leads the old
man away, and gives him a lodging in the old jail.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

A SHORT CHAPTER OF ORDINARY EVENTS.

To bear up against the malice of inexorable enemies is at once the gift
and the shield of a noble nature. And here it will be enough to say,
that Maria bore the burden of her ills with fortitude and resignation,
trusting in Him who rights the wronged, to be her deliverer. What took
place when she saw her aged father led away, a prisoner; what thoughts
invaded that father's mind when the prison bolt grated on his ear, and
he found himself shut from all that had been dear to him through life,
regard for the feelings of the reader forbids us recounting here.

Naturally intelligent, Maria had, by close application to books,
acquired some knowledge of the world. Nor was she entirely ignorant of
those arts designing men call to their aid when seeking to effect the
ruin of the unwary female. Thus fortified, she fancied she saw in the
story of the lost ship a plot against herself, while the persecution of
her father was only a means to effect the object. Launched between hope
and fear, then--hope that her lover still lived, and that with his
return her day would brighten--fear lest the report might be founded in
truth, she nerves herself for the struggle. She knew full well that to
give up in despair--to cast herself upon the cold charities of a busy
world, would only be to hasten her downfall. Indeed, she had already
felt how cold, and how far apart were the lines that separated our rich
from our poor.

The little back parlor is yet spared to Maria, and in it she may now be
seen plying at her needle, early and late. It is the only means left her
of succoring the parent from whom she has been so ruthlessly separated.
Hoping, fearing, bright to-day and dark to-morrow, willing to work and
wait--here she sits. A few days pass, and the odds and ends of the
Antiquary's little shop, like the "shirts" of the gallant Fremont, whom
we oppressed while poor, and essayed to flatter when a hero, are
gazetted under the head of "sheriff's sale." Hope, alas! brings no
comfort to Maria. Time rolls on, the month's rent falls due, her father
pines and sinks in confinement, and her needle is found inadequate to
the task undertaken. Necessity demands, and one by one she parts with
her few cherished mementos of the past, that she may save an aged father
from starvation.

The "prisoner" has given notice that he will t