Constitutional Whig

The following affecting Anecdote is from the French of Anna Maria Porter.

A sailor of Martinique married a young woman, as virtuous as she was beautiful; and she having expended all her little money her husband had left her before he embarked, had recourse to a wealthy citizen to whose protection she was confided. The citizen, inflamed with the charms of the fair borrower, demanded as the price of his services the surrender of her virtue. Relying on the hope of her husband's return, and shuddering with indignation at the proposal, the insulted woman refused without hesitation. The sailor did not arrive, and in a few days all the resources of this unhappy wife were exhausted; want too clearly made her sensible of her situation; she was a mother, and dreading to behold one infant perish at her breast, which nourished it, and the other whose maturer age demanded bread, expire of hunger before her; she sought the tyrant again, in the hope of softening him. But prayers and tears could obtain nothing from the barbarian; she was forced to capitulate—and vanquished by necessity, she permitted him to come to sup with her. After the meal, which was sprightly, the citizen pressed her to fulfil her promise: —the poor woman took him to the cradle where her child was sleeping: and then pressing it to her bosom, her eyes suffused with tears, she said to it—“Drink, my dear babe! drink freely—thou yet receivest the milk of a virtuous woman whom necessity alone stabs to the heart: to-morrow, for alas! I cannot wean thee to-morrow, thou wilt drink the milk of an unhappy—;" her tears finished the sentence. The citizen beheld—and was moved at the sight; and throwing his purse at her feet he exclaimed, "It is not possible to resist so much virtue!"