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+Project Gutenberg's The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2), by Daniel Defoe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2)
+       or a History of the Life of Mademoiselle de Beleau Known
+       by the Name of the Lady Roxana
+
+Author: Daniel Defoe
+
+Release Date: October 27, 2009 [EBook #30344]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORTUNATE MISTRESS (PARTS 1 AND 2) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach, Jane Hyland, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ROXANA
+
+[Illustration: _I was rich, beautiful, and agreeable, and not yet old_
+
+PAGE 244]
+
+The Cripplegate Edition
+
+
+
+
+THE WORKS OF DANIEL DEFOE
+
+THE FORTUNATE MISTRESS
+OR A HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF MADEMOISELLE DE BELEAU
+KNOWN BY THE NAME OF THE LADY ROXANA
+
+
+NEW YORK · · _MCMVIII_
+GEORGE D. SPROUL
+
+_Copyright, 1904, by_ THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
+
+UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    ROXANA                                      _Frontispiece_
+
+    THE BREWER AND HIS MEN                           _Page_ 12
+
+    THE JEWELLER IS ABOUT TO LEAVE FOR VERSAILLES           74
+
+    THE VISIT OF THE PRINCE                                 90
+
+    THE DUTCH MERCHANT CALLS ON ROXANA.                    286
+
+    THE AMOUR DRAWS TO AN END                              302
+
+    ROXANA'S DAUGHTER AND THE QUAKER                       479
+
+    ROXANA IS CONFRONTED WITH HER DAUGHTER                 534
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+In March, 1724, was published the narrative in which Defoe came, perhaps
+even nearer than in _Moll Flanders_, to writing what we to-day call a
+novel, namely: _The Fortunate Mistress; or, a History of the Life and
+Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de' Belau; afterwards called
+the Countess of Wintelsheim, in Germany. Being the Person known by the
+name of the Lady Roxana, in the Time of King Charles II_. No second
+edition appeared till after Defoe's death, which occurred in 1731. Then
+for some years, various editions of _The Fortunate Mistress_ came out.
+Because Defoe had not indicated the end of his chief characters so
+clearly as he usually did in his stories, several of these later
+editions carried on the history of the heroine. Probably none of the
+continuations was by Defoe himself, though the one in the edition of
+1745 has been attributed to him. For this reason, and because it has
+some literary merit, it is included in the present edition.
+
+That this continuation was not by Defoe is attested in various ways. In
+the first place, it tells the history of Roxana down to her death in
+July, 1742, a date which Defoe would not have been likely to fix, for
+he died himself in April, 1731. Moreover, the statement that she was
+sixty-four when she died, does not agree with the statement at the
+beginning of Defoe's narrative that she was ten years old in 1683. She
+must have been born in 1673, and consequently would have been sixty-nine
+in 1742. This discrepancy, however, ceases to be important when we
+consider the general confusion of dates in the part of the book
+certainly by Defoe. The title-page announces that his heroine was "known
+by the name of the Lady Roxana, in the Time of King Charles II." She
+must have been known by this name when she was a child of eleven or
+twelve, then, for she was ten when her parents fled to England "about
+1683," and Charles II. died in February, 1685. Moreover, she was not
+married till she was fifteen; she lived eight years with her husband;
+and then she was mistress successively to the friendly jeweller, the
+Prince, and the Dutch merchant. Yet after this career, she returned to
+London in time to become a noted toast among Charles II.'s courtiers and
+to entertain at her house that monarch and the Duke of Monmouth.
+
+A stronger argument for different authorship is the difference in style
+between the continuation of _Roxana_ and the earlier narrative. In the
+continuation Defoe's best-known mannerisms are lacking, as two instances
+will show. Critics have often called attention to the fact that
+_fright_, instead of _frighten_, was a favourite word of Defoe. Now
+_frighten_, and not _fright_, is the verb used in the continuation.
+Furthermore, I have pointed out in a previous introduction[1] that Defoe
+was fond of making his characters _smile_, to show either kindliness or
+shrewd penetration. They do not _smile_ in the continuation.
+
+There are other differences between the original story of _The Fortunate
+Mistress_ and the continuation of 1745. The former is better narrative
+than the latter; it moves quicker; it is more real. And yet there is a
+manifest attempt in the continuation to imitate the manner and the
+substance of the story proper. There is a dialogue, for example, between
+Roxana and the Quakeress, modelled on the dialogues which Defoe was so
+fond of. Again, there is a fairly successful attempt to copy Defoe's
+circumstantiality; there is an amount of detail in the continuation
+which makes it more graphic than much of the fiction which has been
+given to the world. And finally, in understanding and reproducing the
+characters of Roxana and Amy, the anonymous author has done remarkably
+well. The character of Roxana's daughter is less true to Defoe's
+conception; the girl, as he drew her, was actuated more by natural
+affection in seeking her mother, and less by interest. The character of
+the Dutch merchant, likewise, has not changed for the better in the
+continuation. He has developed a vindictiveness which, in our former
+meetings with him, seemed foreign to his nature.
+
+I have said that in _The Fortunate Mistress_ Defoe has come nearer than
+usual to writing what we to-day call a novel; the reason is that he has
+had more success than usual in making his characters real. Though many
+of them are still wooden--lifeless types, rather than individuals--yet
+the Prince, the Quakeress, and the Dutch merchant occasionally wake to
+life; so rather more does the unfortunate daughter; and more yet, Amy
+and Roxana. With the exception of Moll Flanders, these last two are more
+vitalised than any personages Defoe invented. In this pair, furthermore,
+Defoe seems to have been interested in bringing out the contrast between
+characters. The servant, Amy, thrown with another mistress, might have
+been a totally different woman. The vulgarity of a servant she would
+have retained under any circumstances, as she did even when promoted
+from being the maid to being the companion of Roxana; but it was
+unreasoning devotion to her mistress, combined with weakness of
+character, which led Amy to be vicious.
+
+Roxana, for her part, had to the full the independence, the initiative,
+which her woman was without,--or rather was without when acting for
+herself; for when acting in the interests of her mistress, Amy was a
+different creature. Like all of Defoe's principal characters, Roxana is
+eminently practical, cold-blooded and selfish. After the first pang at
+parting with her five children, she seldom thinks of them except as
+encumbrances; she will provide for them as decently as she can without
+personal inconvenience, but even a slight sacrifice for the sake of one
+of them is too much for her. Towards all the men with whom she has
+dealings, and towards the friendly Quakeress of the Minories, too, she
+shows a calculating reticence which is most unfeminine. The continuator
+of our story endowed the heroine with wholly characteristic selfishness
+when he made her, on hearing of Amy's death, feel less sorrow for the
+miserable fate of her friend, than for her own loss of an adviser.
+
+And yet Roxana is capable of fine feeling, as is proved by those tears
+of joy for the happy change in her fortunes, which bring about that
+realistic love scene between her and the Prince in regard to the
+supposed paint on her cheeks. Again, when shipwreck threatens her and
+Amy, her emotion and repentance are due as much to the thought that she
+has degraded Amy to her own level as to thoughts of her more flagrant
+sins. That she is capable of feeling gratitude, she shows in her
+generosity to the Quakeress. And in her rage and remorse, on suspecting
+that her daughter has been murdered, and in her emotion several times
+on seeing her children, Roxana shows herself a true woman. In short,
+though for the most part monumentally selfish, she is yet saved from
+being impossible by several displays of noble emotion. One of the
+surprises, to a student of Defoe, is that this thick-skinned, mercantile
+writer, the vulgarest of all our great men of letters in the early
+eighteenth century, seems to have known a woman's heart better than a
+man's. At least he has succeeded in making two or three of his women
+characters more alive than any of his men. It is another surprise that
+in writing of women, Defoe often seems ahead of his age. In the argument
+between Roxana and her Dutch merchant about a woman's independence,
+Roxana talks like a character in a "problem" play or novel of our own
+day. This, perhaps, is not to Defoe's credit, but it is to his credit
+that he has said elsewhere:[2] "A woman well-bred and well-taught,
+furnished with the ... accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a
+creature without comparison; her society is the emblem of sublime
+enjoyments; ... and the man that has such a one to his portion, has
+nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful." After reading
+these words, one cannot but regret that Defoe did not try to create
+heroines more virtuous than Moll Flanders and Roxana.
+
+It is not only in drawing his characters that Defoe, in _The Fortunate
+Mistress_, comes nearer than usual to producing a novel. This narrative
+of his is less loosely constructed than any others except _Robinson
+Crusoe_ and the _Journal of the Plague Year_, which it was easier to
+give structure to. In both of them--the story of a solitary on a desert
+island and the story of the visitation of a pestilence--the nature of
+the subject made the author's course tolerably plain; in _The Fortunate
+Mistress_, the proper course was by no means so well marked. The more
+credit is due Defoe, therefore, that the book is so far from being
+entirely inorganised that, had he taken sufficient pains with the
+ending, it would have had as much structure as many good novels. There
+is no strongly defined plot, it is true; but in general, if a character
+is introduced, he is heard from again; a scene that impresses itself on
+the mind of the heroine is likely to be important in the sequel. The
+story seems to be working itself out to a logical conclusion, when
+unexpectedly it comes to an end. Defoe apparently grew tired of it for
+some reason, and wound it up abruptly, with only the meagre information
+as to the fate of Roxana and Amy that they "fell into a dreadful course
+of calamities."
+
+    G.H. MAYNADIER.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See Memoirs of a Cavalier
+
+[2] _An Essay upon Projects, An Academy for Women._
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE
+
+
+The history of this beautiful lady is to speak for itself; if it is not
+as beautiful as the lady herself is reported to be; if it is not as
+diverting as the reader can desire, and much more than he can reasonably
+expect; and if all the most diverting parts of it are not adapted to the
+instruction and improvement of the reader, the relator says it must be
+from the defect of his performance; dressing up the story in worse
+clothes than the lady whose words he speaks, prepared for the world.
+
+He takes the liberty to say that this story differs from most of the
+modern performances of this kind, though some of them have met with a
+very good reception in the world. I say, it differs from them in this
+great and essential article, namely, that the foundation of this is laid
+in truth of fact; and so the work is not a story, but a history.
+
+The scene is laid so near the place where the main part of it was
+transacted that it was necessary to conceal names and persons, lest what
+cannot be yet entirely forgot in that part of the town should be
+remembered, and the facts traced back too plainly by the many people
+yet living, who would know the persons by the particulars.
+
+It is not always necessary that the names of persons should be
+discovered, though the history may be many ways useful; and if we should
+be always obliged to name the persons, or not to relate the story, the
+consequence might be only this--that many a pleasant and delightful
+history would be buried in the dark, and the world deprived both of the
+pleasure and the profit of it.
+
+The writer says he was particularly acquainted with this lady's first
+husband, the brewer, and with his father, and also with his bad
+circumstances, and knows that first part of the story to be truth.
+
+This may, he hopes, be a pledge for the credit of the rest, though the
+latter part of her history lay abroad, and could not be so well vouched
+as the first; yet, as she has told it herself, we have the less reason
+to question the truth of that part also.
+
+In the manner she has told the story, it is evident she does not insist
+upon her justification in any one part of it; much less does she
+recommend her conduct, or, indeed, any part of it, except her
+repentance, to our imitation. On the contrary, she makes frequent
+excursions, in a just censuring and condemning her own practice. How
+often does she reproach herself in the most passionate manner, and guide
+us to just reflections in the like cases!
+
+It is true she met with unexpected success in all her wicked courses;
+but even in the highest elevations of her prosperity she makes frequent
+acknowledgments that the pleasure of her wickedness was not worth the
+repentance; and that all the satisfaction she had, all the joy in the
+view of her prosperity--no, nor all the wealth she rolled in, the gaiety
+of her appearance, the equipages and the honours she was attended with,
+could quiet her mind, abate the reproaches of her conscience, or procure
+her an hour's sleep when just reflection kept her waking.
+
+The noble inferences that are drawn from this one part are worth all the
+rest of the story, and abundantly justify, as they are the professed
+design of, the publication.
+
+If there are any parts in her story which, being obliged to relate a
+wicked action, seem to describe it too plainly, the writer says all
+imaginable care has been taken to keep clear of indecencies and immodest
+expressions; and it is hoped you will find nothing to prompt a vicious
+mind, but everywhere much to discourage and expose it.
+
+Scenes of crime can scarce be represented in such a manner but some may
+make a criminal use of them; but when vice is painted in its low-prized
+colours, it is not to make people in love with it, but to expose it; and
+if the reader makes a wrong use of the figures, the wickedness is his
+own.
+
+In the meantime, the advantages of the present work are so great, and
+the virtuous reader has room for so much improvement, that we make no
+question the story, however meanly told, will find a passage to his best
+hours, and be read both with profit and delight.
+
+
+
+
+A HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF ROXANA
+
+
+I was born, as my friends told me, at the city of Poitiers, in the
+province or county of Poitou, in France, from whence I was brought to
+England by my parents, who fled for their religion about the year 1683,
+when the Protestants were banished from France by the cruelty of their
+persecutors.
+
+I, who knew little or nothing of what I was brought over hither for, was
+well enough pleased with being here. London, a large and gay city, took
+with me mighty well, who, from my being a child, loved a crowd, and to
+see a great many fine folks.
+
+I retained nothing of France but the language, my father and mother
+being people of better fashion than ordinarily the people called
+refugees at that time were; and having fled early, while it was easy to
+secure their effects, had, before their coming over, remitted
+considerable sums of money, or, as I remember, a considerable value in
+French brandy, paper, and other goods; and these selling very much to
+advantage here, my father was in very good circumstances at his coming
+over, so that he was far from applying to the rest of our nation that
+were here for countenance and relief. On the contrary, he had his door
+continually thronged with miserable objects of the poor starving
+creatures who at that time fled hither for shelter on account of
+conscience, or something else.
+
+I have indeed heard my father say that he was pestered with a great many
+of those who, for any religion they had, might e'en have stayed where
+they were, but who flocked over hither in droves, for what they call in
+English a livelihood; hearing with what open arms the refugees were
+received in England, and how they fell readily into business, being, by
+the charitable assistance of the people in London, encouraged to work in
+their manufactories in Spitalfields, Canterbury, and other places, and
+that they had a much better price for their work than in France, and the
+like.
+
+My father, I say, told me that he was more pestered with the clamours of
+these people than of those who were truly refugees, and fled in distress
+merely for conscience.
+
+I was about ten years old when I was brought over hither, where, as I
+have said, my father lived in very good circumstances, and died in about
+eleven years more; in which time, as I had accomplished myself for the
+sociable part of the world, so I had acquainted myself with some of our
+English neighbours, as is the custom in London; and as, while I was
+young, I had picked up three or four playfellows and companions suitable
+to my years, so, as we grew bigger, we learned to call one another
+intimates and friends; and this forwarded very much the finishing me for
+conversation and the world.
+
+I went to English schools, and being young, I learned the English tongue
+perfectly well, with all the customs of the English young women; so that
+I retained nothing of the French but the speech; nor did I so much as
+keep any remains of the French language tagged to my way of speaking, as
+most foreigners do, but spoke what we call natural English, as if I had
+been born here.
+
+Being to give my own character, I must be excused to give it as
+impartially as possible, and as if I was speaking of another body; and
+the sequel will lead you to judge whether I flatter myself or no.
+
+I was (speaking of myself at about fourteen years of age) tall, and very
+well made; sharp as a hawk in matters of common knowledge; quick and
+smart in discourse; apt to be satirical; full of repartee; and a little
+too forward in conversation, or, as we call it in English, bold, though
+perfectly modest in my behaviour. Being French born, I danced, as some
+say, naturally, loved it extremely, and sang well also, and so well
+that, as you will hear, it was afterwards some advantage to me. With
+all these things, I wanted neither wit, beauty, or money. In this manner
+I set out into the world, having all the advantages that any young woman
+could desire, to recommend me to others, and form a prospect of happy
+living to myself.
+
+At about fifteen years of age, my father gave me, as he called it in
+French, 25,000 livres, that is to say, two thousand pounds portion, and
+married me to an eminent brewer in the city. Pardon me if I conceal his
+name; for though he was the foundation of my ruin, I cannot take so
+severe a revenge upon him.
+
+With this thing called a husband I lived eight years in good fashion,
+and for some part of the time kept a coach, that is to say, a kind of
+mock coach; for all the week the horses were kept at work in the
+dray-carts; but on Sunday I had the privilege to go abroad in my
+chariot, either to church or otherways, as my husband and I could agree
+about it, which, by the way, was not very often; but of that hereafter.
+
+Before I proceed in the history of the married part of my life, you must
+allow me to give as impartial an account of my husband as I have done of
+myself. He was a jolly, handsome fellow, as any woman need wish for a
+companion; tall and well made; rather a little too large, but not so as
+to be ungenteel; he danced well, which I think was the first thing that
+brought us together. He had an old father who managed the business
+carefully, so that he had little of that part lay on him, but now and
+then to appear and show himself; and he took the advantage of it, for he
+troubled himself very little about it, but went abroad, kept company,
+hunted much, and loved it exceedingly.
+
+After I have told you that he was a handsome man and a good sportsman, I
+have indeed said all; and unhappy was I, like other young people of our
+sex, I chose him for being a handsome, jolly fellow, as I have said; for
+he was otherwise a weak, empty-headed, untaught creature, as any woman
+could ever desire to be coupled with. And here I must take the liberty,
+whatever I have to reproach myself with in my after conduct, to turn to
+my fellow-creatures, the young ladies of this country, and speak to them
+by way of precaution. If you have any regard to your future happiness,
+any view of living comfortably with a husband, any hope of preserving
+your fortunes, or restoring them after any disaster, never, ladies,
+marry a fool; any husband rather than a fool. With some other husbands
+you may be unhappy, but with a fool you will be miserable; with another
+husband you may, I say, be unhappy, but with a fool you must; nay, if he
+would, he cannot make you easy; everything he does is so awkward,
+everything he says is so empty, a woman of any sense cannot but be
+surfeited and sick of him twenty times a day. What is more shocking than
+for a woman to bring a handsome, comely fellow of a husband into
+company, and then be obliged to blush for him every time she hears him
+speak? to hear other gentlemen talk sense, and he able to say nothing?
+and so look like a fool, or, which is worse, hear him talk nonsense, and
+be laughed at for a fool.
+
+In the next place, there are so many sorts of fools, such an infinite
+variety of fools, and so hard it is to know the worst of the kind, that
+I am obliged to say, "No fool, ladies, at all, no kind of fool, whether
+a mad fool or a sober fool, a wise fool or a silly fool; take anything
+but a fool; nay, be anything, be even an old maid, the worst of nature's
+curses, rather than take up with a fool."
+
+But to leave this awhile, for I shall have occasion to speak of it
+again; my case was particularly hard, for I had a variety of foolish
+things complicated in this unhappy match.
+
+First, and which I must confess is very unsufferable, he was a conceited
+fool, _tout opiniatre_; everything he said was right, was best, and was
+to the purpose, whoever was in company, and whatever was advanced by
+others, though with the greatest modesty imaginable. And yet, when he
+came to defend what he had said by argument and reason, he would do it
+so weakly, so emptily, and so nothing to the purpose, that it was enough
+to make anybody that heard him sick and ashamed of him.
+
+Secondly, he was positive and obstinate, and the most positive in the
+most simple and inconsistent things, such as were intolerable to bear.
+
+These two articles, if there had been no more, qualified him to be a
+most unbearable creature for a husband; and so it may be supposed at
+first sight what a kind of life I led with him. However, I did as well
+as I could, and held my tongue, which was the only victory I gained over
+him; for when he would talk after his own empty rattling way with me,
+and I would not answer, or enter into discourse with him on the point he
+was upon, he would rise up in the greatest passion imaginable, and go
+away, which was the cheapest way I had to be delivered.
+
+I could enlarge here much upon the method I took to make my life
+passable and easy with the most incorrigible temper in the world; but it
+is too long, and the articles too trifling. I shall mention some of them
+as the circumstances I am to relate shall necessarily bring them in.
+
+After I had been married about four years, my own father died, my mother
+having been dead before. He liked my match so ill, and saw so little
+room to be satisfied with the conduct of my husband, that though he left
+me five thousand livres, and more, at his death, yet he left it in the
+hands of my elder brother, who, running on too rashly in his adventures
+as a merchant, failed, and lost not only what he had, but what he had
+for me too, as you shall hear presently.
+
+Thus I lost the last gift of my father's bounty by having a husband not
+fit to be trusted with it: there's one of the benefits of marrying a
+fool.
+
+Within two years after my own father's death my husband's father also
+died, and, as I thought, left him a considerable addition to his estate,
+the whole trade of the brewhouse, which was a very good one, being now
+his own.
+
+But this addition to his stock was his ruin, for he had no genius to
+business, he had no knowledge of his accounts; he bustled a little about
+it, indeed, at first, and put on a face of business, but he soon grew
+slack; it was below him to inspect his books, he committed all that to
+his clerks and book-keepers; and while he found money in cash to pay the
+maltman and the excise, and put some in his pocket, he was perfectly
+easy and indolent, let the main chance go how it would.
+
+I foresaw the consequence of this, and attempted several times to
+persuade him to apply himself to his business; I put him in mind how his
+customers complained of the neglect of his servants on one hand, and how
+abundance broke in his debt, on the other hand, for want of the clerk's
+care to secure him, and the like; but he thrust me by, either with hard
+words, or fraudulently, with representing the cases otherwise than they
+were.
