ad fled the country to escape the penalty
of being the confederate of a desperate gang of coiners and
counterfeiters. We had only been two days in Vienna when I found he had
disappeared, and left me destitute of money or friends. My connection
with him only rendered my condition more deplorable, for the police
would not credit my story; and while he eluded its vigilance, I was
suspected of being a spy in the confidence of a felon, and ruthlessly
ordered to leave the country."

"Did not your passport protect you?" interrupts Tom, with evident
feeling.

"No one paid it the least regard," resumes Madame Flamingo, becoming
weaker and weaker. "No one at our legations evinced sympathy for me.
Indeed, they all refused to believe my story. I wandered back from city
to city, selling my wardrobe and the few jewels I had left, and
confidently expecting to find in each place I entered, some one I had
known, who would listen to my story, and supply me with means to reach
my home. I could soon have repaid it, but my friends had gone with my
money; no one dare venture to trust me--no one had confidence in
me--every one to whom I appealed had an excuse that betrayed their
suspicion of me. Almost destitute, I found myself back in London--how I
got here, I scarce know--where I could make myself understood. My hopes
now brightened, I felt that some generous-hearted captain would give me
a passage to New York, and once home, my troubles would end. But being
worn down with fatigue, and my strength prostrated, a fever set in, and
I was forced to seek refuge in a miserable garret in Drury-Lane, and
where I parted with all but what now remains on my back, to procure
nourishment. I had begun to recover somewhat, but the malady left me
broken down, and when all was gone, I was turned into the street. Yes,
yes, yes, (she whispers,) they gave me to the streets; for twenty-four
hours I have wandered without nourishment, or a place to lay my head. I
sought shelter in a dark court, and there laid down to die; and when my
eyes were dim, and all before me seemed mysterious and dark with curious
visions, a hand touched me, and I felt myself borne away." Here her
voice chokes, she sinks back upon the pillow, and closes her eyes as her
hands fall careless at her side. "She breathes! she breathes yet!" says
Tom, advancing his ear to the pale, quivering lips of the wretched
woman. Now he bathes her temples with the vinegar from a bottle in the
hand of the