night.  He followed the walls until he reached the main gate, and then, taking an opposite direction from his former route, proceeded along the street until he came to a lantern, shedding its feeble light upon the murky objects at the corner of a narrow lane.  Here he stood for several minutes, not knowing which way to proceed:  the street he was in continued but a few steps farther, and turn which ever way he would, darkness and obstacles rose to impede his progress.  At length he turned down the lane, and proceeded until he came to another junction of streets; taking one which he thought would lead him in the right direction, he wandered through it and into a narrow, circuitous street, full of little, wretched-looking houses.  A light glimmered from one of them, and he saw a female passing to and fro before the window.  He approached and rapped gently upon the door.  Almost simultaneously the light was extinguished.  He stood for a few minutes, and again rapped louder than before; all was silent for some minutes.  A drenching shower had commenced, adding to the already gloomy picture; and the rustling leaves on a tree that stood near gave an ominous sound to the excited feelings of the child.  He listened at the door with anxiety and fear, as he heard whispers within; and as he was about to repeat his rapping, a window on the right hand was slowly raised.  The female who had been pacing the floor protruded her head with a caution that bespoke alarm.  Her long, black hair hanging about her shoulders, and her tawny, Indian countenance, with her ghost-like figure dressed in a white habiliment, struck him with a sort of terror that wellnigh made him run.

“Who is that, at this time of night?” inquired the woman, in a low voice.

“It’s only me.  I’m lost, and can’t find my way to our vessel,” said Tommy, in a half-crying tone.

“Mother,” said the woman, shutting the window, “it’s only a little sailor-boy, a stranger, and he’s wet through.”

She immediately unbarred and opened the door, and invited him to come in.  Stepping beyond the threshold, she closed the door against the storm, and placing a chair at the fire, told him to sit down and warm himself.  They were mulatto half-breeds, retaining all the Indian features which that remnant of the tribe now in Charleston are distinguished by a family well known in the city, yet under the strictest surveillance of the police.  Every thing around the little room denoted poverty and neatness.  The withered remnant of an aged Indian mother lay stretched upon a bed of sickness, and the daughter, about nineteen years old, had been watching over her, and administering those comforts, which her condition required.  “Why, mother, it’s a’most twelve o’clock.  I don’t believe he’ll come to-night.”

She awaited her friend, or rather he whose mistress she had condescended to be, after passing from several lords.  The history of this female remnant of beautiful Indian girls now left in Charleston, is a mournful one.  The recollection of their noble sires, when contrasted with their present unhappy associations, affords a sad subject for reflection. and this little boy can stop till morning in our room up-stairs,” said she, looking up at an old Connecticut clock that adorned the mantel-piece.