+
+However, to cut short a dull story, which ought not to be long, he began
+to find his trade sunk, his stock declined, and that, in short, he could
+not carry on his business, and once or twice his brewing utensils were
+extended for the excise; and, the last time, he was put to great
+extremities to clear them.
+
+This alarmed him, and he resolved to lay down his trade; which, indeed,
+I was not sorry for; foreseeing that if he did not lay it down in time,
+he would be forced to do it another way, namely, as a bankrupt. Also I
+was willing he should draw out while he had something left, lest I
+should come to be stripped at home, and be turned out of doors with my
+children; for I had now five children by him, the only work (perhaps)
+that fools are good for.
+
+I thought myself happy when he got another man to take his brewhouse
+clear off his hands; for, paying down a large sum of money, my husband
+found himself a clear man, all his debts paid, and with between two and
+three thousand pounds in his pocket; and being now obliged to remove
+from the brewhouse, we took a house at ----, a village about two miles
+out of town; and happy I thought myself, all things considered, that I
+was got off clear, upon so good terms; and had my handsome fellow had
+but one capful of wit, I had been still well enough.
+
+I proposed to him either to buy some place with the money, or with part
+of it, and offered to join my part to it, which was then in being, and
+might have been secured; so we might have lived tolerably at least
+during his life. But as it is the part of a fool to be void of counsel,
+so he neglected it, lived on as he did before, kept his horses and men,
+rid every day out to the forest a-hunting, and nothing was done all this
+while; but the money decreased apace, and I thought I saw my ruin
+hastening on without any possible way to prevent it.
+
+I was not wanting with all that persuasions and entreaties could
+perform, but it was all fruitless; representing to him how fast our
+money wasted, and what would be our condition when it was gone, made no
+impression on him; but like one stupid, he went on, not valuing all that
+tears and lamentations could be supposed to do; nor did he abate his
+figure or equipage, his horses or servants, even to the last, till he
+had not a hundred pounds left in the whole world.
+
+It was not above three years that all the ready money was thus spending
+off; yet he spent it, as I may say, foolishly too, for he kept no
+valuable company neither, but generally with huntsmen and
+horse-coursers, and men meaner than himself, which is another
+consequence of a man's being a fool; such can never take delight in men
+more wise and capable than themselves, and that makes them converse
+with scoundrels, drink, belch with porters, and keep company always
+below themselves.
+
+This was my wretched condition, when one morning my husband told me he
+was sensible he was come to a miserable condition, and he would go and
+seek his fortune somewhere or other. He had said something to that
+purpose several times before that, upon my pressing him to consider his
+circumstances, and the circumstances of his family, before it should be
+too late; but as I found he had no meaning in anything of that kind, as,
+indeed, he had not much in anything he ever said, so I thought they were
+but words of course now. When he had said he would be gone, I used to
+wish secretly, and even say in my thoughts, I wish you would, for if you
+go on thus you will starve us all.
+
+He stayed, however, at home all that day, and lay at home that night;
+early the next morning he gets out of bed, goes to a window which looked
+out towards the stable, and sounds his French horn, as he called it,
+which was his usual signal to call his men to go out a-hunting.
+
+It was about the latter end of August, and so was light yet at five
+o'clock, and it was about that time that I heard him and his two men go
+out and shut the yard gates after them. He said nothing to me more than
+as usual when he used to go out upon his sport; neither did I rise, or
+say anything to him that was material, but went to sleep again after he
+was gone, for two hours or thereabouts.
+
+It must be a little surprising to the reader to tell him at once, that
+after this I never saw my husband more; but, to go farther, I not only
+never saw him more, but I never heard from him, or of him, neither of
+any or either of his two servants, or of the horses, either what became
+of them, where or which way they went, or what they did or intended to
+do, no more than if the ground had opened and swallowed them all up, and
+nobody had known it, except as hereafter.
+
+I was not, for the first night or two, at all surprised, no, nor very
+much the first week or two, believing that if anything evil had befallen
+them, I should soon enough have heard of that; and also knowing, that as
+he had two servants and three horses with him, it would be the strangest
+thing in the world that anything could befall them all but that I must
+some time or other hear of them.
+
+But you will easily allow, that as time ran on, a week, two weeks, a
+month, two months, and so on, I was dreadfully frighted at last, and the
+more when I looked into my own circumstances, and considered the
+condition in which I was left with five children, and not one farthing
+subsistence for them, other than about seventy pounds in money, and what
+few things of value I had about me, which, though considerable in
+themselves, were yet nothing to feed a family, and for a length of time
+too.
+
+[Illustration: THE BREWER AND HIS MEN
+
+I heard him and his two men go out and shut the yard gates after them]
+
+What to do I knew not, nor to whom to have recourse: to keep in the
+house where I was, I could not, the rent being too great; and to leave
+it without his orders, if my husband should return, I could not think of
+that neither; so that I continued extremely perplexed, melancholy, and
+discouraged to the last degree.
+
+I remained in this dejected condition near a twelvemonth. My husband had
+two sisters, who were married, and lived very well, and some other near
+relations that I knew of, and I hoped would do something for me; and I
+frequently sent to these, to know if they could give me any account of
+my vagrant creature. But they all declared to me in answer, that they
+knew nothing about him; and, after frequent sending, began to think me
+troublesome, and to let me know they thought so too, by their treating
+my maid with very slight and unhandsome returns to her inquiries.
+
+This grated hard, and added to my affliction; but I had no recourse but
+to my tears, for I had not a friend of my own left me in the world. I
+should have observed, that it was about half a year before this
+elopement of my husband that the disaster I mentioned above befell my
+brother, who broke, and that in such bad circumstances, that I had the
+mortification to hear, not only that he was in prison, but that there
+would be little or nothing to be had by way of composition.
+
+Misfortunes seldom come alone: this was the forerunner of my husband's
+flight; and as my expectations were cut off on that side, my husband
+gone, and my family of children on my hands, and nothing to subsist
+them, my condition was the most deplorable that words can express.
+
+I had some plate and some jewels, as might be supposed, my fortune and
+former circumstances considered; and my husband, who had never stayed to
+be distressed, had not been put to the necessity of rifling me, as
+husbands usually do in such cases. But as I had seen an end of all the
+ready money during the long time I had lived in a state of expectation
+for my husband, so I began to make away one thing after another, till
+those few things of value which I had began to lessen apace, and I saw
+nothing but misery and the utmost distress before me, even to have my
+children starve before my face. I leave any one that is a mother of
+children, and has lived in plenty and in good fashion, to consider and
+reflect what must be my condition. As to my husband, I had now no hope
+or expectation of seeing him any more; and indeed, if I had, he was a
+man of all the men in the world the least able to help me, or to have
+turned his hand to the gaining one shilling towards lessening our
+distress; he neither had the capacity or the inclination; he could have
+been no clerk, for he scarce wrote a legible hand; he was so far from
+being able to write sense, that he could not make sense of what others
+wrote; he was so far from understanding good English, that he could not
+spell good English; to be out of all business was his delight, and he
+would stand leaning against a post for half-an-hour together, with a
+pipe in his mouth, with all the tranquillity in the world, smoking, like
+Dryden's countryman, that whistled as he went for want of thought, and
+this even when his family was, as it were, starving, that little he had
+wasting, and that we were all bleeding to death; he not knowing, and as
+little considering, where to get another shilling when the last was
+spent.
+
+This being his temper, and the extent of his capacity, I confess I did
+not see so much loss in his parting with me as at first I thought I did;
+though it was hard and cruel to the last degree in him, not giving me
+the least notice of his design; and indeed, that which I was most
+astonished at was, that seeing he must certainly have intended this
+excursion some few moments at least before he put it in practice, yet he
+did not come and take what little stock of money we had left, or at
+least a share of it, to bear his expense for a little while; but he did
+not; and I am morally certain he had not five guineas with him in the
+world when he went away. All that I could come to the knowledge of about
+him was, that he left his hunting-horn, which he called the French horn,
+in the stable, and his hunting-saddle, went away in a handsome
+furniture, as they call it, which he used sometimes to travel with,
+having an embroidered housing, a case of pistols, and other things
+belonging to them; and one of his servants had another saddle with
+pistols, though plain, and the other a long gun; so that they did not go
+out as sportsmen, but rather as travellers; what part of the world they
+went to I never heard for many years.
+
+As I have said, I sent to his relations, but they sent me short and
+surly answers; nor did any one of them offer to come to see me, or to
+see the children, or so much as to inquire after them, well perceiving
+that I was in a condition that was likely to be soon troublesome to
+them. But it was no time now to dally with them or with the world; I
+left off sending to them, and went myself among them, laid my
+circumstances open to them, told them my whole case, and the condition I
+was reduced to, begged they would advise me what course to take, laid
+myself as low as they could desire, and entreated them to consider that
+I was not in a condition to help myself, and that without some
+assistance we must all inevitably perish. I told them that if I had had
+but one child, or two children, I would have done my endeavour to have
+worked for them with my needle, and should only have come to them to beg
+them to help me to some work, that I might get our bread by my labour;
+but to think of one single woman, not bred to work, and at a loss where
+to get employment, to get the bread of five children, that was not
+possible--some of my children being young too, and none of them big
+enough to help one another.
+
+It was all one; I received not one farthing of assistance from anybody,
+was hardly asked to sit down at the two sisters' houses, nor offered to
+eat or drink at two more near relations'. The fifth, an ancient
+gentlewoman, aunt-in-law to my husband, a widow, and the least able also
+of any of the rest, did, indeed, ask me to sit down, gave me a dinner,
+and refreshed me with a kinder treatment than any of the rest, but added
+the melancholy part, viz., that she would have helped me, but that,
+indeed, she was not able, which, however, I was satisfied was very true.
+
+Here I relieved myself with the constant assistant of the afflicted, I
+mean tears; for, relating to her how I was received by the other of my
+husband's relations, it made me burst into tears, and I cried vehemently
+for a great while together, till I made the good old gentlewoman cry too
+several times.
+
+However, I came home from them all without any relief, and went on at
+home till I was reduced to such inexpressible distress that is not to be
+described. I had been several times after this at the old aunt's, for I
+prevailed with her to promise me to go and talk with the other
+relations, at least, that, if possible, she could bring some of them to
+take off the children, or to contribute something towards their
+maintenance. And, to do her justice, she did use her endeavour with
+them; but all was to no purpose, they would do nothing, at least that
+way. I think, with much entreaty, she obtained, by a kind of collection
+among them all, about eleven or twelve shillings in money, which, though
+it was a present comfort, was yet not to be named as capable to deliver
+me from any part of the load that lay upon me.
+
+There was a poor woman that had been a kind of a dependent upon our
+family, and whom I had often, among the rest of the relations, been very
+kind to; my maid put it into my head one morning to send to this poor
+woman, and to see whether she might not be able to help in this dreadful
+case.
+
+I must remember it here, to the praise of this poor girl, my maid, that
+though I was not able to give her any wages, and had told her so--nay, I
+was not able to pay her the wages that I was in arrears to her--yet she
+would not leave me; nay, and as long as she had any money, when I had
+none, she would help me out of her own, for which, though I acknowledged
+her kindness and fidelity, yet it was but a bad coin that she was paid
+in at last, as will appear in its place.
+
+Amy (for that was her name) put it into my thoughts to send for this
+poor woman to come to me; for I was now in great distress, and I
+resolved to do so. But just the very morning that I intended it, the old
+aunt, with the poor woman in her company, came to see me; the good old
+gentlewoman was, it seems, heartily concerned for me, and had been
+talking again among those people, to see what she could do for me, but
+to very little purpose.
+
+You shall judge a little of my present distress by the posture she found
+me in. I had five little children, the eldest was under ten years old,
+and I had not one shilling in the house to buy them victuals, but had
+sent Amy out with a silver spoon to sell it, and bring home something
+from the butcher's; and I was in a parlour, sitting on the ground, with
+a great heap of old rags, linen, and other things about me, looking them
+over, to see if I had anything among them that would sell or pawn for a
+little money, and had been crying ready to burst myself, to think what I
+should do next.
+
+At this juncture they knocked at the door. I thought it had been Amy,
+so I did not rise up; but one of the children opened the door, and they
+came directly into the room where I was, and where they found me in that
+posture, and crying vehemently, as above. I was surprised at their
+coming, you may be sure, especially seeing the person I had but just
+before resolved to send for; but when they saw me, how I looked, for my
+eyes were swelled with crying, and what a condition I was in as to the
+house, and the heaps of things that were about me, and especially when I
+told them what I was doing, and on what occasion, they sat down, like
+Job's three comforters, and said not one word to me for a great while,
+but both of them cried as fast and as heartily as I did.
+
+The truth was, there was no need of much discourse in the case, the
+thing spoke itself; they saw me in rags and dirt, who was but a little
+before riding in my coach; thin, and looking almost like one starved,
+who was before fat and beautiful. The house, that was before handsomely
+furnished with pictures and ornaments, cabinets, pier-glasses, and
+everything suitable, was now stripped and naked, most of the goods
+having been seized by the landlord for rent, or sold to buy necessaries;
+in a word, all was misery and distress, the face of ruin was everywhere
+to be seen; we had eaten up almost everything, and little remained,
+unless, like one of the pitiful women of Jerusalem, I should eat up my
+very children themselves.
+
+After these two good creatures had sat, as I say, in silence some time,
+and had then looked about them, my maid Amy came in, and brought with
+her a small breast of mutton and two great bunches of turnips, which she
+intended to stew for our dinner. As for me, my heart was so overwhelmed
+at seeing these two friends--for such they were, though poor--and at
+their seeing me in such a condition, that I fell into another violent
+fit of crying, so that, in short, I could not speak to them again for a
+great while longer.
+
+During my being in such an agony, they went to my maid Amy at another
+part of the same room and talked with her. Amy told them all my
+circumstances, and set them forth in such moving terms, and so to the
+life, that I could not upon any terms have done it like her myself, and,
+in a word, affected them both with it in such a manner, that the old
+aunt came to me, and though hardly able to speak for tears, "Look ye,
+cousin," said she, in a few words, "things must not stand thus; some
+course must be taken, and that forthwith; pray, where were these
+children born?" I told her the parish where we lived before, that four
+of them were born there, and one in the house where I now was, where the
+landlord, after having seized my goods for the rent past, not then
+knowing my circumstances, had now given me leave to live for a whole
+year more without any rent, being moved with compassion; but that this
+year was now almost expired.
+
+Upon hearing this account, they came to this resolution, that the
+children should be all carried by them to the door of one of the
+relations mentioned above, and be set down there by the maid Amy, and
+that I, the mother, should remove for some days, shut up the doors, and
+be gone; that the people should be told, that if they did not think fit
+to take some care of the children, they might send for the churchwardens
+if they thought that better, for that they were born in that parish, and
+there they must be provided for; as for the other child, which was born
+in the parish of ----, that was already taken care of by the parish
+officers there, for indeed they were so sensible of the distress of the
+family that they had at first word done what was their part to do.
+
+This was what these good women proposed, and bade me leave the rest to
+them. I was at first sadly afflicted at the thoughts of parting with my
+children, and especially at that terrible thing, their being taken into
+the parish keeping; and then a hundred terrible things came into my
+thoughts, viz., of parish children being starved at nurse; of their
+being ruined, let grow crooked, lamed, and the like, for want of being
+taken care of; and this sunk my very heart within me.
+
+But the misery of my own circumstances hardened my heart against my own
+flesh and blood; and when I considered they must inevitably be starved,
+and I too if I continued to keep them about me, I began to be reconciled
+to parting with them all, anyhow and anywhere, that I might be freed
+from the dreadful necessity of seeing them all perish, and perishing
+with them myself. So I agreed to go away out of the house, and leave the
+management of the whole matter to my maid Amy and to them; and
+accordingly I did so, and the same afternoon they carried them all away
+to one of their aunts.
+
+Amy, a resolute girl, knocked at the door, with the children all with
+her, and bade the eldest, as soon as the door was open, run in, and the
+rest after her. She set them all down at the door before she knocked,
+and when she knocked she stayed till a maid-servant came to the door;
+"Sweetheart," said she, "pray go in and tell your mistress here are her
+little cousins come to see her from ----," naming the town where we
+lived, at which the maid offered to go back. "Here, child," says Amy,
+"take one of 'em in your hand, and I'll bring the rest;" so she gives
+her the least, and the wench goes in mighty innocently, with the little
+one in her hand, upon which Amy turns the rest in after her, shuts the
+door softly, and marches off as fast as she could.
+
+Just in the interval of this, and even while the maid and her mistress
+were quarrelling (for the mistress raved and scolded her like a mad
+woman, and had ordered her to go and stop the maid Amy, and turn all the
+children out of the doors again; but she had been at the door, and Amy
+was gone, and the wench was out of her wits, and the mistress too), I
+say, just at this juncture came the poor old woman, not the aunt, but
+the other of the two that had been with me, and knocks at the door: the
+aunt did not go, because she had pretended to advocate for me, and they
+would have suspected her of some contrivance; but as for the other
+woman, they did not so much as know that she had kept up any
+correspondence with me.
+
+Amy and she had concerted this between them, and it was well enough
+contrived that they did so. When she came into the house, the mistress
+was fuming, and raging like one distracted, and called the maid all the
+foolish jades and sluts that she could think of, and that she would take
+the children and turn them all out into the streets. The good poor
+woman, seeing her in such a passion, turned about as if she would be
+gone again, and said, "Madam, I'll come again another time, I see you
+are engaged." "No, no, Mrs. ----," says the mistress, "I am not much
+engaged, sit down; this senseless creature here has brought in my fool
+of a brother's whole house of children upon me, and tells me that a
+wench brought them to the door and thrust them in, and bade her carry
+them to me; but it shall be no disturbance to me, for I have ordered
+them to be set in the street without the door, and so let the
+churchwardens take care of them, or else make this dull jade carry 'em
+back to ---- again, and let her that brought them into the world look
+after them if she will; what does she send her brats to me for?"
+
+"The last indeed had been the best of the two," says the poor woman, "if
+it had been to be done; and that brings me to tell you my errand, and
+the occasion of my coming, for I came on purpose about this very
+business, and to have prevented this being put upon you if I could, but
+I see I am come too late."
+
+"How do you mean too late?" says the mistress. "What! have you been
+concerned in this affair, then? What! have you helped bring this family
+slur upon us?" "I hope you do not think such a thing of me, madam," says
+the poor woman; "but I went this morning to ----, to see my old mistress
+and benefactor, for she had been very kind to me, and when I came to the
+door I found all fast locked and bolted, and the house looking as if
+nobody was at home.
+
+"I knocked at the door, but nobody came, till at last some of the
+neighbours' servants called to me and said, 'There's nobody lives there,
+mistress; what do you knock for?' I seemed surprised at that. 'What,
+nobody lives there!' said I; 'what d'ye mean? Does not Mrs. ---- live
+there?' The answer was, 'No, she is gone;' at which I parleyed with one
+of them, and asked her what was the matter. 'Matter!' says she, 'why, it
+is matter enough: the poor gentlewoman has lived there all alone, and
+without anything to subsist her a long time, and this morning the
+landlord turned her out of doors.'
+
+"'Out of doors!' says I; 'what! with all her children? Poor lambs, what
+is become of them?' 'Why, truly, nothing worse,' said they, 'can come to
+them than staying here, for they were almost starved with hunger; so the
+neighbours, seeing the poor lady in such distress, for she stood crying
+and wringing her hands over her children like one distracted, sent for
+the churchwardens to take care of the children; and they, when they
+came, took the youngest, which was born in this parish, and have got it
+a very good nurse, and taken care of it; but as for the other four, they
+had sent them away to some of their father's relations, and who were
+very substantial people, and who, besides that, lived in the parish
+where they were born.'
+
+"I was not so surprised at this as not presently to foresee that this
+trouble would be brought upon you or upon Mr. ----; so I came immediately
+to bring word of it, that you might be prepared for it, and might not be
+surprised; but I see they have been too nimble for me, so that I know
+not what to advise. The poor woman, it seems, is turned out of doors
+into the street; and another of the neighbours there told me, that when
+they took her children from her she swooned away, and when they
+recovered her out of that, she ran distracted, and is put into a
+madhouse by the parish, for there is nobody else to take any care of
+her."
+
+This was all acted to the life by this good, kind, poor creature; for
+though her design was perfectly good and charitable, yet there was not
+one word of it true in fact; for I was not turned out of doors by the
+landlord, nor gone distracted. It was true, indeed, that at parting with
+my poor children I fainted, and was like one mad when I came to myself
+and found they were gone; but I remained in the house a good while after
+that, as you shall hear.
+
+While the poor woman was telling this dismal story, in came the
+gentlewoman's husband, and though her heart was hardened against all
+pity, who was really and nearly related to the children, for they were
+the children of her own brother, yet the good man was quite softened
+with the dismal relation of the circumstances of the family; and when
+the poor woman had done, he said to his wife, "This is a dismal case,
+my dear, indeed, and something must be done." His wife fell a-raving at
+him: "What," says she, "do you want to have four children to keep? Have
+we not children of our own? Would you have these brats come and eat up
+my children's bread? No, no, let 'em go to the parish, and let them take
+care of them; I'll take care of my own."
