Public Ledger

A Tale of Two Cities---Strange Romance.

A few years ago there lived in Paris a family composed of father, mother and an only daughter, aged seventeen at the time when this story commences, and very handsome, besides possessing many womanly virtues. They belonged to what is known as the bourgeoise of France, and were possessed of a handsome income. At such an age, what young woman has not an attachment for a good looking young man? Miss F. was no exception to the rule, and the attentions of a young countryman in easy circumstances, though far from being wealthy, were favorably received by the girl and her parents. Circumstances created a change in the family's fortunes and they came to this city to repair the losses which they had sustained. A couple of years afterwards they were followed by the wooer of the daughter. Her father had died before his arrival, and her mother had wholly abandoned herself to a passion for drink and a love of money. Still burning with his first love, the young man heeded not the sad changes, but renewed his attentions with earnest proposals of matrimony. There was, unhappily, a skeleton in the house, in the shape of a man of wealth, whose money had captivated the mother, and which, coupled with her influence, succeeded in causing the rejection of the former lover's honorable offers, and finally the fall of the girl, now scarcely nineteen, who went to live with her paramour. With a broken heart and a merited disgust for the young woman he had adored, the rejected suitor recrossed the ocean to conceal his grief in his dear France. Time sped on until this year of epidemic and distress, when the young man, compelled to visit this city on business, was stricken with the prevailing fever. The news of his arrival and almost immediate sickness, reached the ears of his whilom betrothed. Five years had fled, during which time she had led a life of luxury and had been the recipient of the greatest kindness on the part of her protector: yet in her sullied heart there still remained a purifying spark of love for him whom she had so cruelly and recklessly forsaken. She unhesitatingly called at his house, and for many weary days combated death by nursing him with unremitting care, until he had entirely recovered. We leave to our readers to picture to themselves the scenes which must have attended the convalescence of the heretofore forsaken one, who was now being implored for a pardon, which was readily granted and sealed with vows of eternal love.

The protector, all this time, had been absent in St. Louis. He now returned to find his home deserted. The story was related to him, but far from evincing the least feeling of anger, he quietly repaired to the new abode of his mistress of yesterday, and expressing to the young man his ignorance of his relations to the young girl, tendered the pair his best offices, retiring with many wishes for all the felicity and happiness that two loving souls could desire. The sequel was a marriage; and those acquainted with this bit of romance could notice a handsome couple affectionately walking, arm in arm, up Royal street last Tuesday evening, the young man's face evincing a little pallor, enhanced by his white cravat, while the new bride was beaming with freshness and beauty under her tiny bonnet, trimmed with orange blossoms.-N. O. Crescent.