Year: 1870

From the New York World Sunday. >
AS the authority for the following story
Ia clergyman Of this city, no less noted
ior his e!oquence as theological moralist
than for his manifold literary attainments,
IT may be accepted as something wholly
Without alloy OF either exaggerated fact or
sensaslona 1ctton: Some years ago min.
lseer OF the Gospel, who sometimes under.
TOOK the arduous duties Of 0 volunteer city
poor laborer in one Of the most miserable
tenement houses Of New York two YOUTH
full sisters, whose appearance and natural
abilities were apparently much above their
squalid lot in life. By his agency they were
placed in school, their home rendered
more comfortable, and their desire
for future of better surroundings
made practicable to them. All went
well until the period of schooling was
over, when the elder and more interesting
of the two, in an hour of blind, girlish folly,
became the wife of young man greatly
herinferiorin nintclligenceandg general worth.
To her the story now belongs, and the ro-
nance of her life began with the mad act
by which she threw away every opportu-
nifty to ripen her existence into better re-
ality. Loves first fitftll fever being over,
she became aware of her great mistake, and
after brief, inharmonious experience Of
matrimony withdrew from her mis- s-matched
husband and disappeared from the city.
Her family and their good friend, the cler-
gyman, were in great distress thereat, fear
ing that the unhappy young wife had been
driven to some desperate resource; but Mt
the end Of some weeks there came to the
minister letter from the missing one. Afte4
confding to him the story Of her lntolerable
matrimonial sorrows, and declaring that she
had renounced her unfit husband forever,
the writer confessed that she had be-
come an actress in theatre Of Memphis,
Tennessee, under an assumed name. In
this new capacity she was gaining much
success, and begged her old friend to keep
her secret, and act as her agent in a friendly
watch over the husband she could no longer
live with. She promised to send morey,
from time to time, which the clergyman was
to apply, as from himself, to such aid as the
husband might absolutely require but
begged that no effort should be made to
persuade her back to the life never to be
hers again., Convinced that all such per-
suasion must be useless, the recipient Of
the extraordinary letter sadly yielded to the
inevitable, and wrote to the actress that he
would act as she desired. Consequently,
while the detached wife led the life of
player in Tennessee, she was still able to
keep an eye, through her friend, upon her
husband In New York, and see that he did
not fall into abject want.


One day, few weeks ago, letter from
the clergyman told her that the man whom
she had vowed to love, honor, and obey,
was lying sick Of relapsing fever in q
wretched garrett, to which he had retreated.
On the day after the arrival of this news she
abruptly closed her engagement at the
n,,I E.nr10
Memphis. Two days thereafter a nice, be-
nignant old lady appeared in the New York
tenement house in which lay the fever pa
sick persons to Visit. The people Of the
lower floor told her about the dying man in
the garret, and, with basket on her arm,
she went to see him. There he was, tossing
and delirious in burning fever, with
naught to smooth his pathway to the grave
or cool its scorching air. She filled bis room
with comforts, employed a physician
and nurse, and made daily visits to
the place thereafter. No one knew
who she was nor where che came
from; but the rough men of the rookery
raised their shabby hats to her and
the slatternly women blessed her when she
passed. Nothing could save the sick man,
he grew worse, and in his delirium often
called for his wife. Just before death the
old lady disappeared from the bedside,
and in her place sat young lady richly
dressed. The sufferer was too far gone to
recognize her, but she was his wife in the
disgiise of the old weman she had relieved
his last wants, and in the end she gave him
a Christian burial. The last act of her mar
ried life being finished, the dramatized Wo
man revealed herself to her sister and theil
friend the clergyman, but only to say good


bye before returning to the South. Her last
words, as she started for Memphis, were


.tI hope shall hot die in theatre, as poor
President Lincoln did," 1t was present


ment. On the very night of her reap
pearance as an actress she fell violently il
In the theatre. and before morning daWneo
had gone to join her husband in another
world,