+
+"Come, come, my dear," says the husband, "charity is a duty to the poor,
+and he that gives to the poor lends to the Lord; let us lend our
+heavenly Father a little of our children's bread, as you call it; it
+will be a store well laid up for them, and will be the best security
+that our children shall never come to want charity, or be turned out of
+doors, as these poor innocent creatures are." "Don't tell me of
+security," says the wife, "'tis a good security for our children to keep
+what we have together, and provide for them, and then 'tis time enough
+to help keep other folks' children. Charity begins at home."
+
+"Well, my dear," says he again, "I only talk of putting out a little
+money to interest: our Maker is a good borrower; never fear making a bad
+debt there, child, I'll be bound for it."
+
+"Don't banter me with your charity and your allegories," says the wife
+angrily; "I tell you they are my relations, not yours, and they shall
+not roost here; they shall go to the parish."
+
+"All your relations are my relations now," says the good gentleman very
+calmly, "and I won't see your relations in distress, and not pity them,
+any more than I would my own; indeed, my dear, they shan't go to the
+parish. I assure you, none of my wife's relations shall come to the
+parish, if I can help it."
+
+"What! will you take four children to keep?" says the wife.
+
+"No, no, my dear," says he, "there's your sister ----, I'll go and talk
+with her; and your uncle ----, I'll send for him, and the rest. I'll
+warrant you, when we are all together, we will find ways and means to
+keep four poor little creatures from beggary and starving, or else it
+would be very hard; we are none of us in so bad circumstances but we are
+able to spare a mite for the fatherless. Don't shut up your bowels of
+compassion against your own flesh and blood. Could you hear these poor
+innocent children cry at your door for hunger, and give them no bread?"
+
+"Prithee, what need they cry at our door?" says she. "'Tis the business
+of the parish to provide for them; they shan't cry at our door. If they
+do, I'll give them nothing." "Won't you?" says he; "but I will. Remember
+that dreadful Scripture is directly against us, Prov. xxi. 13, 'Whoso
+stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but
+shall not be heard.'"
+
+"Well, well," says she, "you must do what you will, because you pretend
+to be master; but if I had my will I would send them where they ought to
+be sent: I would send them from whence they came."
+
+Then the poor woman put in, and said, "But, madam, that is sending them
+to starve indeed, for the parish has no obligation to take care of 'em,
+and so they will lie and perish in the street."
+
+"Or be sent back again," says the husband, "to our parish in a
+cripple-cart, by the justice's warrant, and so expose us and all the
+relations to the last degree among our neighbours, and among those who
+know the good old gentleman their grandfather, who lived and flourished
+in this parish so many years, and was so well beloved among all people,
+and deserved it so well."
+
+"I don't value that one farthing, not I," says the wife; "I'll keep none
+of them."
+
+"Well, my dear," says her husband, "but I value it, for I won't have
+such a blot lie upon the family, and upon your children; he was a
+worthy, ancient, and good man, and his name is respected among all his
+neighbours; it will be a reproach to you, that are his daughter, and to
+our children, that are his grandchildren, that we should let your
+brother's children perish, or come to be a charge to the public, in the
+very place where your family once flourished. Come, say no more; I will
+see what can be done."
+
+Upon this he sends and gathers all the relations together at a tavern
+hard by, and sent for the four little children, that they might see
+them; and they all, at first word, agreed to have them taken care of,
+and, because his wife was so furious that she would not suffer one of
+them to be kept at home, they agreed to keep them all together for a
+while; so they committed them to the poor woman that had managed the
+affair for them, and entered into obligations to one another to supply
+the needful sums for their maintenance; and, not to have one separated
+from the rest, they sent for the youngest from the parish where it was
+taken in, and had them all brought up together.
+
+It would take up too long a part of this story to give a particular
+account with what a charitable tenderness this good person, who was but
+an uncle-in-law to them, managed that affair; how careful he was of
+them; went constantly to see them, and to see that they were well
+provided for, clothed, put to school, and, at last, put out in the world
+for their advantage; but it is enough to say he acted more like a father
+to them than an uncle-in-law, though all along much against his wife's
+consent, who was of a disposition not so tender and compassionate as
+her husband.
+
+You may believe I heard this with the same pleasure which I now feel at
+the relating it again; for I was terribly affrighted at the
+apprehensions of my children being brought to misery and distress, as
+those must be who have no friends, but are left to parish benevolence.
+
+I was now, however, entering on a new scene of life. I had a great house
+upon my hands, and some furniture left in it; but I was no more able to
+maintain myself and my maid Amy in it than I was my five children; nor
+had I anything to subsist with but what I might get by working, and that
+was not a town where much work was to be had.
+
+My landlord had been very kind indeed after he came to know my
+circumstances; though, before he was acquainted with that part, he had
+gone so far as to seize my goods, and to carry some of them off too.
+
+But I had lived three-quarters of a year in his house after that, and
+had paid him no rent, and, which was worse, I was in no condition to pay
+him any. However, I observed he came oftener to see me, looked kinder
+upon me, and spoke more friendly to me, than he used to do, particularly
+the last two or three times he had been there. He observed, he said, how
+poorly I lived, how low I was reduced, and the like; told me it grieved
+him for my sake; and the last time of all he was kinder still, told me
+he came to dine with me, and that I should give him leave to treat me;
+so he called my maid Amy, and sent her out to buy a joint of meat; he
+told her what she should buy; but naming two or three things, either of
+which she might take, the maid, a cunning wench, and faithful to me as
+the skin to my back, did not buy anything outright, but brought the
+butcher along with her, with both the things that she had chosen, for
+him to please himself. The one was a large, very good leg of veal; the
+other a piece of the fore-ribs of roasting beef. He looked at them, but
+made me chaffer with the butcher for him, and I did so, and came back to
+him and told him what the butcher had demanded for either of them, and
+what each of them came to. So he pulls out eleven shillings and
+threepence, which they came to together, and bade me take them both; the
+rest, he said, would serve another time.
+
+I was surprised, you may be sure, at the bounty of a man that had but a
+little while ago been my terror, and had torn the goods out of my house
+like a fury; but I considered that my distresses had mollified his
+temper, and that he had afterwards been so compassionate as to give me
+leave to live rent free in the house a whole year.
+
+But now he put on the face, not of a man of compassion only, but of a
+man of friendship and kindness, and this was so unexpected that it was
+surprising. We chatted together, and were, as I may call it, cheerful,
+which was more than I could say I had been for three years before. He
+sent for wine and beer too, for I had none; poor Amy and I had drank
+nothing but water for many weeks, and indeed I have often wondered at
+the faithful temper of the poor girl, for which I but ill requited her
+at last.
+
+When Amy was come with the wine, he made her fill a glass to him, and
+with the glass in his hand he came to me and kissed me, which I was, I
+confess, a little surprised at, but more at what followed; for he told
+me, that as the sad condition which I was reduced to had made him pity
+me, so my conduct in it, and the courage I bore it with, had given him a
+more than ordinary respect for me, and made him very thoughtful for my
+good; that he was resolved for the present to do something to relieve
+me, and to employ his thoughts in the meantime, to see if he could for
+the future put me into a way to support myself.
+
+While he found me change colour, and look surprised at his discourse,
+for so I did, to be sure, he turns to my maid Amy, and looking at her,
+he says to me, "I say all this, madam, before your maid, because both
+she and you shall know that I have no ill design, and that I have, in
+mere kindness, resolved to do something for you if I can; and as I have
+been a witness of the uncommon honesty and fidelity of Mrs. Amy here to
+you in all your distresses, I know she may be trusted with so honest a
+design as mine is; for I assure you, I bear a proportioned regard to
+your maid too, for her affection to you."
+
+Amy made him a curtsey, and the poor girl looked so confounded with joy
+that she could not speak, but her colour came and went, and every now
+and then she blushed as red as scarlet, and the next minute looked as
+pale as death. Well, having said this, he sat down, made me sit down,
+and then drank to me, and made me drink two glasses of wine together;
+"For," says he, "you have need of it;" and so indeed I had. When he had
+done so, "Come, Amy," says he, "with your mistress's leave, you shall
+have a glass too." So he made her drink two glasses also; and then
+rising up, "And now, Amy," says he, "go and get dinner; and you, madam,"
+says he to me, "go up and dress you, and come down and smile and be
+merry;" adding, "I'll make you easy if I can;" and in the meantime, he
+said, he would walk in the garden.
+
+When he was gone, Amy changed her countenance indeed, and looked as
+merry as ever she did in her life. "Dear madam," says she, "what does
+this gentleman mean?" "Nay, Amy," said I, "he means to do us good, you
+see, don't he? I know no other meaning he can have, for he can get
+nothing by me." "I warrant you, madam," says she, "he'll ask you a
+favour by-and-by." "No, no, you are mistaken, Amy, I dare say," said I;
+"you have heard what he said, didn't you?" "Ay," says Amy, "it's no
+matter for that, you shall see what he will do after dinner." "Well,
+well, Amy," says I, "you have hard thoughts of him. I cannot be of your
+opinion: I don't see anything in him yet that looks like it." "As to
+that, madam," says Amy, "I don't see anything of it yet neither; but
+what should move a gentleman to take pity of us as he does?" "Nay," says
+I, "that's a hard thing too, that we should judge a man to be wicked
+because he's charitable, and vicious because he's kind." "Oh, madam,"
+says Amy, "there's abundance of charity begins in that vice; and he is
+not so unacquainted with things as not to know that poverty is the
+strongest incentive--a temptation against which no virtue is powerful
+enough to stand out. He knows your condition as well as you do." "Well,
+and what then?" "Why, then, he knows too that you are young and
+handsome, and he has the surest bait in the world to take you with."
+
+"Well, Amy," said I, "but he may find himself mistaken too in such a
+thing as that." "Why, madam," says Amy, "I hope you won't deny him if he
+should offer it."
+
+"What d'ye mean by that, hussy?" said I. "No, I'd starve first."
+
+"I hope not, madam, I hope you would be wiser; I'm sure if he will set
+you up, as he talks of, you ought to deny him nothing; and you will
+starve if you do not consent, that's certain."
+
+"What! consent to lie with him for bread? Amy," said I, "how can you
+talk so!"
+
+"Nay, madam," says Amy, "I don't think you would for anything else; it
+would not be lawful for anything else, but for bread, madam; why, nobody
+can starve, there's no bearing that, I'm sure."
+
+"Ay," says I, "but if he would give me an estate to live on, he should
+not lie with me, I assure you."
+
+"Why, look you, madam; if he would but give you enough to live easy
+upon, he should lie with me for it with all my heart."
+
+"That's a token, Amy, of inimitable kindness to me," said I, "and I know
+how to value it; but there's more friendship than honesty in it, Amy."
+
+"Oh, madam," says Amy, "I'd do anything to get you out of this sad
+condition; as to honesty, I think honesty is out of the question when
+starving is the case. Are not we almost starved to death?"
+
+"I am indeed," said I, "and thou art for my sake; but to be a whore,
+Amy!" and there I stopped.
+
+"Dear madam," says Amy, "if I will starve for your sake, I will be a
+whore or anything for your sake; why, I would die for you if I were put
+to it."
+
+"Why, that's an excess of affection, Amy," said I, "I never met with
+before; I wish I may be ever in condition to make you some returns
+suitable. But, however, Amy, you shall not be a whore to him, to oblige
+him to be kind to me; no, Amy, nor I won't be a whore to him, if he
+would give me much more than he is able to give me or do for me."
+
+"Why, madam," says Amy, "I don't say I will go and ask him; but I say,
+if he should promise to do so and so for you, and the condition was such
+that he would not serve you unless I would let him lie with me, he
+should lie with me as often as he would, rather than you should not have
+his assistance. But this is but talk, madam; I don't see any need of
+such discourse, and you are of opinion that there will be no need of
+it."
+
+"Indeed so I am, Amy; but," said I, "if there was, I tell you again, I'd
+die before I would consent, or before you should consent for my sake."
+
+Hitherto I had not only preserved the virtue itself, but the virtuous
+inclination and resolution; and had I kept myself there I had been
+happy, though I had perished of mere hunger; for, without question, a
+woman ought rather to die than to prostitute her virtue and honour, let
+the temptation be what it will.
+
+But to return to my story; he walked about the garden, which was,
+indeed, all in disorder, and overrun with weeds, because I had not been
+able to hire a gardener to do anything to it, no, not so much as to dig
+up ground enough to sow a few turnips and carrots for family use. After
+he had viewed it, he came in, and sent Amy to fetch a poor man, a
+gardener, that used to help our man-servant, and carried him into the
+garden, and ordered him to do several things in it, to put it into a
+little order; and this took him up near an hour.
+
+By this time I had dressed me as well as I could; for though I had good
+linen left still, yet I had but a poor head-dress, and no knots, but old
+fragments; no necklace, no earrings; all those things were gone long ago
+for mere bread.
+
+However, I was tight and clean, and in better plight than he had seen me
+in a great while, and he looked extremely pleased to see me so; for, he
+said, I looked so disconsolate and so afflicted before, that it grieved
+him to see me; and he bade me pluck up a good heart, for he hoped to put
+me in a condition to live in the world, and be beholden to nobody.
+
+I told him that was impossible, for I must be beholden to him for it,
+for all the friends I had in the world would not or could not do so much
+for me as that he spoke of "Well, widow," says he (so he called me, and
+so indeed I was in the worst sense that desolate word could be used
+in), "if you are beholden to me, you shall be beholden to nobody else."
+
+By this time dinner was ready, and Amy came in to lay the cloth, and
+indeed it was happy there was none to dine but he and I, for I had but
+six plates left in the house, and but two dishes; however, he knew how
+things were, and bade me make no scruple about bringing out what I had.
+He hoped to see me in a better plight. He did not come, he said, to be
+entertained, but to entertain me, and comfort and encourage me. Thus he
+went on, speaking so cheerfully to me, and such cheerful things, that it
+was a cordial to my very soul to hear him speak.
+
+Well, we went to dinner. I'm sure I had not ate a good meal hardly in a
+twelvemonth, at least not of such a joint of meat as the loin of veal
+was. I ate, indeed, very heartily, and so did he, and he made me drink
+three or four glasses of wine; so that, in short, my spirits were lifted
+up to a degree I had not been used to, and I was not only cheerful, but
+merry; and so he pressed me to be.
+
+I told him I had a great deal of reason to be merry, seeing he had been
+so kind to me, and had given me hopes of recovering me from the worst
+circumstances that ever woman of any sort of fortune was sunk into; that
+he could not but believe that what he had said to me was like life from
+the dead; that it was like recovering one sick from the brink of the
+grave; how I should ever make him a return any way suitable was what I
+had not yet had time to think of; I could only say that I should never
+forget it while I had life, and should be always ready to acknowledge
+it.
+
+He said that was all he desired of me; that his reward would be the
+satisfaction of having rescued me from misery; that he found he was
+obliging one that knew what gratitude meant; that he would make it his
+business to make me completely easy, first or last, if it lay in his
+power; and in the meantime he bade me consider of anything that I
+thought he might do for me, for my advantage, and in order to make me
+perfectly easy.
+
+After we had talked thus, he bade me be cheerful. "Come," says he, "lay
+aside these melancholy things, and let us be merry." Amy waited at the
+table, and she smiled and laughed, and was so merry she could hardly
+contain it, for the girl loved me to an excess hardly to be described;
+and it was such an unexpected thing to hear any one talk to her
+mistress, that the wench was beside herself almost, and, as soon as
+dinner was over, Amy went upstairs, and put on her best clothes too, and
+came down dressed like a gentlewoman.
+
+We sat together talking of a thousand things--of what had been, and what
+was to be--all the rest of the day, and in the evening he took his
+leave of me, with a thousand expressions of kindness and tenderness and
+true affection to me, but offered not the least of what my maid Amy had
+suggested.
+
+At his going away he took me in his arms, protested an honest kindness
+to me; said a thousand kind things to me, which I cannot now recollect;
+and, after kissing me twenty times or thereabouts, put a guinea into my
+hand, which, he said, was for my present supply, and told me that he
+would see me again before it was out; also he gave Amy half-a-crown.
+
+When he was gone, "Well, Amy," said I, "are you convinced now that he is
+an honest as well as a true friend, and that there has been nothing, not
+the least appearance of anything, of what you imagined in his
+behaviour?" "Yes," says Amy, "I am, but I admire at it. He is such a
+friend as the world, sure, has not abundance of to show."
+
+"I am sure," says I, "he is such a friend as I have long wanted, and as
+I have as much need of as any creature in the world has or ever had."
+And, in short, I was so overcome with the comfort of it that I sat down
+and cried for joy a good while, as I had formerly cried for sorrow. Amy
+and I went to bed that night (for Amy lay with me) pretty early, but lay
+chatting almost all night about it, and the girl was so transported that
+she got up two or three times in the night and danced about the room in
+her shift; in short, the girl was half distracted with the joy of it; a
+testimony still of her violent affection for her mistress, in which no
+servant ever went beyond her.
+
+We heard no more of him for two days, but the third day he came again;
+then he told me, with the same kindness, that he had ordered me a supply
+of household goods for the furnishing the house; that, in particular, he
+had sent me back all the goods that he had seized for rent, which
+consisted, indeed, of the best of my former furniture. "And now," says
+he, "I'll tell you what I have had in my head for you for your present
+supply, and that is," says he, "that the house being well furnished, you
+shall let it out to lodgings for the summer gentry," says he, "by which
+you will easily get a good comfortable subsistence, especially seeing
+you shall pay me no rent for two years, nor after neither, unless you
+can afford it."
+
+This was the first view I had of living comfortably indeed, and it was a
+very probable way, I must confess, seeing we had very good conveniences,
+six rooms on a floor, and three stories high. While he was laying down
+the scheme of my management, came a cart to the door with a load of
+goods, and an upholsterer's man to put them up. They were chiefly the
+furniture of two rooms which he had carried away for his two years'
+rent, with two fine cabinets, and some pier-glasses out of the parlour,
+and several other valuable things.
+
+These were all restored to their places, and he told me he gave them me
+freely, as a satisfaction for the cruelty he had used me with before;
+and the furniture of one room being finished and set up, he told me he
+would furnish one chamber for himself, and would come and be one of my
+lodgers, if I would give him leave.
+
+I told him he ought not to ask me leave, who had so much right to make
+himself welcome. So the house began to look in some tolerable figure,
+and clean; the garden also, in about a fortnight's work, began to look
+something less like a wilderness than it used to do; and he ordered me
+to put up a bill for letting rooms, reserving one for himself, to come
+to as he saw occasion.
+
+When all was done to his mind, as to placing the goods, he seemed very
+well pleased, and we dined together again of his own providing; and the
+upholsterer's man gone, after dinner he took me by the hand. "Come now,
+madam," says he, "you must show me your house" (for he had a mind to see
+everything over again). "No, sir," said I; "but I'll go show you your
+house, if you please;" so we went up through all the rooms, and in the
+room which was appointed for himself Amy was doing something. "Well,
+Amy," says he, "I intend to lie with you to-morrow night." "To-night if
+you please, sir," says Amy very innocently; "your room is quite ready."
+"Well, Amy," says he, "I am glad you are so willing." "No," says Amy, "I
+mean your chamber is ready to-night," and away she run out of the room,
+ashamed enough; for the girl meant no harm, whatever she had said to me
+in private.
+
+However, he said no more then; but when Amy was gone he walked about the
+room, and looked at everything, and taking me by the hand he kissed me,
+and spoke a great many kind, affectionate things to me indeed; as of his
+measures for my advantage, and what he would do to raise me again in the
+world; told me that my afflictions and the conduct I had shown in
+bearing them to such an extremity, had so engaged him to me that he
+valued me infinitely above all the women in the world; that though he
+was under such engagements that he could not marry me (his wife and he
+had been parted for some reasons, which make too long a story to
+intermix with mine), yet that he would be everything else that a woman
+could ask in a husband; and with that he kissed me again, and took me in
+his arms, but offered not the least uncivil action to me, and told me he
+hoped I would not deny him all the favours he should ask, because he
+resolved to ask nothing of me but what it was fit for a woman of virtue
+and modesty, for such he knew me to be, to yield.
+
+I confess the terrible pressure of my former misery, the memory of which
+lay heavy upon my mind, and the surprising kindness with which he had
+delivered me, and, withal, the expectations of what he might still do
+for me, were powerful things, and made me have scarce the power to deny
+him anything he would ask. However, I told him thus, with an air of
+tenderness too, that he had done so much for me that I thought I ought
+to deny him nothing; only I hoped and depended upon him that he would
+not take the advantage of the infinite obligations I was under to him,
+to desire anything of me the yielding to which would lay me lower in his
+esteem than I desired to be; that as I took him to be a man of honour,
+so I knew he could not like me better for doing anything that was below
+a woman of honesty and good manners to do.
+
+He told me that he had done all this for me, without so much as telling
+me what kindness or real affection he had for me, that I might not be
+under any necessity of yielding to him in anything for want of bread;
+and he would no more oppress my gratitude now than he would my necessity
+before, nor ask anything, supposing he would stop his favours or
+withdraw his kindness, if he was denied; it was true, he said, he might
+tell me more freely his mind now than before, seeing I had let him see
+that I accepted his assistance, and saw that he was sincere in his
+design of serving me; that he had gone thus far to show me that he was
+kind to me, but that now he would tell me that he loved me, and yet
+would demonstrate that his love was both honourable, and that what he
+should desire was what he might honestly ask and I might honestly grant.
