The Ladies' Garland

FROM THE TRENTON EMPORIUM.

THE
VICTIM.

"If wont to equal ills betrayed,
Wo waits the insect and the maid,
A life of pain, the loss of peace,
From infant's play and man's caprice
The lovely toy, so fiercely sought,
Has lost its charms by being caught,
For every touch that wooed its stay,
Has bruised its brightest charms away
Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone.
'Tis left to the er fall alone."

There is nothing which is more calculated to
excite the tenderest feelings of our nature, and
to call forth the sternest indignation, than the
sight of innocence and beauty blasted and
withered by the harpy touch of the seducer.
Oh! if man's heart can be affected by misery
and wo. if he can shed the tears of pity over the
scenes of joyless wretchedness, surely it will
touch the finest feelings of his nature to see the
brightest hopes of youth made desolate, and in
nocence and loveliness wantonly destroyed. It
we watch with unceasing delight the tender and
lovely flower that blooms but to delight the
sense. guard it with anxious care lest the rude
blast should visit it too roughly, and even mourn
over it when blighted and drooping, with what
feelings should we view the young and tender
maid who has been watched over with all the
solicitude of parental affection, robbed of her
brightest treasure, and then thrown upon the
charity of a cold-cold world. Such was the case
of Caroline Brackton. Born and nourished
amidst opulence and luxury. and looking at all
by the mirror of her own pure and artless soul.
she little knew what arts vice employs to secure
its object. Sixteen summers of uninterrupted
felicity had passed by, and Caroline Brackto-
was now in the full bloom of her beauty, the
pride and solace of her parents, and the admira-
tion of all who knew her. Thus. while reveiling
in the full tide of happiness and little dreaming
that danger was near. the destroyer came. a
young Englishman of fortune, captivated with.
so much beauty and innocence, wooed her to
be his. Elegant and graceful in his manners-
and possessed of noble. genius and a cultivated
mind. he soon won the love of the artless girl.
And while she surrendered all the ardent affec-
tions of a young and guileless heart, in return:
he meditated nothing but the ruin of his unsus-
pecting victim ; and in an unguarded moment
he accomplished his nefarious purpose. The
erring girl, driven with cold disdain from the
mansion which she fondly thought her home
fled with her deceiver to New York, where for
some time they remained; but his love soon
abated, and he left her yet young and beautiful,
to the merciless world Disowned by her friends.
and unaccustomed to labour, she had recourse
to the only remaining means of subsistence.and
thus lived on until seized with a virulent and
unabating disorder. she suld, to an loath-
and unfriended object to the grave! And doubt-
less there is many a one who once sported in
the green fields of her nativity, in all the joyous buoyancy of youth and innocence, who, like the subject of this brief sketch, has been allured by some accomplished villain from the paths of virtue, and like her has led a life of infamy, and at length descended to the grave unpitied and unknown. He who trifles with woman's fine and tender feelings--he who treats her love as a toy to beguile the tedium of the passing hour, or to effect the accomplishment of a mean and brutal passion, deserves not the name of man. But too true it is that there are some who, having won the love of the unsuspecting maid, rob the fair flower of its brightest sweets, and then like the butterfly flit away to some other pure and spotless one, and leave their fallen victim to breathe her vain lament. And methinks the language of the degraded one would be--"Did I not pass away in secret, like the flower of the rock, that lifts its fair head unseen and strews its withered leaves on the blast? I pass away in my youth, and my name shall not be heard. Or it will be heard with sorrow and the tears of Nelath shall fall. Thou wilt be sad, son of Morni, for the fallen fame of Oithona. But she shall sleep in the narrow tomb, far from the voice of the mourner."