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[216] his lodgings and never returned. The last I heard of him, he was the tenant of a western penitentiary. Poor Julia, driven in disgrace from her father's house, found a refuge in the humble dwelling of an old woman of no very creditable character. There I was called to visit her; and, although not unused to scenes of suffering and sorrow, I had never before witnessed such an utter abandonment to grief, shame, and remorse. Alas! what sorrow was like unto her sorrow? The birth hour of her infant was also that of its death.

The agony of her spirit seemed greater than she could bear. Her eyes were opened, and she looked upon herself with loathing and horror. She would admit of no hope, no consolation; she would listen to no palliation or excuse of her guilt. I could only direct her to that Source of pardon and peace to which the broken and contrite heart never appeals in vain.

In the mean time Robert Barnet shipped on board a Labrador vessel. The night before he left he called on me, and put in my hand a sum of money, small indeed, but all he could then command.

“ You will see her often,” he said. “Do not let her suffer; for she is more to be pitied than blamed.”

I answered him that I would do all in my power for her; and added, that I thought far better of her, contrite and penitent as she was, than of some who were busy in holding her up to shame and censure.

“God bless you for these words!” he said,

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