+
+I answered that, within those two limitations, I was sure I ought to
+deny him nothing, and I should think myself not ungrateful only, but
+very unjust, if I should; so he said no more, but I observed he kissed
+me more, and took me in his arms in a kind of familiar way, more than
+usual, and which once or twice put me in mind of my maid Amy's words;
+and yet, I must acknowledge, I was so overcome with his goodness to me
+in those many kind things he had done that I not only was easy at what
+he did and made no resistance, but was inclined to do the like, whatever
+he had offered to do. But he went no farther than what I have said, nor
+did he offer so much as to sit down on the bedside with me, but took his
+leave, said he loved me tenderly, and would convince me of it by such
+demonstrations as should be to my satisfaction. I told him I had a great
+deal of reason to believe him, that he was full master of the whole
+house and of me, as far as was within the bounds we had spoken of, which
+I believe he would not break, and asked him if he would not lodge there
+that night.
+
+He said he could not well stay that night, business requiring him in
+London, but added, smiling, that he would come the next day and take a
+night's lodging with me. I pressed him to stay that night, and told him
+I should be glad a friend so valuable should be under the same roof with
+me; and indeed I began at that time not only to be much obliged to him,
+but to love him too, and that in a manner that I had not been acquainted
+with myself.
+
+Oh! let no woman slight the temptation that being generously delivered
+from trouble is to any spirit furnished with gratitude and just
+principles. This gentleman had freely and voluntarily delivered me from
+misery, from poverty, and rags; he had made me what I was, and put me
+into a way to be even more than I ever was, namely, to live happy and
+pleased, and on his bounty I depended. What could I say to this
+gentleman when he pressed me to yield to him, and argued the lawfulness
+of it? But of that in its place.
+
+I pressed him again to stay that night, and told him it was the first
+completely happy night that I had ever had in the house in my life, and
+I should be very sorry to have it be without his company, who was the
+cause and foundation of it all; that we would be innocently merry, but
+that it could never be without him; and, in short, I courted him so,
+that he said he could not deny me, but he would take his horse and go
+to London, do the business he had to do, which, it seems, was to pay a
+foreign bill that was due that night, and would else be protested, and
+that he would come back in three hours at farthest, and sup with me; but
+bade me get nothing there, for since I was resolved to be merry, which
+was what he desired above all things, he would send me something from
+London. "And we will make it a wedding supper, my dear," says he; and
+with that word took me in his arms, and kissed me so vehemently that I
+made no question but he intended to do everything else that Amy had
+talked of.
+
+I started a little at the word wedding. "What do ye mean, to call it by
+such a name?" says I; adding, "We will have a supper, but t'other is
+impossible, as well on your side as mine." He laughed. "Well," says he,
+"you shall call it what you will, but it may be the same thing, for I
+shall satisfy you it is not so impossible as you make it."
+
+"I don't understand you," said I. "Have not I a husband and you a wife?"
+
+"Well, well," says he, "we will talk of that after supper;" so he rose
+up, gave me another kiss, and took his horse for London.
+
+This kind of discourse had fired my blood, I confess, and I knew not
+what to think of it. It was plain now that he intended to lie with me,
+but how he would reconcile it to a legal thing, like a marriage, that I
+could not imagine. We had both of us used Amy with so much intimacy, and
+trusted her with everything, having such unexampled instances of her
+fidelity, that he made no scruple to kiss me and say all these things to
+me before her; nor had he cared one farthing, if I would have let him
+lie with me, to have had Amy there too all night. When he was gone,
+"Well, Amy," says I, "what will all this come to now? I am all in a
+sweat at him." "Come to, madam?" says Amy. "I see what it will come to;
+I must put you to bed to-night together." "Why, you would not be so
+impudent, you jade you," says I, "would you?" "Yes, I would," says she,
+"with all my heart, and think you both as honest as ever you were in
+your lives."
+
+"What ails the slut to talk so?" said I. "Honest! How can it be honest?"
+"Why, I'll tell you, madam," says Amy; "I sounded it as soon as I heard
+him speak, and it is very true too; he calls you widow, and such indeed
+you are; for, as my master has left you so many years, he is dead, to be
+sure; at least he is dead to you; he is no husband. You are, and ought
+to be, free to marry who you will; and his wife being gone from him, and
+refusing to lie with him, then he is a single man again as much as ever;
+and though you cannot bring the laws of the land to join you together,
+yet, one refusing to do the office of a wife, and the other of a
+husband, you may certainly take one another fairly."
+
+"Nay, Amy," says I, "if I could take him fairly, you may be sure I'd
+take him above all the men in the world; it turned the very heart within
+me when I heard him say he loved me. How could it be otherwise, when you
+know what a condition I was in before, despised and trampled on by all
+the world? I could have took him in my arms and kissed him as freely as
+he did me, if it had not been for shame."
+
+"Ay, and all the rest too," says Amy, "at the first word. I don't see
+how you can think of denying him anything. Has he not brought you out of
+the devil's clutches, brought you out of the blackest misery that ever
+poor lady was reduced to? Can a woman deny such a man anything?"
+
+"Nay, I don't know what to do, Amy," says I. "I hope he won't desire
+anything of that kind of me; I hope he won't attempt it. If he does, I
+know not what to say to him."
+
+"Not ask you!" says Amy. "Depend upon it, he will ask you, and you will
+grant it too. I am sure my mistress is no fool. Come, pray, madam, let
+me go air you a clean shift; don't let him find you in foul linen the
+wedding-night."
+
+"But that I know you to be a very honest girl, Amy," says I, "you would
+make me abhor you. Why, you argue for the devil, as if you were one of
+his privy councillors."
+
+"It's no matter for that, madam, I say nothing but what I think. You own
+you love this gentleman, and he has given you sufficient testimony of
+his affection to you; your conditions are alike unhappy, and he is of
+opinion that he may take another woman, his first wife having broke her
+honour, and living from him; and that though the laws of the land will
+not allow him to marry formally, yet that he may take another woman into
+his arms, provided he keeps true to the other woman as a wife; nay, he
+says it is usual to do so, and allowed by the custom of the place, in
+several countries abroad. And, I must own, I am of the same mind; else
+it is in the power of a whore, after she has jilted and abandoned her
+husband, to confine him from the pleasure as well as convenience of a
+woman all the days of his life, which would be very unreasonable, and,
+as times go, not tolerable to all people; and the like on your side,
+madam."
+
+Had I now had my senses about me, and had my reason not been overcome by
+the powerful attraction of so kind, so beneficent a friend; had I
+consulted conscience and virtue, I should have repelled this Amy,
+however faithful and honest to me in other things, as a viper and engine
+of the devil. I ought to have remembered that neither he or I, either
+by the laws of God or man, could come together upon any other terms
+than that of notorious adultery. The ignorant jade's argument, that he
+had brought me out of the hands of the devil, by which she meant the
+devil of poverty and distress, should have been a powerful motive to me
+not to plunge myself into the jaws of hell, and into the power of the
+real devil, in recompense for that deliverance. I should have looked
+upon all the good this man had done for me to have been the particular
+work of the goodness of Heaven, and that goodness should have moved me
+to a return of duty and humble obedience. I should have received the
+mercy thankfully, and applied it soberly, to the praise and honour of my
+Maker; whereas, by this wicked course, all the bounty and kindness of
+this gentleman became a snare to me, was a mere bait to the devil's
+hook; I received his kindness at the dear expense of body and soul,
+mortgaging faith, religion, conscience, and modesty for (as I may call
+it) a morsel of bread; or, if you will, ruined my soul from a principle
+of gratitude, and gave myself up to the devil, to show myself grateful
+to my benefactor. I must do the gentleman that justice as to say I
+verily believe that he did nothing but what he thought was lawful; and I
+must do that justice upon myself as to say I did what my own conscience
+convinced me, at the very time I did it, was horribly unlawful,
+scandalous, and abominable.
+
+But poverty was my snare; dreadful poverty! The misery I had been in was
+great, such as would make the heart tremble at the apprehensions of its
+return; and I might appeal to any that has had any experience of the
+world, whether one so entirely destitute as I was of all manner of all
+helps or friends, either to support me or to assist me to support
+myself, could withstand the proposal; not that I plead this as a
+justification of my conduct, but that it may move the pity even of those
+that abhor the crime.
+
+Besides this, I was young, handsome, and, with all the mortifications I
+had met with, was vain, and that not a little; and, as it was a new
+thing, so it was a pleasant thing to be courted, caressed, embraced, and
+high professions of affection made to me, by a man so agreeable and so
+able to do me good.
+
+Add to this, that if I had ventured to disoblige this gentleman, I had
+no friend in the world to have recourse to; I had no prospect--no, not
+of a bit of bread; I had nothing before me but to fall back into the
+same misery that I had been in before.
+
+Amy had but too much rhetoric in this cause; she represented all those
+things in their proper colours; she argued them all with her utmost
+skill; and at last the merry jade, when she came to dress me, "Look ye,
+madam," said she, "if you won't consent, tell him you will do as Rachel
+did to Jacob, when she could have no children--put her maid to bed to
+him; tell him you cannot comply with him, but there's Amy, he may ask
+her the question; she has promised me she won't deny you."
+
+"And would you have me say so, Amy?" said I.
+
+"No, madam; but I would really have you do so. Besides, you are undone
+if you do not; and if my doing it would save you from being undone, as I
+said before, he shall, if he will; if he asks me, I won't deny him, not
+I; hang me if I do," says Amy.
+
+"Well, I know not what to do," says I to Amy.
+
+"Do!" says Amy. "Your choice is fair and plain. Here you may have a
+handsome, charming gentleman, be rich, live pleasantly and in plenty, or
+refuse him, and want a dinner, go in rags, live in tears; in short, beg
+and starve. You know this is the case, madam," says Amy. "I wonder how
+you can say you know not what to do."
+
+"Well, Amy," says I, "the case is as you say, and I think verily I must
+yield to him; but then," said I, moved by conscience, "don't talk any
+more of your cant of its being lawful that I ought to marry again, and
+that he ought to marry again, and such stuff as that; 'tis all
+nonsense," says I, "Amy, there's nothing in it; let me hear no more of
+that, for if I yield, 'tis in vain to mince the matter, I am a whore,
+Amy; neither better nor worse, I assure you."
+
+"I don't think so, madam, by no means," says Amy. "I wonder how you can
+talk so;" and then she run on with her argument of the unreasonableness
+that a woman should be obliged to live single, or a man to live single,
+in such cases as before. "Well, Amy," said I, "come, let us dispute no
+more, for the longer I enter into that part, the greater my scruples
+will be; but if I let it alone, the necessity of my present
+circumstances is such that I believe I shall yield to him, if he should
+importune me much about it; but I should be glad he would not do it at
+all, but leave me as I am."
+
+"As to that, madam, you may depend," says Amy, "he expects to have you
+for his bedfellow to-night. I saw it plainly in his management all day;
+and at last he told you so too, as plain, I think, as he could." "Well,
+well, Amy," said I, "I don't know what to say; if he will he must, I
+think; I don't know how to resist such a man, that has done so much for
+me." "I don't know how you should," says Amy.
+
+Thus Amy and I canvassed the business between us; the jade prompted the
+crime which I had but too much inclination to commit, that is to say,
+not as a crime, for I had nothing of the vice in my constitution; my
+spirits were far from being high, my blood had no fire in it to kindle
+the flame of desire; but the kindness and good humour of the man and
+the dread of my own circumstances concurred to bring me to the point,
+and I even resolved, before he asked, to give up my virtue to him
+whenever he should put it to the question.
+
+In this I was a double offender, whatever he was, for I was resolved to
+commit the crime, knowing and owning it to be a crime; he, if it was
+true as he said, was fully persuaded it was lawful, and in that
+persuasion he took the measures and used all the circumlocutions which I
+am going to speak of.
+
+About two hours after he was gone, came a Leadenhall basket-woman, with
+a whole load of good things for the mouth (the particulars are not to
+the purpose), and brought orders to get supper by eight o'clock.
+However, I did not intend to begin to dress anything till I saw him; and
+he gave me time enough, for he came before seven, so that Amy, who had
+gotten one to help her, got everything ready in time.
+
+We sat down to supper about eight, and were indeed very merry. Amy made
+us some sport, for she was a girl of spirit and wit, and with her talk
+she made us laugh very often, and yet the jade managed her wit with all
+the good manners imaginable.
+
+But to shorten the story. After supper he took me up into his chamber,
+where Amy had made a good fire, and there he pulled out a great many
+papers, and spread them upon a little table, and then took me by the
+hand, and after kissing me very much, he entered into a discourse of his
+circumstances and of mine, how they agreed in several things exactly;
+for example, that I was abandoned of a husband in the prime of my youth
+and vigour, and he of a wife in his middle age; how the end of marriage
+was destroyed by the treatment we had either of us received, and it
+would be very hard that we should be tied by the formality of the
+contract where the essence of it was destroyed. I interrupted him, and
+told him there was a vast difference between our circumstances, and that
+in the most essential part, namely, that he was rich, and I was poor;
+that he was above the world, and I infinitely below it; that his
+circumstances were very easy, mine miserable, and this was an inequality
+the most essential that could be imagined. "As to that, my dear," says
+he, "I have taken such measures as shall make an equality still;" and
+with that he showed me a contract in writing, wherein he engaged himself
+to me to cohabit constantly with me, to provide for me in all respects
+as a wife, and repeating in the preamble a long account of the nature
+and reason of our living together, and an obligation in the penalty of
+£7000 never to abandon me; and at last showed me a bond for £500, to be
+paid to me, or to my assigns, within three months after his death.
+
+He read over all these things to me, and then, in a most moving,
+affectionate manner, and in words not to be answered, he said, "Now, my
+dear, is this not sufficient? Can you object anything against it? If
+not, as I believe you will not, then let us debate this matter no
+longer." With that he pulled out a silk purse, which had threescore
+guineas in it, and threw them into my lap, and concluded all the rest of
+his discourse with kisses and protestations of his love, of which indeed
+I had abundant proof.
+
+Pity human frailty, you that read of a woman reduced in her youth and
+prime to the utmost misery and distress, and raised again, as above, by
+the unexpected and surprising bounty of a stranger; I say, pity her if
+she was not able, after all these things, to make any more resistance.
+
+However, I stood out a little longer still. I asked him how he could
+expect that I could come into a proposal of such consequence the very
+first time it was moved to me; and that I ought, if I consented to it,
+to capitulate with him that he should never upbraid me with easiness and
+consenting too soon. He said no; but, on the contrary, he would take it
+as a mark of the greatest kindness I could show him. Then he went on to
+give reasons why there was no occasion to use the ordinary ceremony of
+delay, or to wait a reasonable time of courtship, which was only to
+avoid scandal; but, as this was private, it had nothing of that nature
+in it; that he had been courting me some time by the best of courtship,
+viz., doing acts of kindness to me; and that he had given testimonies of
+his sincere affection to me by deeds, not by flattering trifles and the
+usual courtship of words, which were often found to have very little
+meaning; that he took me, not as a mistress, but as his wife, and
+protested it was clear to him he might lawfully do it, and that I was
+perfectly at liberty, and assured me, by all that it was possible for an
+honest man to say, that he would treat me as his wife as long as he
+lived. In a word, he conquered all the little resistance I intended to
+make; he protested he loved me above all the world, and begged I would
+for once believe him; that he had never deceived me, and never would,
+but would make it his study to make my life comfortable and happy, and
+to make me forget the misery I had gone through. I stood still a while,
+and said nothing; but seeing him eager for my answer, I smiled, and
+looking up at him, "And must I, then," says I, "say yes at first asking?
+Must I depend upon your promise? Why, then," said I, "upon the faith of
+that promise, and in the sense of that inexpressible kindness you have
+shown me, you shall be obliged, and I will be wholly yours to the end of
+my life;" and with that I took his hand, which held me by the hand, and
+gave it a kiss.
+
+And thus, in gratitude for the favours I received from a man, was all
+sense of religion and duty to God, all regard to virtue and honour,
+given up at once, and we were to call one another man and wife, who, in
+the sense of the laws both of God and our country, were no more than two
+adulterers; in short, a whore and a rogue. Nor, as I have said above,
+was my conscience silent in it, though it seems his was; for I sinned
+with open eyes, and thereby had a double guilt upon me. As I always
+said, his notions were of another kind, and he either was before of the
+opinion, or argued himself into it now, that we were both free and might
+lawfully marry.
+
+But I was quite of another side--nay, and my judgment was right, but my
+circumstances were my temptation; the terrors behind me looked blacker
+than the terrors before me; and the dreadful argument of wanting bread,
+and being run into the horrible distresses I was in before, mastered all
+my resolution, and I gave myself up as above.
+
+The rest of the evening we spent very agreeably to me; he was perfectly
+good-humoured, and was at that time very merry. Then he made Amy dance
+with him, and I told him I would put Amy to bed to him. Amy said, with
+all her heart; she never had been a bride in her life. In short, he made
+the girl so merry that, had he not been to lie with me the same night,
+I believe he would have played the fool with Amy for half-an-hour, and
+the girl would no more have refused him than I intended to do. Yet
+before, I had always found her a very modest wench as any I ever saw in
+all my life; but, in short, the mirth of that night, and a few more such
+afterwards, ruined the girl's modesty for ever, as shall appear
+by-and-by, in its place.
+
+So far does fooling and toying sometimes go that I know nothing a young
+woman has to be more cautious of; so far had this innocent girl gone in
+jesting between her and I, and in talking that she would let him lie
+with her, if he would but be kinder to me, that at last she let him lie
+with her in earnest; and so empty was I now of all principle, that I
+encouraged the doing it almost before my face.
+
+I say but too justly that I was empty of principle, because, as above, I
+had yielded to him, not as deluded to believe it lawful, but as overcome
+by his kindness, and terrified at the fear of my own misery if he should
+leave me. So with my eyes open, and with my conscience, as I may say,
+awake, I sinned, knowing it to be a sin, but having no power to resist.
+When this had thus made a hole in my heart, and I was come to such a
+height as to transgress against the light of my own conscience, I was
+then fit for any wickedness, and conscience left off speaking where it
+found it could not be heard.
+
+But to return to our story. Having consented, as above, to his proposal,
+we had not much more to do. He gave me my writings, and the bond for my
+maintenance during his life, and for five hundred pounds after his
+death. And so far was he from abating his affection to me afterwards,
+that two years after we were thus, as he called it, married, he made his
+will, and gave me a thousand pounds more, and all my household stuff,
+plate, &c., which was considerable too.
+
+Amy put us to bed, and my new friend--I cannot call him husband--was so
+well pleased with Amy for her fidelity and kindness to me that he paid
+her all the arrear of her wages that I owed her, and gave her five
+guineas over; and had it gone no farther, Amy had richly deserved what
+she had, for never was a maid so true to her mistress in such dreadful
+circumstances as I was in. Nor was what followed more her own fault than
+mine, who led her almost into it at first, and quite into it at last;
+and this may be a farther testimony what a hardness of crime I was now
+arrived to, which was owing to the conviction, that was from the
+beginning upon me, that I was a whore, not a wife; nor could I ever
+frame my mouth to call him husband or to say "my husband" when I was
+speaking of him.
+
+We lived, surely, the most agreeable life, the grand exception only
+excepted, that ever two lived together. He was the most obliging,
+gentlemanly man, and the most tender of me, that ever woman gave herself
+up to. Nor was there ever the least interruption to our mutual kindness,
+no, not to the last day of his life. But I must bring Amy's disaster in
+at once, that I may have done with her.
+
+Amy was dressing me one morning, for now I had two maids, and Amy was my
+chambermaid. "Dear madam," says Amy, "what! a'nt you with child yet?"
+"No, Amy," says I; "nor any sign of it."
+
+"Law, madam!" says Amy, "what have you been doing? Why, you have been
+married a year and a half. I warrant you master would have got me with
+child twice in that time." "It may be so, Amy," says I. "Let him try,
+can't you?" "No," says Amy; "you'll forbid it now. Before, I told you he
+should, with all my heart; but I won't now, now he's all your own."
+"Oh," says I, "Amy, I'll freely give you my consent. It will be nothing
+at all to me. Nay, I'll put you to bed to him myself one night or other,
+if you are willing." "No, madam, no," says Amy, "not now he's yours."
+
+"Why, you fool you," says I, "don't I tell you I'll put you to bed to
+him myself?" "Nay, nay," says Amy, "if you put me to bed to him, that's
+another case; I believe I shall not rise again very soon." "I'll venture
+that, Amy," says I.
+
+After supper that night, and before we were risen from table, I said to
+him, Amy being by, "Hark ye, Mr. ----, do you know that you are to lie
+with Amy to-night?" "No, not I," says he; but turns to Amy, "Is it so,
+Amy?" says he. "No, sir," says she. "Nay, don't say no, you fool; did
+not I promise to put you to bed to him?" But the girl said "No," still,
+and it passed off.
+
+At night, when we came to go to bed, Amy came into the chamber to
+undress me, and her master slipped into bed first; then I began, and
+told him all that Amy had said about my not being with child, and of her
+being with child twice in that time. "Ay, Mrs. Amy," says he, "I believe
+so too. Come hither, and, we'll try." But Amy did not go. "Go, you
+fool," says I, "can't you? I freely give you both leave." But Amy would
+not go. "Nay, you whore," says I, "you said, if I would put you to bed,
+you would with all your heart." And with that I sat her down, pulled off
+her stockings and shoes, and all her clothes piece by piece, and led her
+to the bed to him. "Here," says I, "try what you can do with your maid
+Amy." She pulled back a little, would not let me pull off her clothes at
+first, but it was hot weather, and she had not many clothes on, and
+particularly no stays on; and at last, when she saw I was in earnest,
+she let me do what I would. So I fairly stripped her, and then I threw
+open the bed and thrust her in.
