July 1892 - The Emma Hardinge Britten Archive

188 The Mjlstery of NO.9, Stallhope Street.
the fixed and seemingly unattainable purposes that
possessed me-first of securing that girl as my sole model
property, and next of carrying off the Lester Stanhope
prize from all competitors, I don't think you would have
thought as much of my boasted standard of 'reason' as
I would have wished you to do just now. However, to
hasten the catastrophe of my tale, on a certain day, after
two or three weeks' absence from home, I called at the
poor old priest's lodging, and found he had moved away,
e'en to the last lodging he would ever inhabit-to wit, the
rest of a pauper's grave.
" In the little empty garret he had slept in, I found his
poor forsaken niece packing up for sale their last remnants
of furniture, now her only earthly possessions, by the sale
of which piecemeal she had maintained herself since her
uncle's sudden death. Her wan cheeks and sunken eyes
rendered her unfit to pursue her ordinary occupation as
a model, and-Heaven (if there is such a place) forgive
me! but all at once, as it seemed to me, the dual purposes
of my life then seemed to be almost flung at my very feet.
The girl had no home, no money, no friends in that
country, and knew nothing of her relations in England,
from whom she had not heard tor years. She felt an
unconquerable ayersion to calling upon her ordinary
employers, either for the purpose of asking assistance or
offering service in her present pitiable condition, and now,
Dick, what think you was the result of this visit? Nay,
don't fire up in eyes and cheeks as if you were a judge
going to condemn me to transportation for life as the
worst of felons. Sit down, old fellow, and hear me out.
That evening Maddalena Morani came to my house, but
she did not come until I had taken her, draped as she
was in her poor peasant's attire, to the Church of the
Sistines, with two of my best known friends and my
housekeeper for witnesses. And then and there, by aid of