under an assumed
name. There she lived in an humble man
ner, partly by giving music lessons out and
partly by doing work for one or two of the
large dress-goods houses, who had been
friends of her family, and to whom she
frankly told the story of her wrongs. All
this she frankly told to the young man,
whose nom de plume, if not widely known,
would at least, l think, be recognized in this
city. But he is greater as a man than he
ever will be as a writer; for he kept his
passion for her pure, and thereafter, when
ever they met, it was in the large, gloomy
parlors down stairs, where dozen others
were sitting. ............. ,- ..
At the cheerful hour of l o'clock yester-
day morning, however, the three blocks of
Belfast Place were startled by violent bell
ringing at the house have indicated, and
the stentorian voice of man roaring at the
top of his strength, 81 want my wife l
want my wife,! want my wife Chris
tine Christine being the name of the
young married lady occupying the third
floor back. At that hour all the neighbor-
hood was in a state of digniied repose, such
as no other neighborhood was ever wrapped
in upon earth but the cries were 30 resound-
ing, and the bell-ringing so violent, that pref
| ty soon lights were seen quiyering from be-
meath strengthening shades, and decorously
frilled night-caps and night-gowns peered
through the infnitesimal loop-holes of mos
quito-nets. A dim glimmering that some
thing was wrong at last began to perVade
the torpid tranquility Of the house before
whose portal all this hubbub was taking
place. In the third story, more particu-
larly, there was very perceptible confu-
sion. Lights danced about, doors were
open and shut, whispered questions and re-
plies were interchanged. "Save me hide
me it is my husband +" was the burden
of the principal words overheard. But
even while they were being uttered the
hall door had been opened by one Of
the frightened servants, and the heavy
uncertain tread of strong man in
liquor was heard bungling through the
halls. 1t came nearer and nearer; it came
up the narrow flight of steps that led to the
topmost story, dimly lit by solitary gas,
burner. Beneath this stood q group of two
the sight of which caused the drunken
wretch to make rush forward with an
oath and other unrepeatable language. In
doing so he fell, his temple striking sharp
hook projecting two inches from the vain
scoting, The nail that entered the temple