+
+I need say no more. This is enough to convince anybody that I did not
+think him my husband, and that I had cast off all principle and all
+modesty, and had effectually stifled conscience.
+
+Amy, I dare say, began now to repent, and would fain have got out of bed
+again; but he said to her, "Nay, Amy, you see your mistress has put you
+to bed; 'tis all her doing; you must blame her." So he held her fast,
+and the wench being naked in the bed with him, it was too late to look
+back, so she lay still and let him do what he would with her.
+
+Had I looked upon myself as a wife, you cannot suppose I would have been
+willing to have let my husband lie with my maid, much less before my
+face, for I stood by all the while; but as I thought myself a whore, I
+cannot say but that it was something designed in my thoughts that my
+maid should be a whore too, and should not reproach me with it.
+
+Amy, however, less vicious than I, was grievously out of sorts the next
+morning, and cried and took on most vehemently, that she was ruined and
+undone, and there was no pacifying her; she was a whore, a slut, and she
+was undone! undone! and cried almost all day. I did all I could to
+pacify her. "A whore!" says I. "Well, and am not I a whore as well as
+you?" "No, no," says Amy; "no, you are not, for you are married." "Not
+I, Amy," says I; "I do not pretend to it. He may marry you to-morrow,
+if he will, for anything I could do to hinder it. I am not married. I do
+not look upon it as anything." Well, all did not pacify Amy, but she
+cried two or three days about it; but it wore off by degrees.
+
+But the case differed between Amy and her master exceedingly; for Amy
+retained the same kind temper she always had; but, on the contrary, he
+was quite altered, for he hated her heartily, and could, I believe, have
+killed her after it, and he told me so, for he thought this a vile
+action; whereas what he and I had done he was perfectly easy in, thought
+it just, and esteemed me as much his wife as if we had been married from
+our youth, and had neither of us known any other; nay, he loved me, I
+believe, as entirely as if I had been the wife of his youth. Nay, he
+told me it was true, in one sense, that he had two wives, but that I was
+the wife of his affection, the other the wife of his aversion.
+
+I was extremely concerned at the aversion he had taken to my maid Amy,
+and used my utmost skill to get it altered; for though he had, indeed,
+debauched the wench, I knew that I was the principal occasion of it; and
+as he was the best-humoured man in the world, I never gave him over till
+I prevailed with him to be easy with her, and as I was now become the
+devil's agent, to make others as wicked as myself, I brought him to lie
+with her again several times after that, till at last, as the poor girl
+said, so it happened, and she was really with child.
+
+She was terribly concerned at it, and so was he too. "Come, my dear,"
+says I, "when Rachel put her handmaid to bed to Jacob, she took the
+children as her own. Don't be uneasy; I'll take the child as my own. Had
+not I a hand in the frolic of putting her to bed to you? It was my fault
+as much as yours." So I called Amy, and encouraged her too, and told her
+that I would take care of the child and her too, and added the same
+argument to her. "For," says I, "Amy, it was all my fault. Did not I
+drag your clothes off your back, and put you to bed to him?" Thus I,
+that had, indeed, been the cause of all the wickedness between them,
+encouraged them both, when they had any remorse about it, and rather
+prompted them to go on with it than to repent it.
+
+When Amy grew big she went to a place I had provided for her, and the
+neighbours knew nothing but that Amy and I was parted. She had a fine
+child indeed, a daughter, and we had it nursed; and Amy came again in
+about half a year to live with her old mistress; but neither my
+gentleman, or Amy either, cared for playing that game over again; for,
+as he said, the jade might bring him a houseful of children to keep.
+
+We lived as merrily and as happily after this as could be expected,
+considering our circumstances; I mean as to the pretended marriage, &c.;
+and as to that, my gentleman had not the least concern about him for it.
+But as much as I was hardened, and that was as much as I believe ever
+any wicked creature was, yet I could not help it, there was and would be
+hours of intervals and of dark reflections which came involuntarily in,
+and thrust in sighs into the middle of all my songs; and there would be
+sometimes a heaviness of heart which intermingled itself with all my
+joy, and which would often fetch a tear from my eye. And let others
+pretend what they will, I believe it impossible to be otherwise with
+anybody. There can be no substantial satisfaction in a life of known
+wickedness; conscience will, and does often, break in upon them at
+particular times, let them do what they can to prevent it.
+
+But I am not to preach, but to relate; and whatever loose reflections
+were, and how often soever those dark intervals came on, I did my utmost
+to conceal them from him; ay, and to suppress and smother them too in
+myself; and, to outward appearance, we lived as cheerfully and agreeably
+as it was possible for any couple in the world to live.
+
+After I had thus lived with him something above two years, truly I found
+myself with child too. My gentleman was mightily pleased at it, and
+nothing could be kinder than he was in the preparations he made for me,
+and for my lying-in, which was, however, very private, because I cared
+for as little company as possible; nor had I kept up my neighbourly
+acquaintance, so that I had nobody to invite upon such an occasion.
+
+I was brought to bed very well (of a daughter too, as well as Amy), but
+the child died at about six weeks old, so all that work was to do over
+again--that is to say, the charge, the expense, the travail, &c.
+
+The next year I made him amends, and brought him a son, to his great
+satisfaction. It was a charming child, and did very well. After this my
+husband, as he called himself, came to me one evening, and told me he
+had a very difficult thing happened to him, which he knew not what to do
+in, or how to resolve about, unless I would make him easy; this was,
+that his occasions required him to go over to France for about two
+months.
+
+"Well, my dear," says I, "and how shall I make you easy?"
+
+"Why, by consenting to let me go," says he; "upon which condition, I'll
+tell you the occasion of my going, that you may judge of the necessity
+there is for it on my side." Then, to make me easy in his going, he told
+me he would make his will before he went, which should be to my full
+satisfaction.
+
+I told him the last part was so kind that I could not decline the first
+part, unless he would give me leave to add that, if it was not for
+putting him to an extraordinary expense, I would go over along with him.
+
+He was so pleased with this offer that he told me he would give me full
+satisfaction for it, and accept of it too; so he took me to London with
+him the next day, and there he made his will, and showed it to me, and
+sealed it before proper witnesses, and then gave it to me to keep. In
+this will he gave a thousand pounds to a person that we both knew very
+well, in trust, to pay it, with the interest from the time of his
+decease, to me or my assigns; then he willed the payment of my jointure,
+as he called it, viz., his bond of five hundred pounds after his death;
+also, he gave me all my household stuff, plate, &c.
+
+This was a most engaging thing for a man to do to one under my
+circumstances; and it would have been hard, as I told him, to deny him
+anything, or to refuse to go with him anywhere. So we settled everything
+as well as we could, left Amy in charge with the house, and for his
+other business, which was in jewels, he had two men he intrusted, who he
+had good security for, and who managed for him, and corresponded with
+him.
+
+Things being thus concerted, we went away to France, arrived safe at
+Calais, and by easy journeys came in eight days more to Paris, where we
+lodged in the house of an English merchant of his acquaintance, and was
+very courteously entertained.
+
+My gentleman's business was with some persons of the first rank, and to
+whom he had sold some jewels of very good value, and received a great
+sum of money in specie; and, as he told me privately, he gained three
+thousand pistoles by his bargain, but would not suffer the most intimate
+friend he had there to know what he had received; for it is not so safe
+a thing in Paris to have a great sum of money in keeping as it might be
+in London.
+
+We made this journey much longer than we intended, and my gentleman sent
+for one of his managers in London to come over to us in Paris with some
+diamonds, and sent him back to London again to fetch more. Then other
+business fell into his hands so unexpectedly that I began to think we
+should take up our constant residence there, which I was not very averse
+to, it being my native country, and I spoke the language perfectly well.
+So we took a good house in Paris, and lived very well there; and I sent
+for Amy to come over to me, for I lived gallantly, and my gentleman was
+two or three times going to keep me a coach, but I declined it,
+especially at Paris, but as they have those conveniences by the day
+there, at a certain rate, I had an equipage provided for me whenever I
+pleased, and I lived here in a very good figure, and might have lived
+higher if I pleased.
+
+But in the middle of all this felicity a dreadful disaster befell me,
+which entirely unhinged all my affairs, and threw me back into the same
+state of life that I was in before; with this one happy exception,
+however, that whereas before I was poor, even to misery, now I was not
+only provided for, but very rich.
+
+My gentleman had the name in Paris for a rich man, and indeed he was so,
+though not so immensely rich as people imagined; but that which was
+fatal to him was, that he generally carried a shagreen case in his
+pocket, especially when he went to court, or to the houses of any of the
+princes of the blood, in which he had jewels of very great value.
+
+It happened one day that, being to go to Versailles to wait upon the
+Prince of ----, he came up into my chamber in the morning, and laid out
+his jewel-case, because he was not going to show any jewels, but to get
+a foreign bill accepted, which he had received from Amsterdam; so, when
+he gave me the case, he said, "My dear, I think I need not carry this
+with me, because it may be I may not come back till night, and it is too
+much to venture." I returned, "Then, my dear, you shan't go." "Why?"
+says he. "Because, as they are too much for you, so you are too much for
+me to venture, and you shall not go, unless you will promise me not to
+stay so as to come back in the night."
+
+"I hope there's no danger," said he, "seeing that I have nothing about
+me of any value; and therefore, lest I should, take that too," says he,
+and gives me his gold watch and a rich diamond which he had in a ring,
+and always wore on his finger.
+
+"Well, but, my dear," says I, "you make me more uneasy now than before;
+for if you apprehend no danger, why do you use this caution? and if you
+apprehend there is danger, why do you go at all?"
+
+"There is no danger," says he, "if I do not stay late, and I do not
+design to do so."
+
+"Well, but promise me, then, that you won't," says I, "or else I cannot
+let you go."
+
+"I won't indeed, my dear," says he, "unless I am obliged to it. I assure
+you I do not intend it; but if I should, I am not worth robbing now, for
+I have nothing about me but about six pistoles in my little purse and
+that little ring," showing me a small diamond ring, worth about ten or
+twelve pistoles, which he put upon his finger, in the room of the rich
+one he usually wore.
+
+[Illustration: THE JEWELLER IS ABOUT TO LEAVE FOR VERSAILLES
+
+_And gives me his gold watch and a rich diamond which he had in a ring,
+and always wore on his finger_]
+
+I still pressed him not to stay late, and he said he would not. "But if
+I am kept late," says he, "beyond my expectation, I'll stay all night,
+and come next morning." This seemed a very good caution; but still my
+mind was very uneasy about him, and I told him so, and entreated him
+not to go. I told him I did not know what might be the reason, but that
+I had a strange terror upon my mind about his going, and that if he did
+go, I was persuaded some harm would attend him. He smiled, and returned,
+"Well, my dear, if it should be so, you are now richly provided for; all
+that I have here I give to you." And with that he takes up the casket or
+case, "Here," says he, "hold your hand; there is a good estate for you
+in this case; if anything happens to me 'tis all your own. I give it
+you for yourself;" and with that he put the casket, the fine ring, and
+his gold watch all into my hands, and the key of his scrutoire besides,
+adding, "And in my scrutoire there is some money; it is all your own."
+
+I stared at him as if I was frighted, for I thought all his face looked
+like a death's-head; and then immediately I thought I perceived his head
+all bloody, and then his clothes looked bloody too, and immediately it
+all went off, and he looked as he really did. Immediately I fell
+a-crying, and hung about him. "My dear," said I, "I am frighted to
+death; you shall not go. Depend upon it some mischief will befall you."
+I did not tell him how my vapourish fancy had represented him to me;
+that, I thought, was not proper. Besides, he would only have laughed at
+me, and would have gone away with a jest about it; but I pressed him
+seriously not to go that day, or, if he did, to promise me to come home
+to Paris again by daylight. He looked a little graver then than he did
+before, told me he was not apprehensive of the least danger, but if
+there was, he would either take care to come in the day, or, as he had
+said before, would stay all night.
+
+But all these promises came to nothing, for he was set upon in the open
+day and robbed by three men on horseback, masked, as he went; and one of
+them, who, it seems, rifled him while the rest stood to stop the coach,
+stabbed him into the body with a sword, so that he died immediately. He
+had a footman behind the coach, who they knocked down with the stock or
+butt-end of a carbine. They were supposed to kill him because of the
+disappointment they met with in not getting his case or casket of
+diamonds, which they knew he carried about him; and this was supposed
+because, after they had killed him, they made the coachman drive out of
+the road a long way over the heath, till they came to a convenient
+place, where they pulled him out of the coach and searched his clothes
+more narrowly than they could do while he was alive. But they found
+nothing but his little ring, six pistoles, and the value of about seven
+livres in small moneys.
+
+This was a dreadful blow to me, though I cannot say I was so surprised
+as I should otherwise have been, for all the while he was gone my mind
+was oppressed with the weight of my own thoughts, and I was as sure
+that I should never see him any more that I think nothing could be like
+it. The impression was so strong that I think nothing could make so deep
+a wound that was imaginary; and I was so dejected and disconsolate that,
+when I received the news of his disaster, there was no room for any
+extraordinary alteration in me. I had cried all that day, ate nothing,
+and only waited, as I might say, to receive the dismal news, which I had
+brought to me about five o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+I was in a strange country, and, though I had a pretty many
+acquaintances, had but very few friends that I could consult on this
+occasion. All possible inquiry was made after the rogues that had been
+thus barbarous, but nothing could be heard of them; nor was it possible
+that the footman could make any discovery of them by his description,
+for they knocked him down immediately, so that he knew nothing of what
+was done afterwards. The coachman was the only man that could say
+anything, and all his account amounted to no more than this, that one of
+them had soldier's clothes, but he could not remember the particulars of
+his mounting, so as to know what regiment he belonged to; and as to
+their faces, that he could know nothing of, because they had all of them
+masks on.
+
+I had him buried as decently as the place would permit a Protestant
+stranger to be buried, and made some of the scruples and difficulties on
+that account easy by the help of money to a certain person, who went
+impudently to the curate of the parish of St. Sulpitius, in Paris, and
+told him that the gentleman that was killed was a Catholic; that the
+thieves had taken from him a cross of gold, set with diamonds, worth six
+thousand livres; that his widow was a Catholic, and had sent by him
+sixty crowns to the church of ----, for masses to be said for the repose
+of his soul. Upon all which, though not one word was true, he was buried
+with all the ceremonies of the Roman Church.
+
+I think I almost cried myself to death for him, for I abandoned myself
+to all the excesses of grief; and indeed I loved him to a degree
+inexpressible; and considering what kindness he had shown me at first,
+and how tenderly he had used me to the last, what could I do less?
+
+Then the manner of his death was terrible and frightful to me, and,
+above all, the strange notices I had of it. I had never pretended to the
+second-sight, or anything of that kind, but certainly, if any one ever
+had such a thing, I had it at this time, for I saw him as plainly in all
+those terrible shapes as above; first, as a skeleton, not dead only, but
+rotten and wasted; secondly, as killed, and his face bloody; and,
+thirdly, his clothes bloody, and all within the space of one minute, or
+indeed of a very few moments.
+
+These things amazed me, and I was a good while as one stupid. However,
+after some time I began to recover, and look into my affairs. I had the
+satisfaction not to be left in distress, or in danger of poverty. On the
+contrary, besides what he had put into my hands fairly in his lifetime,
+which amounted to a very considerable value, I found above seven hundred
+pistoles in gold in his scrutoire, of which he had given me the key; and
+I found foreign bills accepted for about twelve thousand livres; so
+that, in a word, I found myself possessed of almost ten thousand pounds
+sterling in a very few days after the disaster.
+
+The first thing I did upon this occasion was to send a letter to my
+maid, as I still called her, Amy, wherein I gave her an account of my
+disaster, how my husband, as she called him (for I never called him so),
+was murdered; and as I did not know how his relations, or his wife's
+friends might act upon that occasion, I ordered her to convey away all
+the plate, linen, and other things of value, and to secure them in a
+person's hands that I directed her to, and then to sell or dispose of
+the furniture of the house, if she could, and so, without acquainting
+anybody with the reason of her going, withdraw; sending notice to his
+head manager at London that the house was quitted by the tenant, and
+they might come and take possession of it for the executors. Amy was so
+dexterous, and did her work so nimbly, that she gutted the house, and
+sent the key to the said manager, almost as soon as he had notice of the
+misfortune that befell their master.
+
+Upon their receiving the surprising news of his death, the head manager
+came over to Paris, and came to the house. I made no scruple of calling
+myself Madame ----, the widow of Monsieur ----, the English jeweller.
+And as I spoke French naturally, I did not let him know but that I was
+his wife, married in France, and that I had not heard that he had any
+wife in England, but pretended to be surprised, and exclaim against him
+for so base an action; and that I had good friends in Poictou, where I
+was born, who would take care to have justice done me in England out of
+his estate.
+
+I should have observed that, as soon as the news was public of a man
+being murdered, and that he was a jeweller, fame did me the favour as to
+publish presently that he was robbed of his casket of jewels, which he
+always carried about him. I confirmed this, among my daily lamentations
+for his disaster, and added that he had with him a fine diamond ring,
+which he was known to wear frequently about him, valued at one hundred
+pistoles, a gold watch, and a great quantity of diamonds of inestimable
+value in his casket, which jewels he was carrying to the Prince of
+----, to show some of them to him; and the prince owned that he had
+spoken to him to bring some such jewels, to let him see them. But I
+sorely repented this part afterward, as you shall hear.
+
+This rumour put an end to all inquiry after his jewels, his ring, or his
+watch; and as for the seven hundred pistoles, that I secured. For the
+bills which were in hand, I owned I had them, but that, as I said I
+brought my husband thirty thousand livres portion, I claimed the said
+bills, which came to not above twelve thousand livres, for my _amende_;
+and this, with the plate and the household stuff, was the principal of
+all his estate which they could come at. As to the foreign bill which he
+was going to Versailles to get accepted, it was really lost with him;
+but his manager, who had remitted the bill to him, by way of Amsterdam,
+bringing over the second bill, the money was saved, as they call it,
+which would otherwise have been also gone; the thieves who robbed and
+murdered him were, to be sure, afraid to send anybody to get the bill
+accepted, for that would undoubtedly have discovered them.
+
+By this time my maid Amy was arrived, and she gave me an account of her
+management, and how she had secured everything, and that she had quitted
+the house, and sent the key to the head manager of his business, and
+let me know how much she had made of everything very punctually and
+honestly.
+
+I should have observed, in the account of his dwelling with me so long
+at ----, that he never passed for anything there but a lodger in the
+house; and though he was landlord, that did not alter the case. So that
+at his death, Amy coming to quit the house and give them the key, there
+was no affinity between that and the case of their master who was newly
+killed.
+
+I got good advice at Paris from an eminent lawyer, a counsellor of the
+Parliament there, and laying my case before him, he directed me to make
+a process in dower upon the estate, for making good my new fortune upon
+matrimony, which accordingly I did; and, upon the whole, the manager
+went back to England well satisfied that he had gotten the unaccepted
+bill of exchange, which was for two thousand five hundred pounds, with
+some other things, which together amounted to seventeen thousand livres;
+and thus I got rid of him.
+
+I was visited with great civility on this sad occasion of the loss of my
+husband, as they thought him, by a great many ladies of quality. And the
+Prince of ----, to whom it was reported he was carrying the jewels, sent
+his gentleman with a very handsome compliment of condolence to me; and
+his gentleman, whether with or without order, hinted as if his Highness
+did intend to have visited me himself, but that some accident, which he
+made a long story of, had prevented him.
+
+By the concourse of ladies and others that thus came to visit me, I
+began to be much known; and as I did not forget to set myself out with
+all possible advantage, considering the dress of a widow, which in those
+days was a most frightful thing; I say, as I did thus from my own
+vanity, for I was not ignorant that I was very handsome; I say, on this
+account I was soon made very public, and was known by the name of _La
+belle veufeu de Poictou_, or the pretty widow of Poictou. As I was very
+well pleased to see myself thus handsomely used in my affliction, it
+soon dried up all my tears; and though I appeared as a widow, yet, as we
+say in England, it was of a widow comforted. I took care to let the
+ladies see that I knew how to receive them; that I was not at a loss how
+to behave to any of them; and, in short, I began to be very popular
+there. But I had an occasion afterwards which made me decline that kind
+of management, as you shall hear presently.
+
+About four days after I had received the compliments of condolence from
+the Prince ----, the same gentleman he had sent before came to tell me
+that his Highness was coming to give me a visit. I was indeed surprised
+at that, and perfectly at a loss how to behave. However, as there was
+no remedy, I prepared to receive him as well as I could. It was not many
+minutes after but he was at the door, and came in, introduced by his own
+gentleman, as above, and after by my woman Amy.
