PAGE 7
Visiting As Neighbors
by
“MY SWEET FRIEND,–I saw Mr. Clement last night at the opera. He had a great deal to say about you, and uttered many flattering compliments on your beauty. He says that he would like to meet you to-morrow evening, and will be at the corner of Eighth and Pine streets at half past seven o’clock. Can you get away at that time, without exciting suspicion? If you can, don’t fail to meet him, as he is very desirous that you should do so. I was delighted with the opera, and wished a hundred times that you were with me to enjoy it.
“Yours, forever,
“MARY.”
Mrs. Leland clasped her hands together, and leaned forward upon the bureau near which she had been standing, scarcely able to sustain her own weight. It was many minutes before she could think clearly. After much reflection, she thought it best not to say anything to Jane about the note. This course was approved by Mr. Leland, who believed with his wife, that it was better that Jane should be kept in ignorance of its contents, at least until the time mentioned for her joining Clement had passed. Both the parents were deeply troubled; and bitterly did Mrs. Leland repent her folly in making the acquaintance of their new neighbor, simply because she was a neighbor according to proximity.
It was after seven o’clock when the tea bell rang that evening. Mr. and Mrs. Leland descended to the dining-room, and took their places at the table.
“Where is Jane?” asked Mrs. Leland, after they had been seated a few moments.
“She went out five or ten minutes ago,” replied the waiter.
Both the mother and father started, with exclamations of surprise and alarm, from the table. Mr. Leland seized his hat and cane, and rushing from the house, ran at full speed toward the place which Clement had appointed for a meeting with his daughter. He arrived in time to see a lady hastily enter a carriage, followed by a man. The carriage drove off rapidly. A cab was passing near him at the time, to the driver of which he called in an excited voice.
“Do you see that carriage?” Mr. Leland said eagerly, as the man reined up his horse. “Keep within sight of it until it stops, and I will give you ten dollars.”
“Jump in,” returned the driver. “I’ll keep in sight.”
For nearly a quarter of an hour the wheels of the cab rattled in the ears of Mr. Leland. It then stopped, and the anxious father sprang out upon the pavement. The carriage had drawn up a little in advance, and a lady was descending from it, assisted by a man. Mr. Leland knew the form of his daughter. Ere the young lady and her attendant could cross the pavement, he had confronted them. Angry beyond the power of control, he seized the arm of Jane with one hand, and, as he drew away from her companion, knocked him down with a tremendous blow from the cane which he held in the other. Then dragging, or rather carrying, his frightened daughter to the cab, thrust her in, and, as he followed after, gave the driver the direction of his house, and ordered him to go there at the quickest speed. Jane either was, or affected to be, unconscious, when she arrived at home.
Two days after, this paragraph appeared in one of the daily papers.
“SAVED FROM THE BRINK OF RUIN.–A young man of notoriously bad character, yet connected with one of our first families, recently attempted to draw aside from virtue an innocent but thoughtless and unsuspecting girl, the daughter of a respectable citizen. He appointed a meeting with her in the street at night, and she was mad enough to join him at the hour mentioned. Fortunately it happened that the father, by some means, received intelligence of what was going on, and hurried to the place. He arrived in time to see them enter a carriage and drive off. He followed in another carriage, and when they stopped before a house, well known to be one of evil repute, he confronted them on the pavement, knocked the young villain down, and carried his daughter off home. We forbear to mention names, as it would do harm, rather than good, the young lady being innocent of any evil intent, and unsuspicious of wrong in her companion. We hope it will prove a lesson that she will never forget. She made a most fortunate escape.”
When Jane Leland was shown this paragraph, she shuddered and turned pale; and the shudder went deeper, and her cheek became still paler, a few weeks later when the sad intelligence came that Mary Halloran had fallen into the same snare that had been laid for her feet; a willing victim too many believed, for she was not ignorant of Clement’s real character.
By sad experience Mrs. Leland was taught the folly of any weak departure from what is clearly seen to be a right course of action; and she understood, better than she had ever done before, the oft-repeated remark of her husband that “only those whose principles and conduct we approve are to be considered, in any true sense, neighbors.”