Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/45

Rh at the lungs, her children fretting and crying, dress herself, and go down to the ball-room, where she would stay, it may be, till one or two o'clock at night. She returned home with him, but before the end of the season death came and rid her of him. The next I saw of her she was in a hotel in New York, reclining on a sofa, elegantly attired, covered with diamonds, and everything about her exquisite. Ostensibly she was under the care of a physician, but I learned the physician was but a cloak to cover her long stay from her second husband; and occasionally a gentleman from New Orleans came to see her, making business in New York the excuse to his wife and family for his absence. The last time he visited her, on his return home he found his wife had taken laudanum and destroyed herself. Full five hundred such scenes have come under my notice since I've been a hair-dresser.

During that season there were many exciting scenes at Drennon. A number of young men took to robbing, and got taken up. The evidence was clear, and they tried to get one of the young men to tell where the money and valuables were concealed. To make him confess, they put his hand in a vise. His screams were dreadful, but nobody minded him. This young fellow had made his haul, buried his share of the plunder, and was coming back after more when taken up. They were far from any city or officer, and as he would not confess, they had to let him free. He was watched by some of the party, seen to go after his plunder, get it and leave.

The season closed at Drennon with a grand fancy ball, after which the visitors left for their homes. 4