+
+He treated me with abundance of civility, and condoled handsomely on the
+loss of my husband, and likewise the manner of it. He told me he
+understood he was coming to Versailles to himself, to show him some
+jewels; that it was true that he had discoursed with him about jewels,
+but could not imagine how any villains should hear of his coming at that
+time with them; that he had not ordered him to attend with them at
+Versailles, but told him that he would come to Paris by such a day, so
+that he was no way accessory to the disaster. I told him gravely I knew
+very well that all his Highness had said of that part was true; that
+these villains knew his profession, and knew, no doubt, that he always
+carried a casket of jewels about him, and that he always wore a diamond
+ring on his finger worth a hundred pistoles, which report had magnified
+to five hundred; and that, if he had been going to any other place, it
+would have been the same thing. After this his Highness rose up to go,
+and told me he had resolved, however, to make me some reparation; and
+with these words put a silk purse into my hand with a hundred pistoles,
+and told me he would make me a farther compliment of a small pension,
+which his gentleman would inform me of.
+
+You may be sure I behaved with a due sense of so much goodness, and
+offered to kneel to kiss his hand; but he took me up and saluted me, and
+sat down again (though before he made as if he was going away), making
+me sit down by him.
+
+He then began to talk with me more familiarly; told me he hoped I was
+not left in bad circumstances; that Mr. ---- was reputed to be very rich,
+and that he had gained lately great sums by some jewels, and he hoped,
+he said, that I had still a fortune agreeable to the condition I had
+lived in before.
+
+I replied, with some tears, which, I confess, were a little forced, that
+I believed, if Mr. ---- had lived, we should have been out of danger of
+want, but that it was impossible to estimate the loss which I had
+sustained, besides that of the life of my husband; that, by the opinion
+of those that knew something of his affairs, and of what value the
+jewels were which he intended to have shown to his Highness, he could
+not have less about him than the value of a hundred thousand livres;
+that it was a fatal blow to me, and to his whole family, especially that
+they should be lost in such a manner.
+
+His Highness returned, with an air of concern, that he was very sorry
+for it; but he hoped, if I settled in Paris, I might find ways to
+restore my fortune; at the same time he complimented me upon my being
+very handsome, as he was pleased to call it, and that I could not fail
+of admirers. I stood up and humbly thanked his Highness, but told him I
+had no expectations of that kind; that I thought I should be obliged to
+go over to England, to look after my husband's effects there, which, I
+was told, were considerable, but that I did not know what justice a poor
+stranger would get among them; and as for Paris, my fortune being so
+impaired, I saw nothing before me but to go back to Poictou to my
+friends, where some of my relations, I hoped, might do something for me,
+and added that one of my brothers was an abbot at ----, near Poictiers.
+
+He stood up, and taking me by the hand, led me to a large looking-glass,
+which made up the pier in the front of the parlour. "Look there, madam,"
+said he; "is it fit that that face" (pointing to my figure in the glass)
+"should go back to Poictou? No, madam," says he; "stay and make some
+gentleman of quality happy, that may, in return, make you forget all
+your sorrows;" and with that he took me in his arms, and kissing me
+twice, told me he would see me again, but with less ceremony.
+
+Some little time after this, but the same day, his gentleman came to me
+again, and with great ceremony and respect, delivered me a black box
+tied with a scarlet riband and sealed with a noble coat-of-arms, which,
+I suppose, was the prince's.
+
+There was in it a grant from his Highness, or an assignment--I know not
+which to call it--with a warrant to his banker to pay me two thousand
+livres a year during my stay in Paris, as the widow of Monsieur ----,
+the jeweller, mentioning the horrid murder of my late husband as the
+occasion of it, as above.
+
+I received it with great submission, and expressions of being infinitely
+obliged to his master, and of my showing myself on all occasions his
+Highness's most obedient servant; and after giving my most humble duty
+to his Highness, with the utmost acknowledgments of the obligation, &c.,
+I went to a little cabinet, and taking out some money, which made a
+little sound in taking it out, offered to give him five pistoles.
+
+He drew back, but with the greatest respect, and told me he humbly
+thanked me, but that he durst not take a farthing; that his Highness
+would take it so ill of him, he was sure he would never see his face
+more; but that he would not fail to acquaint his Highness what respect I
+had offered; and added, "I assure you, madam, you are more in the good
+graces of my master, the Prince of ----, than you are aware of; and I
+believe you will hear more of him."
+
+Now I began to understand him, and resolved, if his Highness did come
+again, he should see me under no disadvantages, if I could help it. I
+told him, if his Highness did me the honour to see me again, I hoped he
+would not let me be so surprised as I was before; that I would be glad
+to have some little notice of it, and would be obliged to him if he
+would procure it me. He told me he was very sure that when his Highness
+intended to visit me he should be sent before to give me notice of it,
+and that he would give me as much warning of it as possible.
+
+He came several times after this on the same errand, that is, about the
+settlement, the grant requiring several things yet to be done for making
+it payable without going every time to the prince again for a fresh
+warrant. The particulars of this part I did not understand; but as soon
+as it was finished, which was above two months, the gentleman came one
+afternoon, and said his Highness designed to visit me in the evening,
+but desired to be admitted without ceremony.
+
+I prepared not my rooms only, but myself; and when he came in there was
+nobody appeared in the house but his gentleman and my maid Amy; and of
+her I bid the gentleman acquaint his Highness that she was an
+Englishwoman, that she did not understand a word of French, and that she
+was one also that might be trusted.
+
+When he came into my room, I fell down at his feet before he could come
+to salute me, and with words that I had prepared, full of duty and
+respect, thanked him for his bounty and goodness to a poor, desolate
+woman, oppressed under the weight of so terrible a disaster; and refused
+to rise till he would allow me the honour to kiss his hand.
+
+"_Levez vous donc_," says the prince, taking me in his arms; "I design
+more favours for you than this trifle;" and going on, he added, "You
+shall for the future find a friend where you did not look for it, and I
+resolve to let you see how kind I can be to one who is to me the most
+agreeable creature on earth."
+
+I was dressed in a kind of half mourning, had turned off my weeds, and
+my head, though I had yet no ribands or lace, was so dressed as failed
+not to set me out with advantage enough, for I began to understand his
+meaning; and the prince professed I was the most beautiful creature on
+earth. "And where have I lived," says he, "and how ill have I been
+served, that I should never till now be showed the finest woman in
+France!"
+
+This was the way in all the world the most likely to break in upon my
+virtue, if I had been mistress of any; for I was now become the vainest
+creature upon earth, and particularly of my beauty, which as other
+people admired, so I became every day more foolishly in love with myself
+than before.
+
+He said some very kind things to me after this, and sat down with me for
+an hour or more, when, getting up and calling his gentleman by his name,
+he threw open the door: "_Au boire_," says he; upon which his gentleman
+immediately brought up a little table covered with a fine damask cloth,
+the table no bigger than he could bring in his two hands, but upon it
+was set two decanters, one of champagne and the other of water, six
+silver plates, and a service of fine sweetmeats in fine china dishes, on
+a set of rings standing up about twenty inches high, one above another.
+Below was three roasted partridges and a quail. As soon as his gentleman
+had set it all down, he ordered him to withdraw. "Now," says the prince,
+"I intend to sup with you."
+
+When he sent away his gentleman, I stood up and offered to wait on his
+Highness while he ate; but he positively refused, and told me, "No;
+to-morrow you shall be the widow of Monsieur ----, the jeweller, but
+to-night you shall be my mistress; therefore sit here," says he, "and
+eat with me, or I will get up and serve."
+
+I would then have called up my woman Amy, but I thought that would not
+be proper neither; so I made my excuse, that since his Highness would
+not let his own servant wait, I would not presume to let my woman come
+up; but if he would please to let me wait, it would be my honour to fill
+his Highness's wine. But, as before, he would by no means allow me;
+so we sat and ate together.
+
+[Illustration: THE VISIT OF THE PRINCE
+
+_And refused to rise till he would allow me the honour to kiss his
+hand_]
+
+"Now, madam," says the prince, "give me leave to lay aside my character;
+let us talk together with the freedom of equals. My quality sets me at a
+distance from you, and makes you ceremonious. Your beauty exalts you to
+more than an equality. I must, then, treat you as lovers do their
+mistresses, but I cannot speak the language; it is enough to tell you
+how agreeable you are to me, how I am surprised at your beauty, and
+resolve to make you happy, and to be happy with you."
+
+I knew not what to say to him a good while, but blushed, and looking up
+towards him, said I was already made happy in the favour of a person of
+such rank, and had nothing to ask of his Highness but that he would
+believe me infinitely obliged.
+
+After he had eaten, he poured the sweetmeats into my lap; and the wine
+being out, he called his gentleman again to take away the table, who, at
+first, only took the cloth and the remains of what was to eat away; and,
+laying another cloth, set the table on one side of the room with a noble
+service of plate upon it, worth at least two hundred pistoles. Then,
+having set the two decanters again upon the table, filled as before, he
+withdrew; for I found the fellow understood his business very well, and
+his lord's business too.
+
+About half-an-hour after, the prince told me that I offered to wait a
+little before, that if I would now take the trouble he would give me
+leave to give him some wine; so I went to the table, filled a glass of
+wine, and brought it to him on a fine salver, which the glasses stood
+on, and brought the bottle or decanter for water in my other hand, to
+mix as he thought fit.
+
+He smiled, and bid me look on that salver, which I did, and admired it
+much, for it was a very fine one indeed. "You may see," says he, "I
+resolve to have more of your company, for my servant shall leave you
+that plate for my use." I told him I believed his Highness would not
+take it ill that I was not furnished fit to entertain a person of his
+rank, and that I would take great care of it, and value myself
+infinitely upon the honour of his Highness's visit.
+
+It now began to grow late, and he began to take notice of it. "But,"
+says he, "I cannot leave you; have you not a spare lodging for one
+night?" I told him I had but a homely lodging to entertain such a guest.
+He said something exceeding kind on that head, but not fit to repeat,
+adding that my company would make him amends.
+
+About midnight he sent his gentleman of an errand, after telling him
+aloud that he intended to stay here all night. In a little time his
+gentleman brought him a nightgown, slippers, two caps, a neckcloth, and
+shirt, which he gave me to carry into his chamber, and sent his man
+home; and then, turning to me, said I should do him the honour to be his
+chamberlain of the household, and his dresser also. I smiled, and told
+him I would do myself the honour to wait on him upon all occasions.
+
+About one in the morning, while his gentleman was yet with him, I begged
+leave to withdraw, supposing he would go to bed; but he took the hint,
+and said, "I'm not going to bed yet; pray let me see you again."
+
+I took this time to undress me, and to come in a new dress, which was,
+in a manner, _une dishabille_, but so fine, and all about me so clean
+and so agreeable, that he seemed surprised. "I thought," says he, "you
+could not have dressed to more advantage than you had done before; but
+now," says he, "you charm me a thousand times more, if that be
+possible."
+
+"It is only a loose habit, my lord," said I, "that I may the better wait
+on your Highness." He pulls me to him. "You are perfectly obliging,"
+says he; and, sitting on the bedside, says he, "Now you shall be a
+princess, and know what it is to oblige the gratefullest man alive;" and
+with that he took me in his arms.... I can go no farther in the
+particulars of what passed at that time, but it ended in this, that, in
+short, I lay with him all night.
+
+I have given you the whole detail of this story to lay it down as a
+black scheme of the way how unhappy women are ruined by great men; for,
+though poverty and want is an irresistible temptation to the poor,
+vanity and great things are as irresistible to others. To be courted by
+a prince, and by a prince who was first a benefactor, then an admirer;
+to be called handsome, the finest woman in France, and to be treated as
+a woman fit for the bed of a prince--these are things a woman must have
+no vanity in her, nay, no corruption in her, that is not overcome by it;
+and my case was such that, as before, I had enough of both.
+
+I had now no poverty attending me; on the contrary, I was mistress of
+ten thousand pounds before the prince did anything for me. Had I been
+mistress of my resolution, had I been less obliging, and rejected the
+first attack, all had been safe; but my virtue was lost before, and the
+devil, who had found the way to break in upon me by one temptation,
+easily mastered me now by another; and I gave myself up to a person who,
+though a man of high dignity, was yet the most tempting and obliging
+that ever I met with in my life.
+
+I had the same particular to insist upon here with the prince that I had
+with my gentleman before. I hesitated much at consenting at first
+asking, but the prince told me princes did not court like other men;
+that they brought more powerful arguments; and he very prettily added
+that they were sooner repulsed than other men, and ought to be sooner
+complied with; intimating, though very genteely, that after a woman had
+positively refused him once, he could not, like other men, wait with
+importunities and stratagems, and laying long sieges; but as such men as
+he stormed warmly, so, if repulsed, they made no second attacks; and,
+indeed, it was but reasonable; for as it was below their rank to be long
+battering a woman's constancy, so they ran greater hazards in being
+exposed in their amours than other men did.
+
+I took this for a satisfactory answer, and told his Highness that I had
+the same thoughts in respect to the manner of his attacks; for that his
+person and his arguments were irresistible; that a person of his rank
+and a munificence so unbounded could not be withstood; that no virtue
+was proof against him, except such as was able, too, to suffer
+martyrdom; that I thought it impossible I could be overcome, but that
+now I found it was impossible I should not be overcome; that so much
+goodness, joined with so much greatness, would have conquered a saint;
+and that I confessed he had the victory over me, by a merit infinitely
+superior to the conquest he had made.
+
+He made me a most obliging answer; told me abundance of fine things,
+which still flattered my vanity, till at last I began to have pride
+enough to believe him, and fancied myself a fit mistress for a prince.
+
+As I had thus given the prince the last favour, and he had all the
+freedom with me that it was possible for me to grant, so he gave me
+leave to use as much freedom with him another way, and that was to have
+everything of him I thought fit to command; and yet I did not ask of him
+with an air of avarice, as if I was greedily making a penny of him, but
+I managed him with such art that he generally anticipated my demands. He
+only requested of me that I would not think of taking another house, as
+I had intimated to his Highness that I intended, not thinking it good
+enough to receive his visits in; but he said my house was the most
+convenient that could possibly be found in all Paris for an amour,
+especially for him, having a way out into three streets, and not
+overlooked by any neighbours, so that he could pass and repass without
+observation; for one of the back-ways opened into a narrow dark alley,
+which alley was a thoroughfare or passage out of one street into
+another; and any person that went in or out by the door had no more to
+do but to see that there was nobody following him in the alley before he
+went in at the door. This request, I knew, was reasonable, and therefore
+I assured him I would not change my dwelling, seeing his Highness did
+not think it too mean for me to receive him in.
+
+He also desired me that I would not take any more servants or set up any
+equipage, at least for the present; for that it would then be
+immediately concluded I had been left very rich, and then I should be
+thronged with the impertinence of admirers, who would be attracted by
+the money, as well as by the beauty of a young widow, and he should be
+frequently interrupted in his visits; or that the world would conclude I
+was maintained by somebody, and would be indefatigable to find out the
+person; so that he should have spies peeping at him every time he went
+out or in, which it would be impossible to disappoint; and that he
+should presently have it talked over all the toilets in Paris that the
+Prince de ---- had got the jeweller's widow for a mistress.
+
+This was too just to oppose, and I made no scruple to tell his Highness
+that, since he had stooped so low as to make me his own, he ought to
+have all the satisfaction in the world that I was all his own; that I
+would take all the measures he should please to direct me to avoid the
+impertinent attacks of others; and that, if he thought fit, I would be
+wholly within doors, and have it given out that I was obliged to go to
+England to solicit my affairs there, after my husband's misfortune, and
+that I was not expected there again for at least a year or two. This he
+liked very well; only he said that he would by no means have me
+confined; that it would injure my health, and that I should then take a
+country-house in some village, a good way off of the city, where it
+should not be known who I was, and that he should be there sometimes to
+divert me.
+
+I made no scruple of the confinement, and told his Highness no place
+could be a confinement where I had such a visitor, and so I put off the
+country-house, which would have been to remove myself farther from him
+and have less of his company; so I made the house be, as it were, shut
+up. Amy, indeed, appeared, and when any of the neighbours and servants
+inquired, she answered, in broken French, that I was gone to England to
+look after my affairs, which presently went current through the streets
+about us. For you are to note that the people of Paris, especially the
+women, are the most busy and impertinent inquirers into the conduct of
+their neighbours, especially that of a single woman, that are in the
+world, though there are no greater intriguers in the universe than
+themselves; and perhaps that may be the reason of it, for it is an old
+but a sure rule, that
+
+    "When deep intrigues are close and shy,
+    The guilty are the first that spy."
+
+Thus his Highness had the most easy, and yet the most undiscoverable,
+access to me imaginable, and he seldom failed to come two or three
+nights in a week, and sometimes stayed two or three nights together.
+Once he told me he was resolved I should be weary of his company, and
+that he would learn to know what it was to be a prisoner; so he gave out
+among his servants that he was gone to ----, where he often went
+a-hunting, and that he should not return under a fortnight; and that
+fortnight he stayed wholly with me, and never went out of my doors.
+
+Never woman in such a station lived a fortnight in so complete a fulness
+of human delight; for to have the entire possession of one of the most
+accomplished princes in the world, and of the politest, best-bred man;
+to converse with him all day, and, as he professed, charm him all night,
+what could be more inexpressibly pleasing, and especially to a woman of
+a vast deal of pride, as I was?
+
+To finish the felicity of this part, I must not forget that the devil
+had played a new game with me, and prevailed with me to satisfy myself
+with this amour, as a lawful thing; that a prince of such grandeur and
+majesty, so infinitely superior to me, and one who had made such an
+introduction by an unparalleled bounty, I could not resist; and,
+therefore, that it was very lawful for me to do it, being at that time
+perfectly single, and unengaged to any other man, as I was, most
+certainly, by the unaccountable absence of my first husband, and the
+murder of my gentleman who went for my second.
+
+It cannot be doubted but that I was the easier to persuade myself of the
+truth of such a doctrine as this when it was so much for my ease and for
+the repose of my mind to have it be so:--
+
+    "In things we wish, 'tis easy to deceive;
+    What we would have, we willingly believe."
+
+Besides, I had no casuists to resolve this doubt; the same devil that
+put this into my head bade me go to any of the Romish clergy, and, under
+the pretence of confession, state the case exactly, and I should see
+they would either resolve it to be no sin at all or absolve me upon the
+easiest penance. This I had a strong inclination to try, but I know not
+what scruple put me off of it, for I could never bring myself to like
+having to do with those priests. And though it was strange that I, who
+had thus prostituted my chastity and given up all sense of virtue in two
+such particular cases, living a life of open adultery, should scruple
+anything, yet so it was. I argued with myself that I could not be a
+cheat in anything that was esteemed sacred; that I could not be of one
+opinion, and then pretend myself to be of another; nor could I go to
+confession, who knew nothing of the manner of it, and should betray
+myself to the priest to be a Huguenot, and then might come into
+trouble; but, in short, though I was a whore, yet I was a Protestant
+whore, and could not act as if I was popish, upon any account
+whatsoever.
+
+But, I say, I satisfied myself with the surprising occasion, that as it
+was all irresistible, so it was all lawful; for that Heaven would not
+suffer us to be punished for that which it was not possible for us to
+avoid; and with these absurdities I kept conscience from giving me any
+considerable disturbance in all this matter; and I was as perfectly easy
+as to the lawfulness of it as if I had been married to the prince and
+had had no other husband; so possible is it for us to roll ourselves up
+in wickedness, till we grow invulnerable by conscience; and that
+sentinel, once dozed, sleeps fast, not to be awakened while the tide of
+pleasure continues to flow, or till something dark and dreadful brings
+us to ourselves again.
+
+I have, I confess, wondered at the stupidity that my intellectual part
+was under all that while; what lethargic fumes dozed the soul; and how
+was it possible that I, who in the case before, where the temptation was
+many ways more forcible and the arguments stronger and more
+irresistible, was yet under a continued inquietude on account of the
+wicked life I led, could now live in the most profound tranquillity and
+with an uninterrupted peace, nay, even rising up to satisfaction and
+joy, and yet in a more palpable state of adultery than before; for
+before, my gentleman, who called me wife, had the pretence of his wife
+being parted from him, refusing to do the duty of her office as a wife
+to him. As for me, my circumstances were the same; but as for the
+prince, as he had a fine and extraordinary lady, or princess, of his
+own, so he had had two or three mistresses more besides me, and made no
+scruple of it at all.
+
+However, I say, as to my own part, I enjoyed myself in perfect
+tranquillity; and as the prince was the only deity I worshipped, so I
+was really his idol; and however it was with his princess, I assure you
+his other mistresses found a sensible difference, and though they could
+never find me out, yet I had good intelligence that they guessed very
+well that their lord had got some new favourite that robbed them of his
+company, and, perhaps, of some of his usual bounty too. And now I must
+mention the sacrifices he made to his idol, and they were not a few, I
+assure you.
+
+As he loved like a prince, so he rewarded like a prince; for though he
+declined my making a figure, as above, he let me see that he was above
+doing it for the saving the expense of it, and so he told me, and that
+he would make it up in other things. First of all, he sent me a toilet,
+with all the appurtenances of silver, even so much as the frame of the
+table; and then for the house, he gave me the table, or sideboard of
+plate, I mentioned above, with all things belonging to it of massy
+silver; so that, in short, I could not for my life study to ask him for
+anything of plate which I had not.
+
+He could, then, accommodate me in nothing more but jewels and clothes,
+or money for clothes. He sent his gentleman to the mercer's, and bought
+me a suit, or whole piece, of the finest brocaded silk, figured with
+gold, and another with silver, and another of crimson; so that I had
+three suits of clothes, such as the Queen of France would not have
+disdained to have worn at that time. Yet I went out nowhere; but as
+those were for me to put on when I went out of mourning, I dressed
+myself in them, one after another, always when his Highness came to see
+me.
