he blushed deeply, and frankly admitted the truth of the girl’s statement. His benevolent visiter took the opportunity to “bear a testimony,” as the Friends say, against the sin and selfishness of profligacy. He did it in such a kind and fatherly manner, that the young man s heart was touched. He excused himself, by saying that he would not have tampered with the girl, if he had known her to be virtuous. “I have done many wrong things,” said he, “but, thank God, no betrayal of confiding innocence rests on my conscience. I have always esteemed it the basest act of which man is capable.” The imprisonment of the poor girl, and the forlorn situation in which she had been found, distressed him greatly. And when Isaac represented that the silk had been stolen for his sake, that the girl had thereby lost profitable employment, and was obliged to return to her distant home, to avoid the danger of exposure, he took out a fifty dollar note, and offered it to pay her expenses. “Nay,” said Isaac, “thou art a very rich man; I see in thy hand a large roll of such notes. She is the daughter of a poor widow, and thou hast been the means of doing her great injury. Give me another.”
Lord Henry handed him another fifty dollar note, and smiled as he said, “You understand your business well. But you have acted nobly, and I reverence you for it. If you ever visit England, come to see me. I will give you a cordial welcome, and treat you like a nobleman.”
“Farewell, friend,” replied Isaac: “Though much to blame in this affair, thou too hast behaved nobly. Mayst thou be blessed in domestic life, and trifle no more with the feelings of poor girls; not even with those whom others have betrayed and deserted.”
Luckily, the girl had sufficient presence of mind to assume a false name, when arrested; by which means her true name was kept out of the newspapers. “I did this,” said she, “for my poor mother’s sake.” With the money given by Lord Henry, the silk was paid for, and she was sent home to her mother, well provided with clothing. Her name and place of residence remain to this day a secret in the breast of her benefactor.
Several years after the incidents I have related, a lady called
