Weekly Trinity journal., 1874-07-18
\ ROMANCE OF THE STREET.

"A group of ragged girls were playing
on the sidewalk of Baxter street, half
blocking the way with their boisterous
antics. DR.. Henry Cotton, young
physician attached to charitable insti-
tuition in the ncighborhood, found it al
most impossible to push his way through
the crowd OF hoydens. Uncouth faces
and rough words greeted him, as with no
very gentle hand he made for himself a
passage through their midst.
One of the girls, bolder than her COM
panions, caught at his coat and pulled
him half around. He looked Mt the girl
whose temerity excited his surprise. She
was about twelve or thirteen years old,
and 40 ragged aud dirty ms any of the
lot yet her beauty shone through her
dirt and rags. Her checks were round
and dimpled, her lips full and red, her
eyes and hair black as midnight, and
form apparently perfect
DR.. Cotton passed on n few steps, but
the girls great beauty excited his inter
est. and he calied her. At first she was
disposed 10 run away, but at last she
vert rp to him. taking care to keep out
OF srm's reach.
" What is your name, my gr?" ask
ed the young man.
"Rosa Garden" she replied.
Where do you live?"
With Nanny Ginger, down there
in the rag cellar-shc's my aunt, she is"
Well, Rosa," said he, as he started
to go, you are too pretty and bright
eyed to live in this place, and with these
people. Would you not like to go to
school and be a lady when you grow up?"
Rosa's idea Of lady was associated
with fine clothes, and so she replied af-
frmatiyely without the slightest hcsta-
zion.
"Then I'll tell you what to do, Rosa"
said Henry; wash your face and comb
your hair, and-do you know where the
Girls Refuge ISL"
" Yes, guess So"
You go up there, ring the bell, and
ask for Mrs. Brown. Tell her that you
want to live there and learn TO be a Ia.
dy." and be went on about his business,
leaving the girl with her noisy compan-
ions.
But Rosa had no relish for romping.
What the young man had said to her
kept running in her head, and she soon
went to her squalid home, thinking it
over and over.
Rosa received little but bad usage and
short rations from Nanny Ginger, who
only kept the girl for the work she could
squeeze out of her. Her present life was
so miserable that no change could well
have been made for the worse, and SO
she was inclined to follow tho strangers S
advice.
That night she dreamed Of being fine
lady, dressed in silk, and upon waking
in the morning she no longer hestated.
After exciting Nanny Ginger's won
der by washing her face and combing her
hair as we'll as she could with her fingers,
Rosa slipped out and went to the Girls
Refuge, an institution for the care and
education OF orphan and pauper girls.
Ringing the bell, she inquired for Mrs.
Brown, as the stranger had told her to
do, and at last reached the matron of
the institution.
Well, little girl" said Mrs. Brown,
"what do you wanU?"
81 want TO learn to be lady"
The odd reply, together with the girls
striking beauty, won the attention Of the
matron, and Rosa soon found herself a
regular inmate Of the institution.
Eight years rolled by, bringing DIR.
Henry Cotton to the age of thirty. Eight
eventful years Of the country and to him,
for they comprised the bloody years OF
the rebellion.