+
+I had no less than five several morning dresses besides these, so that I
+need never be seen twice in the same dress; to these he added several
+parcels of fine linen and of lace, so much that I had no room to ask for
+more, or, indeed, for so much.
+
+I took the liberty once, in our freedoms, to tell him he was too
+bountiful, and that I was too chargeable to him for a mistress, and that
+I would be his faithful servant at less expense to him; and that he not
+only left me no room to ask him for anything, but that he supplied me
+with such a profusion of good things that I could scarce wear them, or
+use them, unless I kept a great equipage, which, he knew, was no way
+convenient for him or for me. He smiled, and took me in his arms, and
+told me he was resolved, while I was his, I should never be able to ask
+him for anything, but that he would be daily asking new favours of me.
+
+After we were up (for this conference was in bed), he desired I would
+dress me in the best suit of clothes I had. It was a day or two after
+the three suits were made and brought home. I told him, if he pleased, I
+would rather dress me in that suit which I knew he liked best. He asked
+me how I could know which he would like best before he had seen them. I
+told him I would presume for once to guess at his fancy by my own; so I
+went away and dressed me in the second suit, brocaded with silver, and
+returned in full dress, with a suit of lace upon my head, which would
+have been worth in England two hundred pounds sterling; and I was every
+way set out as well as Amy could dress me, who was a very genteel
+dresser too. In this figure I came to him, out of my dressing-room,
+which opened with folding-doors into his bedchamber.
+
+He sat as one astonished a good while, looking at me, without speaking a
+word, till I came quite up to him, kneeled on one knee to him, and
+almost, whether he would or no, kissed his hand. He took me up, and
+stood up himself, but was surprised when, taking me in his arms, he
+perceived tears to run down my cheeks. "My dear," says he aloud, "what
+mean these tears?" "My lord," said I, after some little check, for I
+could not speak presently, "I beseech you to believe me, they are not
+tears of sorrow, but tears of joy. It is impossible for me to see myself
+snatched from the misery I was fallen into, and at once to be in the
+arms of a prince of such goodness, such immense bounty, and be treated
+in such a manner; it is not possible, my lord," said I, "to contain the
+satisfaction of it; and it will break out in an excess in some measure
+proportioned to your immense bounty, and to the affection which your
+Highness treats me with, who am so infinitely below you."
+
+It would look a little too much like a romance here to repeat all the
+kind things he said to me on that occasion, but I can't omit one
+passage. As he saw the tears drop down my cheek, he pulls out a fine
+cambric handkerchief, and was going to wipe the tears off, but checked
+his hand, as if he was afraid to deface something; I say, he checked his
+hand, and tossed the handkerchief to me to do it myself. I took the hint
+immediately, and with a kind of pleasant disdain, "How, my lord," said
+I, "have you kissed me so often, and don't you know whether I am painted
+or not? Pray let your Highness satisfy yourself that you have no cheats
+put upon you; for once let me be vain enough to say I have not deceived
+you with false colours." With this I put a handkerchief into his hand,
+and taking his hand into mine, I made him wipe my face so hard that he
+was unwilling to do it, for fear of hurting me.
+
+He appeared surprised more than ever, and swore, which was the first
+time that I had heard him swear from my first knowing him, that he could
+not have believed there was any such skin without paint in the world.
+"Well, my lord," said I, "your Highness shall have a further
+demonstration than this, as to that which you are pleased to accept for
+beauty, that it is the mere work of nature;" and with that I stepped to
+the door and rung a little bell for my woman Amy, and bade her bring me
+a cup full of hot water, which she did; and when it was come, I desired
+his Highness to feel if it was warm, which he did, and I immediately
+washed my face all over with it before him. This was, indeed, more than
+satisfaction, that is to say, than believing, for it was an undeniable
+demonstration, and he kissed my cheeks and breasts a thousand times,
+with expressions of the greatest surprise imaginable.
+
+Nor was I a very indifferent figure as to shape; though I had had two
+children by my gentleman, and six by my true husband, I say I was no
+despisable shape; and my prince (I must be allowed the vanity to call
+him so) was taking his view of me as I walked from one end of the room
+to the other. At last he leads me to the darkest part of the room, and
+standing behind me, bade me hold up my head, when, putting both his
+hands round my neck, as if he was spanning my neck to see how small it
+was, for it was long and small, he held my neck so long and so hard in
+his hand that I complained he hurt me a little. What he did it for I
+knew not, nor had I the least suspicion but that he was spanning my
+neck; but when I said he hurt me, he seemed to let go, and in half a
+minute more led me to a pier-glass, and behold I saw my neck clasped
+with a fine necklace of diamonds; whereas I felt no more what he was
+doing than if he had really done nothing at all, nor did I suspect it in
+the least. If I had an ounce of blood in me that did not fly up into my
+face, neck, and breasts, it must be from some interruption in the
+vessels. I was all on fire with the sight, and began to wonder what it
+was that was coming to me.
+
+However, to let him see that I was not unqualified to receive benefits,
+I turned about: "My lord," says I, "your Highness is resolved to
+conquer, by your bounty, the very gratitude of your servants; you will
+leave no room for anything but thanks, and make those thanks useless
+too, by their bearing no proportion to the occasion."
+
+"I love, child," says he, "to see everything suitable. A fine gown and
+petticoat, a fine laced head, a fine face and neck, and no necklace,
+would not have made the object perfect. But why that blush, my dear?"
+says the prince. "My lord," said I, "all your gifts call for blushes,
+but, above all, I blush to receive what I am so ill able to merit, and
+may become so ill also."
+
+Thus far I am a standing mark of the weakness of great men in their
+vice, that value not squandering away immense wealth upon the most
+worthless creatures; or, to sum it up in a word, they raise the value of
+the object which they pretend to pitch upon by their fancy; I say, raise
+the value of it at their own expense; give vast presents for a ruinous
+favour, which is so far from being equal to the price that nothing will
+at last prove more absurd than the cost men are at to purchase their own
+destruction.
+
+I could not, in the height of all this fine doings--I say, I could not
+be without some just reflection, though conscience was, as I said, dumb,
+as to any disturbance it gave me in my wickedness. My vanity was fed up
+to such a height that I had no room to give way to such reflections. But
+I could not but sometimes look back with astonishment at the folly of
+men of quality, who, immense in their bounty as in their wealth, give to
+a profusion and without bounds to the most scandalous of our sex, for
+granting them the liberty of abusing themselves and ruining both.
+
+I, that knew what this carcase of mine had been but a few years before;
+how overwhelmed with grief, drowned in tears, frightened with the
+prospect of beggary, and surrounded with rags and fatherless children;
+that was pawning and selling the rags that covered me for a dinner, and
+sat on the ground despairing of help and expecting to be starved, till
+my children were snatched from me to be kept by the parish; I, that was
+after this a whore for bread, and, abandoning conscience and virtue,
+lived with another woman's husband; I, that was despised by all my
+relations, and my husband's too; I, that was left so entirely desolate,
+friendless, and helpless that I knew not how to get the least help to
+keep me from starving,--that I should be caressed by a prince, for the
+honour of having the scandalous use of my prostituted body, common
+before to his inferiors, and perhaps would not have denied one of his
+footmen but a little while before, if I could have got my bread by it.
+
+I say, I could not but reflect upon the brutality and blindness of
+mankind; that because nature had given me a good skin and some agreeable
+features, should suffer that beauty to be such a bait to appetite as to
+do such sordid, unaccountable things to obtain the possession of it.
+
+It is for this reason that I have so largely set down the particulars of
+the caresses I was treated with by the jeweller, and also by this
+prince; not to make the story an incentive to the vice, which I am now
+such a sorrowful penitent for being guilty of (God forbid any should
+make so vile a use of so good a design), but to draw the just picture of
+a man enslaved to the rage of his vicious appetite; how he defaces the
+image of God in his soul, dethrones his reason, causes conscience to
+abdicate the possession, and exalts sense into the vacant throne; how he
+deposes the man and exalts the brute.
+
+Oh! could we hear the reproaches this great man afterwards loaded
+himself with when he grew weary of this admired creature, and became
+sick of his vice, how profitable would the report of them be to the
+reader of this story! But had he himself also known the dirty history of
+my actings upon the stage of life that little time I had been in the
+world, how much more severe would those reproaches have been upon
+himself! But I shall come to this again.
+
+I lived in this gay sort of retirement almost three years, in which time
+no amour of such a kind, sure, was ever carried up so high. The prince
+knew no bounds to his munificence; he could give me nothing, either for
+my wearing, or using, or eating, or drinking, more than he had done from
+the beginning.
+
+His presents were after that in gold, and very frequent and large,
+often a hundred pistoles, never less than fifty at a time; and I must do
+myself the justice that I seemed rather backward to receive than craving
+and encroaching. Not that I had not an avaricious temper, nor was it
+that I did not foresee that this was my harvest, in which I was to
+gather up, and that it would not last long; but it was that really his
+bounty always anticipated my expectations, and even my wishes; and he
+gave me money so fast that he rather poured it in upon me than left me
+room to ask it; so that, before I could spend fifty pistoles, I had
+always a hundred to make it up.
+
+After I had been near a year and a half in his arms as above, or
+thereabouts, I proved with child. I did not take any notice of it to him
+till I was satisfied that I was not deceived; when one morning early,
+when we were in bed together, I said to him, "My lord, I doubt your
+Highness never gives yourself leave to think what the case should be if
+I should have the honour to be with child by you." "Why, my dear," says
+he, "we are able to keep it if such a thing should happen; I hope you
+are not concerned about that." "No, my lord," said I; "I should think
+myself very happy if I could bring your Highness a son; I should hope to
+see him a lieutenant-general of the king's armies by the interest of his
+father, and by his own merit." "Assure yourself, child," says he, "if
+it should be so, I will not refuse owning him for my son, though it be,
+as they call it, a natural son; and shall never slight or neglect him,
+for the sake of his mother." Then he began to importune me to know if it
+was so, but I positively denied it so long, till at last I was able to
+give him the satisfaction of knowing it himself by the motion of the
+child within me.
+
+He professed himself overjoyed at the discovery, but told me that now it
+was absolutely necessary for me to quit the confinement which, he said,
+I had suffered for his sake, and to take a house somewhere in the
+country, in order for health as well as for privacy, against my
+lying-in. This was quite out of my way; but the prince, who was a man of
+pleasure, had, it seems, several retreats of this kind, which he had
+made use of, I suppose, upon like occasions. And so, leaving it, as it
+were, to his gentleman, he provided a very convenient house, about four
+miles south of Paris, at the village of ----, where I had very agreeable
+lodgings, good gardens, and all things very easy to my content. But one
+thing did not please me at all, viz., that an old woman was provided,
+and put into the house to furnish everything necessary to my lying-in,
+and to assist at my travail.
+
+I did not like this old woman at all; she looked so like a spy upon me,
+or (as sometimes I was frighted to imagine) like one set privately to
+despatch me out of the world, as might best suit with the circumstance
+of my lying-in. And when his Highness came the next time to see me,
+which was not many days, I expostulated a little on the subject of the
+old woman; and by the management of my tongue, as well as by the
+strength of reasoning, I convinced him that it would not be at all
+convenient; that it would be the greater risk on his side; and at first
+or last it would certainly expose him and me also. I assured him that my
+servant, being an Englishwoman, never knew to that hour who his Highness
+was; that I always called him the Count de Clerac, and that she knew
+nothing else of him, nor ever should; that if he would give me leave to
+choose proper persons for my use, it should be so ordered that not one
+of them should know who he was, or perhaps ever see his face; and that,
+for the reality of the child that should be born, his Highness, who had
+alone been at the first of it, should, if he pleased, be present in the
+room all the time, so that he would need no witnesses on that account.
+
+This discourse fully satisfied him, so that he ordered his gentleman to
+dismiss the old woman the same day; and without any difficulty I sent my
+maid Amy to Calais, and thence to Dover, where she got an English
+midwife and an English nurse to come over on purpose to attend an
+English lady of quality, as they styled me, for four months certain.
+
+The midwife, Amy had agreed to pay a hundred guineas to, and bear her
+charges to Paris, and back again to Dover. The poor woman that was to be
+my nurse had twenty pounds, and the same terms for charges as the other.
+
+I was very easy when Amy returned, and the more because she brought with
+the midwife a good motherly sort of woman, who was to be her assistant,
+and would be very helpful on occasion; and bespoke a man midwife at
+Paris too, if there should be any necessity for his help. Having thus
+made provision for everything, the Count, for so we all called him in
+public, came as often to see me as I could expect, and continued
+exceeding kind, as he had always been. One day, conversing together upon
+the subject of my being with child, I told him how all things were in
+order, but that I had a strange apprehension that I should die with that
+child. He smiled. "So all the ladies say, my dear," says he, "when they
+are with child." "Well, however, my lord," said I, "it is but just that
+care should be taken that what you have bestowed in your excess of
+bounty upon me should not be lost;" and upon this I pulled a paper out
+of my bosom, folded up, but not sealed, and I read it to him, wherein I
+had left order that all the plate and jewels and fine furniture which
+his Highness had given me should be restored to him by my women, and the
+keys be immediately delivered to his gentleman in case of disaster.
+
+Then I recommended my woman, Amy, to his favour for a hundred pistoles,
+on condition she gave the keys up as above to his gentleman, and his
+gentleman's receipt for them. When he saw this, "My dear child," said
+he, and took me in his arms, "what! have you been making your will and
+disposing of your effects? Pray, who do you make your universal heir?"
+"So far as to do justice to your Highness, in case of mortality, I have,
+my lord," said I, "and who should I dispose the valuable things to,
+which I have had from your hand as pledges of your favour and
+testimonies of your bounty, but to the giver of them? If the child
+should live, your Highness will, I don't question, act like yourself in
+that part, and I shall have the utmost satisfaction that it will be well
+used by your direction."
+
+I could see he took this very well. "I have forsaken all the ladies in
+Paris," says he, "for you, and I have lived every day since I knew you
+to see that you know how to merit all that a man of honour can do for
+you. Be easy, child; I hope you shall not die, and all you have is your
+own, to do what with it you please."
+
+I was then within about two months of my time, and that soon wore off.
+When I found my time was come, it fell out very happily that he was in
+the house, and I entreated he would continue a few hours in the house,
+which he agreed to. They called his Highness to come into the room, if
+he pleased, as I had offered and as I desired him; and I sent word I
+would make as few cries as possible to prevent disturbing him. He came
+into the room once, and called to me to be of good courage, it would
+soon be over, and then he withdrew again; and in about half-an-hour more
+Amy carried him the news that I was delivered, and had brought him a
+charming boy. He gave her ten pistoles for her news, stayed till they
+had adjusted things about me, and then came into the room again, cheered
+me and spoke kindly to me, and looked on the child, then withdrew, and
+came again the next day to visit me.
+
+Since this, and when I have looked back upon these things with eyes
+unpossessed with crime, when the wicked part has appeared in its clearer
+light and I have seen it in its own natural colours, when no more
+blinded with the glittering appearances which at that time deluded me,
+and as in like cases, if I may guess at others by myself, too much
+possessed the mind; I say, since this I have often wondered with what
+pleasure or satisfaction the prince could look upon the poor innocent
+infant, which, though his own, and that he might that way have some
+attachment in his affections to it, yet must always afterwards be a
+remembrancer to him of his most early crime, and, which was worse, must
+bear upon itself, unmerited, an eternal mark of infamy, which should be
+spoken of, upon all occasions, to its reproach, from the folly of its
+father and wickedness of its mother.
+
+Great men are indeed delivered from the burthen of their natural
+children, or bastards, as to their maintenance. This is the main
+affliction in other cases, where there is not substance sufficient
+without breaking into the fortunes of the family. In those cases either
+a man's legitimate children suffer, which is very unnatural, or the
+unfortunate mother of that illegitimate birth has a dreadful affliction,
+either of being turned off with her child, and be left to starve, &c.,
+or of seeing the poor infant packed off with a piece of money to those
+she-butchers who take children off their hands, as 'tis called, that is
+to say, starve them, and, in a word, murder them.
+
+Great men, I say, are delivered from this burthen, because they are
+always furnished to supply the expense of their out-of-the-way
+offspring, by making little assignments upon the Bank of Lyons or the
+townhouse of Paris, and settling those sums, to be received for the
+maintenance of such expense as they see cause.
+
+Thus, in the case of this child of mine, while he and I conversed, there
+was no need to make any appointment as an appanage or maintenance for
+the child or its nurse, for he supplied me more than sufficiently for
+all those things; but afterwards, when time, and a particular
+circumstance, put an end to our conversing together (as such things
+always meet with a period, and generally break off abruptly), I say,
+after that, I found he appointed the children a settled allowance, by an
+assignment of annual rent upon the Bank of Lyons, which was sufficient
+for bringing them handsomely, though privately, up in the world, and
+that not in a manner unworthy of their father's blood, though I came to
+be sunk and forgotten in the case; nor did the children ever know
+anything of their mother to this day, other than as you may have an
+account hereafter.
+
+But to look back to the particular observation I was making, which I
+hope may be of use to those who read my story, I say it was something
+wonderful to me to see this person so exceedingly delighted at the birth
+of this child, and so pleased with it; for he would sit and look at it,
+and with an air of seriousness sometimes a great while together, and
+particularly, I observed, he loved to look at it when it was asleep.
+
+It was indeed a lovely, charming child, and had a certain vivacity in
+its countenance that is far from being common to all children so young;
+and he would often say to me that he believed there was something
+extraordinary in the child, and he did not doubt but he would come to be
+a great man.
+
+I could never hear him say so, but though secretly it pleased me, yet it
+so closely touched me another way that I could not refrain sighing, and
+sometimes tears; and one time in particular it so affected me that I
+could not conceal it from him; but when he saw tears run down my face,
+there was no concealing the occasion from him; he was too importunate to
+be denied in a thing of that moment; so I frankly answered, "It sensibly
+affects me, my lord," said I, "that, whatever the merit of this little
+creature may be, he must always have a bend on his arms. The disaster of
+his birth will be always, not a blot only to his honour, but a bar to
+his fortunes in the world. Our affection will be ever his affliction,
+and his mother's crime be the son's reproach. The blot can never be
+wiped out by the most glorious action; nay, if it lives to raise a
+family," said I, "the infamy must descend even to its innocent
+posterity."
+
+He took the thought, and sometimes told me afterwards that it made a
+deeper impression on him than he discovered to me at that time; but for
+the present he put it off with telling me these things could not be
+helped; that they served for a spur to the spirits of brave men,
+inspired them with the principles of gallantry, and prompted them to
+brave actions; that though it might be true that the mention of
+illegitimacy might attend the name, yet that personal virtue placed a
+man of honour above the reproach of his birth; that, as he had no share
+in the offence, he would have no concern at the blot; when, having by
+his own merit placed himself out of the reach of scandal, his fame
+should drown the memory of his beginning; that as it was usual for men
+of quality to make such little escapes, so the number of their natural
+children were so great, and they generally took such good care of their
+education, that some of the greatest men in the world had a bend in
+their coats-of-arms, and that it was of no consequence to them,
+especially when their fame began to rise upon the basis of their
+acquired merit; and upon this he began to reckon up to me some of the
+greatest families in France and in England also.
+
+This carried off our discourse for a time; but I went farther with him
+once, removing the discourse from the part attending our children to the
+reproach which those children would be apt to throw upon us, their
+originals; and when speaking a little too feelingly on the subject, he
+began to receive the impression a little deeper than I wished he had
+done. At last he told me I had almost acted the confessor to him; that I
+might, perhaps, preach a more dangerous doctrine to him than we should
+either of us like, or than I was aware of. "For, my dear," says he, "if
+once we come to talk of repentance we must talk of parting."
+
+If tears were in my eyes before, they flowed too fast now to be
+restrained, and I gave him but too much satisfaction by my looks that I
+had yet no reflections upon my mind strong enough to go that length, and
+that I could no more think of parting than he could.
+
+He said a great many kind things, which were great, like himself, and,
+extenuating our crime, intimated to me that he could no more part with
+me than I could with him; so we both, as I may say, even against our
+light and against our conviction, concluded to sin on; indeed, his
+affection to the child was one great tie to him, for he was extremely
+fond of it.
+
+The child lived to be a considerable man. He was first an officer of the
+_Garde du Corps_ of France, and afterwards colonel of a regiment of
+dragoons in Italy, and on many extraordinary occasions showed that he
+was not unworthy such a father, but many ways deserving a legitimate
+birth and a better mother; of which hereafter.
+
+I think I may say now that I lived indeed like a queen; or, if you will
+have me confess that my condition had still the reproach of a whore, I
+may say I was, sure, the queen of whores; for no woman was ever more
+valued or more caressed by a person of such quality only in the station
+of a mistress. I had, indeed, one deficiency which women in such
+circumstances seldom are chargeable with, namely, I craved nothing of
+him, I never asked him for anything in my life, nor suffered myself to
+be made use of, as is too much the custom of mistresses, to ask favours
+for others. His bounty always prevented me in the first, and my strict
+concealing myself in the last, which was no less to my convenience than
+his.
