The New York police offices
were not strangers to his countenance. He had been bred to the
profession of medicine; besides, he had a very respectable income,
and his house was in a pleasant street on the west side of the city.
Little of his time, however, did Mr. John Langton spend at his
domestic hearth; and the elderly lady who officiated as his
housekeeper was by no means surprised to have him gone for a week or a
month at a time, and she knowing nothing of his whereabouts.
Living as he did, the young man was an unhappy being. It was not so
much that his associates were below his own capacity--for Langton,
though sensible and well bred, was not highly talented or refined--but
that he lived without any steady purpose, that he had no one to
attract him to his home, that he too easily allow'd himself to be
tempted--which caused his life to be, of late, one continued scene of
dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction he sought to drive away by the
brandy bottle, and mixing in all kinds of parties where the object
was pleasure. On the present occasion he had left the city a few days
before, and passing his time at a place near the village where Charles
and his mother lived. He fell in, during the day, with those who were
his companions of the tavern spree; and thus it happen'd that they
were all together. Langton hesitated not to make himself at home with
any associate that suited his fancy.
The next morning the poor widow rose from her sleepless cot; and from
that lucky trait in our nature which makes one extreme follow another,
she set about her toil with a lighten'd heart.
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