The Divorced Wife

Twenty years ago, in one of the rooms of the "Mansion House," which formerly stood in Fourth Street, Philadelphia, late in the afternoon of an autumn day — a pale faced, distressed looking woman, apparently about thirty years of age, was moving about with a restlessness that showed her mind to be in a state of much agitation.

She had been beautiful, and beauty still threw its waning light over features which were in outline, almost classically perfect. But, life's painful experiences had deeply marred a countenance that must have once possessed fascinations of no ordinary character. Strong emotion had left many traces there; and the tide of passion — it might be evil passion — had swept away its soft and gentle undulations. All was sharp and angular; while the sunken, restless eye, shone with a stranger light.

Once or twice, as she moved about the chamber, she clasped her hands suddenly together, as if the subject of her thoughts had become more painful; glancing upwards, at the same time, with an evident appeal to Heaven for strength to bear an insupportable burden.