tale of misery and
betrayal. Pardon this digression, generous reader, and proceed with us
to the story of Madame Flamingo.

"And now," says the forlorn woman, in a faint, hollow voice, "when my
ambition seemed served--I was ambitious, perhaps vain--I found myself
the victim of an intrigue. I ask forgiveness of Him who only can forgive
the wicked; but how can I expect to gain it?" She presses Tom's hand,
and pauses for a second. "Yes, I was ambitious," she continues, "and
there was something I wanted. I had money enough to live in comfort,
but the thought that it was got of vice and the ruin of others, weighed
me down. I wanted the respect of the world. To die a forgotten wretch;
to have the grave close over me, and if remembered at all, only with
execration, caused me many a dark thought." Here she struggles to
suppress her emotions. "I sought to change my condition; that, you see,
has brought me here. I married one to whom I intrusted my all, in whose
rank, as represented to me by Mr. Snivel, and confirmed by his friend,
the Judge, I confided. I hoped to move with him to a foreign country,
where the past would all be wiped out, and where the associations of
respectable society would be the reward of future virtue.

"In London, where I now reap the fruits of my vanity, we enjoyed good
society for a time, were sought after, and heaped with attentions. But I
met those who had known me; it got out who I was; I was represented much
worse than I was, and even those who had flattered me in one sphere, did
not know me. In Paris it was the same. And there my husband said it
would not do to be known by his titles, for, being an exile, it might be
the means of his being recognized and kidnapped, and carried back a
prisoner to his own dear Poland. In this I acquiesced, as I did in
everything else that lightened his cares. Gradually he grew cold and
morose towards me, left me for days at a time, and returned only to
abuse and treat me cruelly. He had possession of all my money, which I
soon found he was gambling away, without gaining an entree for me into
society.

"From Paris we travelled, as if without any settled purpose, into Italy,
and from thence to Vienna, where I discovered that instead of being a
prince, my husband was an impostor, and I his dupe. He had formerly
been a crafty shoemaker; was known to the police as a notorious
character, who, instead of having been engaged in the political
struggles of his countrymen, h