ght. Good heavens, what a lucky fellow I am!'

And clasping both ladies around the waists, he kissed them alternately,
again and again. That night was one of guilty rapture to all the
parties; but the particulars must be supplied by the reader's own
imagination.

* * * * *

And now, behold Mrs. Lucretia Franklin and her daughter Josephine, in
the great city of Boston! The same day of their arrival they hired a
handsome house, already furnished in Washington street: and the next day
they made their _debut_ in that fashionable thoroughfare, by
promenading, in dresses of such magnificence and costliness, that they
created a tremendous excitement among the bucks and belles who throng
there every fine afternoon.

'Who can they be?' was asked by every one, and answered by no one. The
dandy clerks, in high dickies and incipient whiskers, rushed to the
doors and windows of their stores, to have a glimpse of the two
beautiful _unknowns_; the mustachioed exquisites raised their
eye-glasses in admiration, and murmured, 'dem foine,' the charming
Countess, the graceful Cad, and the bewitching Jane B----t, were all on
the _qui vive_ to ascertain the names, quality and residence of the two
fair strangers, who were likely to prove such formidable rivals in the
hearts and purses of the lady-loving beaux of the city.

That evening they went to the opera, and while listening to the divine
strains of Biscaccianti, became the cynosure of a thousand admiring
glances. And that night, beneath the windows of their residence, a party
of gallant amateurs, with voice and instrument, awoke sounds of such
celestial harmony, that the winged spirits of the air paused in their
aerial flight to catch the choral symphony that floated on the soft
breezes of the moon-lit night!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: A fact, derived by the Author from the private history of a
fashionable courtezan.]

CHAPTER XXII

_Showing the Desperate and Bloody Combat which took place in the Dark
Vaults._

'You will pray for death in vain; death shall not come to your relief
for years,' were the words of the miscreant who had shut up poor Frank
in that loathsome dungeon;--and like a weight of lead, that awful doom
oppressed and crushed the heart of our hero, as he lay stretched upon
the stone floor of the cell, with the maniac Dwarf gibbering beside him,
and staring at him with its serpent-like and malignant eyes.

While lying there, we