she makes her most respectful curtsey to the world of readers, wishing
her humble effort a _bon voyage._



CHAPTER I


"His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him, that nature might stand up
And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN"

--Shakespeare.

It is night! Not the cold, wet, chilly night, that is settling down on
the forlorn-looking city outside; not the cheerless night, that makes
the news-boy gather his rags more closely about him, and stand under the
projecting doorway of some dilapidated, tenantless building, as he cries
"_Free Press_, only two cents:" not the awful night on which the gaunt
haggard children, who thrive on starvation, crouch shiveringly around
the last hissing fagot on the fire-place, with big, hungry eyes
wandering over the low ceiling and the mouldy walls, or resting
perchance on the wet, dirty panes, with their stuffings of tattered
clothing, or gazing in a wilder longing still, on the bare shelves and
the empty bread-box: Oh no! There are no such nights as these in
reality; such a scene never existed out of the imaginations of men;
there are no cries rending the very heavens this night for bread while
handfuls are being flung to pet poodles or terriers. There are no
benumbed limbs aching in the dingy corners of half-tumbled down houses,
no wrinkled, aged jaws chattering, no infants moaning at their mother's