Year: 1859

but her vioce was very low and soft


\ ou closed the door of our little home that
night, Gilbert Thorne upon the most wretched
being God ever permitted live. You went
away from the spot which, in my foolish pride,
| had thought was the dearest one on earth to
you-without even looking back, and without
a single tear. l watched you through the
curtain from the window. | said surely sure
ly, he will return he cannot, cannot mean it
never, never, to see me again. | saw you
reach the corner said, he will turn back
now he cannot 60 the magnetism of nv
strong love will bring him back again he
will come back You turned the corner /; and
like an arrow through my heart, came the
conviction, that you were gone from me for
ever. | fell nsensible upon the floor, and,
many hours after, was found by neighbor-
sick in heart and body, and mind-ready to die.


Now | come to your crime-and my dis
grace and sorrow. You thought you did
generous thing, perhaps, when you gave me
so large a sum as ten Thousand dollars; but
what did know of money ? / scarcely knew
! the difference between a hundred and ten
thousand d)llars. | had always been cared
for in that respect, and had never been taught
! to take care of myself, or to believe | should
ever be thrown upon my own resources. |
will not dwell upon what followed | loved
YOU so sincerely and so devotedIy that | had
great difficulty in keeping my oath that |
would not seek you-but | kept it, With
returning health | sought new associations,
and about this time learned that the gn-cup
would drown much misery. Well | lived
gay life. / had no one to love-to tic to bind
me to virtue or higher aim. You took from
me everything but fen M0uS1M doll0rS-and
that soon followed Then came more misery,
more degradation, more shame my beauty
began to fade my temper grew violent.
Through my ignorance and improvidence,
poverty came at the time when having little
child, | found myself friendeSs and without
the means of getting bread then death came


and took away my little boy; then | was COM
PEELED to pawn jewels to bury the little child
then my appetite for drink grew more and
more, and one 10y one, everything went to the
pawnbroker's until, after long weary years of
sorrow, and sickness, and wretchedness, and un-
happiness, and misery, and crime, | came to
be the miserable outcaSt to whom you threw
the paltry coins this evening in the Park


What :" interrupted the lawyer, were
you the wretched being who crossed my path
this evening" to whom threw some change 2"


" Yes :" >he replied 81 am the same. Three
picayunes and dime, and l have laid it out at
interest-where l think it will help me to bet
ter life. But don't interrupt me till have


finished what | have to say. am going away
to distant country to live-I cannot live here
more and before | went, determined to
come and tell you plainly how well | have
come to understand the great wrong which
you have done me, as well as those who are
sleeping under the snow, away over the river
in Greenwood | understand it all


" All, Gilbert Thorne | might truly have
said 20 yOu in the language of the wronged
and gentle lamar, Tins erii IN sending me
d1caV, Is greater hcn The Wrong MOW didSt an
to nue. You took me child, as it were, from
the home of my dead parents, with no one in
the wide world to love but you You took
from me everything | had in life, and left me,
more than ever before, unfit to take care Of
myself. Gou thrust me out into the world
without q purpose or an end or anything to
cling to with passions of whose existence,
but for yOu, | might never have known,
wrecked at the first breaker of lfe-with ap-
petites needing but the excuse of wretched-
ness and remorse to kinde into never-dying
tlame-with not friend, hope, or anything
to prize, with none to counsel none to encour-
age, none to aid, none to advise, none to warn,
none to befriend and none to love-thus YOU
thrust me out in the world, and in the place of
all these gOW care me ten MouSdnd dOiLarsi


Would it not have been better, Gilbert
ThOrne, had you kept your ten thousand dol
lars, or my dead fathers money, whichever it
was, and have kept me too Would it not
, have been more like man and a Christian
yes, better in the sight of God, had you turned
, my too loving heart to its best account, and
permitted me to have lived out my little
dream? | shonld never have troubled Won or
yours The little child who sleeps now in
Greenwood might have lived to some good
purpose. | should have been contented al
ways in my little home-oh, so happy If
, could have seen you only one a week, or even
month, then this great grief might not have
come to me- ard life might have been put to
better purposes. But your selfish heart had
Other pians and poor Jenny'S life must be
sacrificed TO minister to your ambitious and
worldly pride But the day of reckoning will
surely come, and you will yet feel that you
might have atoned for the great first wrong
which you did to Jenny Irwin, had you cher
!, ished, and protected, and turned to its highest
account the true and earnest love which she
pore 10 you. w hen that tme comes, Gilbert
Thorne, | wish You to remember this night, and
to call to mind that | came here on this Christ,
mas eve, the anniversary Of our first meeting,
to have final reckoning with you. | come not
for money you have placed the last in my
hands which | shall ever receive from you
three picoyunes and a dime only come to you
to say that | know it all now I knotc the
source of the riches Of Gilbtrt THorne"


The lawyers face grew dark


But come not to upbraid you come
not to expose you come not to do you any
harm | only come, ere my departure, to bid
} you kindly farewell, and to tell you that out
of the great sorrow and wretchedness which