+
+The only favour I ever asked of him was for his gentleman, who he had
+all along entrusted with the secret of our affair, and who had once so
+much offended him by some omissions in his duty that he found it very
+hard to make his peace. He came and laid his case before my woman Amy,
+and begged her to speak to me to intercede for him, which I did, and on
+my account he was received again and pardoned, for which the grateful
+dog requited me by getting to bed to his benefactress, Amy, at which I
+was very angry. But Amy generously acknowledged that it was her fault as
+much as his; that she loved the fellow so much that she believed if he
+had not asked her she should have asked him. I say, this pacified me,
+and I only obtained of her that she should not let him know that I knew
+it.
+
+I might have interspersed this part of my story with a great many
+pleasant parts and discourses which happened between my maid Amy and I,
+but I omit them on account of my own story, which has been so
+extraordinary. However, I must mention something as to Amy and her
+gentleman.
+
+I inquired of Amy upon what terms they came to be so intimate, but Amy
+seemed backward to explain herself. I did not care to press her upon a
+question of that nature, knowing that she might have answered my
+question with a question, and have said, "Why, how did I and the prince
+come to be so intimate?" So I left off farther inquiring into it, till,
+after some time, she told it me all freely of her own accord, which, to
+cut it short, amounted to no more than this, that, like mistress like
+maid, as they had many leisure hours together below, while they waited
+respectively when his lord and I were together above; I say, they could
+hardly avoid the usual question one to another, namely, why might not
+they do the same thing below that we did above?
+
+On that account, indeed, as I said above, I could not find in my heart
+to be angry with Amy. I was, indeed, afraid the girl would have been
+with child too, but that did not happen, and so there was no hurt done;
+for Amy had been hanselled before, as well as her mistress, and by the
+same party too, as you have heard.
+
+After I was up again, and my child provided with a good nurse, and,
+withal, winter coming on, it was proper to think of coming to Paris
+again, which I did; but as I had now a coach and horses, and some
+servants to attend me, by my lord's allowance, I took the liberty to
+have them come to Paris sometimes, and so to take a tour into the garden
+of the Tuileries and the other pleasant places of the city. It happened
+one day that my prince (if I may call him so) had a mind to give me some
+diversion, and to take the air with me; but, that he might do it and not
+be publicly known, he comes to me in a coach of the Count de ----, a
+great officer of the court, attended by his liveries also; so that, in a
+word, it was impossible to guess by the equipage who I was or who I
+belonged to; also, that I might be the more effectually concealed, he
+ordered me to be taken up at a mantua-maker's house, where he sometimes
+came, whether upon other amours or not was no business of mine to
+inquire. I knew nothing whither he intended to carry me; but when he was
+in the coach with me, he told me he had ordered his servants to go to
+court with me, and he would show me some of the _beau monde_. I told him
+I cared not where I went while I had the honour to have him with me. So
+he carried me to the fine palace of Meudon, where the Dauphin then was,
+and where he had some particular intimacy with one of the Dauphin's
+domestics, who procured a retreat for me in his lodgings while we
+stayed there, which was three or four days.
+
+While I was there the king happened to come thither from Versailles, and
+making but a short stay, visited Madame the Dauphiness, who was then
+living. The prince was here incognito, only because of his being with
+me, and therefore, when he heard that the king was in the gardens, he
+kept close within the lodgings; but the gentleman in whose lodgings we
+were, with his lady and several others, went out to see the king, and I
+had the honour to be asked to go with them.
+
+After we had seen the king, who did not stay long in the gardens, we
+walked up the broad terrace, and crossing the hall towards the great
+staircase, I had a sight which confounded me at once, as I doubt not it
+would have done to any woman in the world. The horse guards, or what
+they call there the _gens d'armes_, had, upon some occasion, been either
+upon duty or been reviewed, or something (I did not understand that
+part) was the matter that occasioned their being there, I know not what;
+but, walking in the guard-chamber, and with his jack-boots on, and the
+whole habit of the troop, as it is worn when our horse guards are upon
+duty, as they call it, at St. James's Park; I say, there, to my
+inexpressible confusion, I saw Mr. ----, my first husband, the brewer.
+
+I could not be deceived; I passed so near him that I almost brushed him
+with my clothes, and looked him full in the face, but having my fan
+before my face, so that he could not know me. However, I knew him
+perfectly well, and I heard him speak, which was a second way of knowing
+him. Besides being, you may be sure, astonished and surprised at such a
+sight, I turned about after I had passed him some steps, and pretending
+to ask the lady that was with me some questions, I stood as if I had
+viewed the great hall, the outer guard-chamber, and some things; but I
+did it to take a full view of his dress, that I might farther inform
+myself.
+
+While I stood thus amusing the lady that was with me with questions, he
+walked, talking with another man of the same cloth, back again, just by
+me; and to my particular satisfaction, or dissatisfaction--take it which
+way you will--I heard him speak English, the other being, it seems, an
+Englishman.
+
+I then asked the lady some other questions. "Pray, madam," says I, "what
+are these troopers here? Are they the king's guards?" "No," says she;
+"they are the _gens d'armes_; a small detachment of them, I suppose,
+attended the king to-day, but they are not his Majesty's ordinary
+guard." Another lady that was with her said, "No, madam, it seems that
+is not the case, for I heard them saying the _gens d'armes_ were here
+to-day by special order, some of them being to march towards the Rhine,
+and these attend for orders; but they go back to-morrow to Orleans,
+where they are expected."
+
+This satisfied me in part, but I found means after this to inquire whose
+particular troop it was that the gentlemen that were here belonged to;
+and with that I heard they would all be at Paris the week after.
+
+Two days after this we returned for Paris, when I took occasion to speak
+to my lord, that I heard the _gens d'armes_ were to be in the city the
+next week, and that I should be charmed with seeing them march if they
+came in a body. He was so obliging in such things that I need but just
+name a thing of that kind and it was done; so he ordered his gentleman
+(I should now call him Amy's gentleman) to get me a place in a certain
+house, where I might see them march.
+
+As he did not appear with me on this occasion, so I had the liberty of
+taking my woman Amy with me, and stood where we were very well
+accommodated for the observation which I was to make. I told Amy what I
+had seen, and she was as forward to make the discovery as I was to have
+her, and almost as much surprised at the thing itself. In a word, the
+_gens d'armes_ entered the city, as was expected, and made a most
+glorious show indeed, being new clothed and armed, and being to have
+their standards blessed by the Archbishop of Paris. On this occasion
+they indeed looked very gay; and as they marched very leisurely, I had
+time to take as critical a view and make as nice a search among them as
+I pleased. Here, in a particular rank, eminent for one monstrous-sized
+man on the right; here, I say, I saw my gentleman again, and a very
+handsome, jolly fellow he was, as any in the troop, though not so
+monstrous large as that great one I speak of, who, it seems, was,
+however, a gentleman of a good family in Gascony, and was called the
+giant of Gascony.
+
+It was a kind of a good fortune to us, among the other circumstances of
+it, that something caused the troops to halt in their march a little
+before that particular rank came right against that window which I stood
+in, so that then we had occasion to take our full view of him at a small
+distance, and so as not to doubt of his being the same person.
+
+Amy, who thought she might, on many accounts, venture with more safety
+to be particular than I could, asked her gentleman how a particular man,
+who she saw there among the _gens d'armes_, might be inquired after and
+found out; she having seen an Englishman riding there which was supposed
+to be dead in England for several years before she came out of London
+and that his wife had married again. It was a question the gentleman
+did not well understand how to answer; but another person that stood by
+told her, if she would tell him the gentleman's name, he would endeavour
+to find him out for her, and asked jestingly if he was her lover. Amy
+put that off with a laugh, but still continued her inquiry, and in such
+a manner as the gentleman easily perceived she was in earnest; so he
+left bantering, and asked her in what part of the troop he rode. She
+foolishly told him his name, which she should not have done; and
+pointing to the cornet that troop carried, which was not then quite out
+of sight, she let him easily know whereabouts he rode, only she could
+not name the captain. However, he gave her such directions afterwards
+that, in short, Amy, who was an indefatigable girl, found him out. It
+seems he had not changed his name, not supposing any inquiry would be
+made after him here; but, I say, Amy found him out, and went boldly to
+his quarters, asked for him, and he came out to her immediately.
+
+I believe I was not more confounded at my first seeing him at Meudon
+than he was at seeing Amy. He started and turned pale as death. Amy
+believed if he had seen her at first, in any convenient place for so
+villainous a purpose, he would have murdered her.
+
+But he started, as I say above, and asked in English, with an
+admiration, "What are you?" "Sir," says she, "don't you know me?"
+"Yes," says he, "I knew you when you were alive; but what are you
+now?--whether ghost or substance I know not." "Be not afraid, sir, of
+that," says Amy; "I am the same Amy that I was in your service, and do
+not speak to you now for any hurt, but that I saw you accidentally
+yesterday ride among the soldiers; I thought you might be glad to hear
+from your friends at London." "Well, Amy," says he then (having a little
+recovered himself), "how does everybody do? What! is your mistress
+here?" Thus they begun:--
+
+_Amy._ My mistress, sir, alas! not the mistress you mean; poor
+gentlewoman, you left her in a sad condition.
+
+_Gent._ Why, that's true, Amy; but it could not be helped; I was in a
+sad condition myself.
+
+_Amy._ I believe so, indeed, sir, or else you had not gone away as you
+did; for it was a very terrible condition you left them all in, that I
+must say.
+
+_Gent._ What did they do after I was gone?
+
+_Amy._ Do, sir! Very miserably, you may be sure. How could it be
+otherwise?
+
+_Gent._ Well, that's true indeed; but you may tell me, Amy, what became
+of them, if you please; for though I went so away, it was not because I
+did not love them all very well, but because I could not bear to see the
+poverty that was coming upon them, and which it was not in my power to
+help. What could I do?
+
+_Amy._ Nay, I believe so indeed; and I have heard my mistress say many
+times she did not doubt but your affliction was as great as hers,
+almost, wherever you were.
+
+_Gent._ Why, did she believe I was alive, then?
+
+_Amy._ Yes, sir; she always said she believed you were alive, because
+she thought she should have heard something of you if you had been dead.
+
+_Gent._ Ay, ay; my perplexity was very great indeed, or else I had never
+gone away.
+
+_Amy._ It was very cruel, though, to the poor lady, sir, my mistress;
+she almost broke her heart for you at first, for fear of what might
+befall you, and at last because she could not hear from you.
+
+_Gent._ Alas, Amy! what could I do? Things were driven to the last
+extremity before I went. I could have done nothing but help starve them
+all if I had stayed; and, besides, I could not bear to see it.
+
+_Amy._ You know, sir, I can say little to what passed before, but I am a
+melancholy witness to the sad distresses of my poor mistress as long as
+I stayed with her, and which would grieve your heart to hear them.
+
+[Here she tells my whole story to the time that the parish took off one
+of my children, and which she perceived very much affected him; and he
+shook his head, and said some things very bitter when he heard of the
+cruelty of his own relations to me.]
+
+_Gent._ Well, Amy, I have heard enough so far. What did she do
+afterwards?
+
+_Amy._ I can't give you any farther account, sir; my mistress would not
+let me stay with her any longer. She said she could neither pay me or
+subsist me. I told her I would serve her without any wages, but I could
+not live without victuals, you know; so I was forced to leave her, poor
+lady, sore against my will; and I heard afterwards that the landlord
+seized her goods, so she was, I suppose, turned out of doors; for as I
+went by the door, about a month after, I saw the house shut up; and,
+about a fortnight after that, I found there were workmen at work,
+fitting it up, as I suppose, for a new tenant. But none of the
+neighbours could tell me what was become of my poor mistress, only that
+they said she was so poor that it was next to begging; that some of the
+neighbouring gentlefolks had relieved her, or that else she must have
+starved.
+
+Then she went on, and told him that after that they never heard any more
+of (me) her mistress, but that she had been seen once or twice in the
+city very shabby and poor in clothes, and it was thought she worked with
+her needle for her bread.
+
+All this the jade said with so much cunning, and managed and humoured it
+so well, and wiped her eyes and cried so artificially, that he took it
+all as it was intended he should, and once or twice she saw tears in his
+eyes too. He told her it was a moving, melancholy story, and it had
+almost broke his heart at first, but that he was driven to the last
+extremity, and could do nothing but stay and see them all starve, which
+he could not bear the thoughts of, but should have pistolled himself if
+any such thing had happened while he was there; that he left (me) his
+wife all the money he had in the world but £25, which was as little as
+he could take with him to seek his fortune in the world. He could not
+doubt but that his relations, seeing they were all rich, would have
+taken the poor children off, and not let them come to the parish; and
+that his wife was young and handsome, and, he thought, might marry
+again, perhaps, to her advantage, and for that very reason he never
+wrote to her or let her know he was alive, that she might in a
+reasonable term of years marry, and perhaps mend her fortunes; that he
+resolved never to claim her, because he should rejoice to hear that she
+had settled to her mind; and that he wished there had been a law made to
+empower a woman to marry if her husband was not heard of in so long a
+time, which time, he thought, should not be above four years, which was
+long enough to send word in to a wife or family from any part of the
+world.
+
+Amy said she could say nothing to that but this, that she was satisfied
+her mistress would marry nobody unless she had certain intelligence that
+he had been dead from somebody that saw him buried. "But, alas!" says
+Amy, "my mistress was reduced to such dismal circumstances that nobody
+would be so foolish to think of her, unless it had been somebody to go
+a-begging with her."
+
+Amy then, seeing him so perfectly deluded, made a long and lamentable
+outcry how she had been deluded away to marry a poor footman. "For he is
+no worse or better," says she, "though he calls himself a lord's
+gentleman. And here," says Amy, "he has dragged me over into a strange
+country to make a beggar of me;" and then she falls a-howling again, and
+snivelling, which, by the way, was all hypocrisy, but acted so to the
+life as perfectly deceived him, and he gave entire credit to every word
+of it.
+
+"Why, Amy," says he, "you are very well dressed; you don't look as if
+you were in danger of being a beggar." "Ay, hang 'em!" says Amy, "they
+love to have fine clothes here, if they have never a smock under them.
+But I love to have money in cash, rather than a chestful of fine
+clothes. Besides, sir," says she, "most of the clothes I have were given
+me in the last place I had, when I went away from my mistress."
+
+Upon the whole of the discourse, Amy got out of him what condition he
+was in and how he lived, upon her promise to him that if ever she came
+to England, and should see her old mistress, she should not let her know
+that he was alive. "Alas, sir!" says Amy, "I may never come to see
+England again as long as I live; and if I should, it would be ten
+thousand to one whether I shall see my old mistress, for how should I
+know which way to look for her, or what part of England she may be
+in?--not I," says she. "I don't so much as know how to inquire for her;
+and if I should," says Amy, "ever be so happy as to see her, I would not
+do her so much mischief as to tell her where you were, sir, unless she
+was in a condition to help herself and you too." This farther deluded
+him, and made him entirely open in his conversing with her. As to his
+own circumstances, he told her she saw him in the highest preferment he
+had arrived to, or was ever like to arrive to; for, having no friends or
+acquaintance in France, and, which was worse, no money, he never
+expected to rise; that he could have been made a lieutenant to a troop
+of light horse but the week before, by the favour of an officer in the
+_gens d'armes_ who was his friend, but that he must have found eight
+thousand livres to have paid for it to the gentleman who possessed it,
+and had leave given him to sell. "But where could I get eight thousand
+livres," says he, "that have never been master of five hundred livres
+ready money at a time since I came into France?"
+
+"Oh dear, sir!" says Amy, "I am very sorry to hear you say so. I fancy
+if you once got up to some preferment, you would think of my old
+mistress again, and do something for her. Poor lady," says Amy, "she
+wants it, to be sure;" and then she falls a-crying again. "It is a sad
+thing indeed," says she, "that you should be so hard put to it for
+money, when you had got a friend to recommend you, and should lose it
+for want of money." "Ay, so it was, Amy, indeed," says he; "but what can
+a stranger do that has neither money or friends?" Here Amy puts in again
+on my account. "Well," says she, "my poor mistress has had the loss,
+though she knows nothing of it. Oh dear! how happy it would have been!
+To be sure, sir, you would have helped her all you could." "Ay," says
+he, "Amy, so I would with all my heart; and even as I am, I would send
+her some relief, if I thought she wanted it, only that then letting her
+know I was alive might do her some prejudice, in case of her settling,
+or marrying anybody."
+
+"Alas," says Amy, "marry! Who will marry her in the poor condition she
+is in?" And so their discourse ended for that time.
+
+All this was mere talk on both sides, and words of course; for on
+farther inquiry, Amy found that he had no such offer of a lieutenant's
+commission, or anything like it; and that he rambled in his discourse
+from one thing to another; but of that in its place.
+
+You may be sure that this discourse, as Amy at first related it, was
+moving to the last degree upon me, and I was once going to have sent him
+the eight thousand livres to purchase the commission he had spoken of;
+but as I knew his character better than anybody, I was willing to search
+a little farther into it, and so I set Amy to inquire of some other of
+the troop, to see what character he had, and whether there was anything
+in the story of a lieutenant's commission or no.
+
+But Amy soon came to a better understanding of him, for she presently
+learnt that he had a most scoundrel character; that there was nothing of
+weight in anything he said; but that he was, in short, a mere sharper,
+one that would stick at nothing to get money, and that there was no
+depending on anything he said; and that more especially about the
+lieutenant's commission, she understood that there was nothing at all in
+it, but they told her how he had often made use of that sham to borrow
+money, and move gentlemen to pity him and lend him money, in hopes to
+get him preferment; that he had reported that he had a wife and five
+children in England, who he maintained out of his pay, and by these
+shifts had run into debt in several places; and upon several complaints
+for such things, he had been threatened to be turned out of the _gens
+d'armes_; and that, in short, he was not to be believed in anything he
+said, or trusted on any account.
+
+Upon this information, Amy began to cool in her farther meddling with
+him, and told me it was not safe for me to attempt doing him any good,
+unless I resolved to put him upon suspicions and inquiries which might
+be to my ruin, in the condition I was now in.
+
+I was soon confirmed in this part of his character, for the next time
+that Amy came to talk with him, he discovered himself more effectually;
+for, while she had put him in hopes of procuring one to advance the
+money for the lieutenant's commission for him upon easy conditions, he
+by degrees dropped the discourse, then pretended it was too late, and
+that he could not get it, and then descended to ask poor Amy to lend him
+five hundred pistoles.
+
+Amy pretended poverty, that her circumstances were but mean, and that
+she could not raise such a sum; and this she did to try him to the
+utmost. He descended to three hundred, then to one hundred, then to
+fifty, and then to a pistole, which she lent him, and he, never
+intending to pay it, played out of her sight as much as he could. And
+thus being satisfied that he was the same worthless thing he had ever
+been, I threw off all thoughts of him; whereas, had he been a man of any
+sense and of any principle of honour, I had it in my thoughts to retire
+to England again, send for him over, and have lived honestly with him.
+But as a fool is the worst of husbands to do a woman good, so a fool is
+the worst husband a woman can do good to. I would willingly have done
+him good, but he was not qualified to receive it or make the best use of
+it. Had I sent him ten thousand crowns instead of eight thousand livres,
+and sent it with express condition that he should immediately have
+bought himself the commission he talked of with part of the money, and
+have sent some of it to relieve the necessities of his poor miserable
+wife at London, and to prevent his children to be kept by the parish, it
+was evident he would have been still but a private trooper, and his wife
+and children should still have starved at London, or been kept of mere
+charity, as, for aught he knew, they then were.
+
+Seeing, therefore, no remedy, I was obliged to withdraw my hand from
+him, that had been my first destroyer, and reserve the assistance that I
+intended to have given him for another more desirable opportunity. All
+that I had now to do was to keep myself out of his sight, which was not
+very difficult for me to do, considering in what station he lived.
+
+Amy and I had several consultations then upon the main question,
+namely, how to be sure never to chop upon him again by chance, and to be
+surprised into a discovery, which would have been a fatal discovery
+indeed. Amy proposed that we should always take care to know where the
+_gens d'armes_ were quartered, and thereby effectually avoid them; and
+this was one way.
+
+But this was not so as to be fully to my satisfaction; no ordinary way
+of inquiring where the _gens d'armes_ were quartered was sufficient to
+me; but I found out a fellow who was completely qualified for the work
+of a spy (for France has plenty of such people). This man I employed to
+be a constant and particular attendant upon his person and motions; and
+he was especially employed and ordered to haunt him as a ghost, that he
+should scarce let him be ever out of his sight. He performed this to a
+nicety, and failed not to give me a perfect journal of all his motions
+from day to day, and, whether for his pleasure or his business, was
+always at his heels.
+
+This was somewhat expensive, and such a fellow merited to be well paid,
+but he did his business so exquisitely punctual that this poor man
+scarce went out of the house without my knowing the way he went, the
+company he kept, when he went abroad, and when he stayed at home.
+
+By this extraordinary conduct I made myself safe, and so went out in
+public or stayed at home as I found he was or was not in a possibility
+of being at Paris, at Versailles, or any place I had occasion to be at.
+This, though it was very chargeable, yet as I found it absolutely
+necessary, so I took no thought about the expense of it, for I knew I
+could not purchase my safety too dear.
+
+By this management I found an opportunity to see what a most
+insignificant, unthinking life the poor, indolent wretch, who, by his
+unactive temper, had at first been my ruin, now lived; how he only rose
+in the morning to go to bed at night; that, saving the necessary motion
+of the troops, which he was obliged to attend, he was a mere motionless
+animal, of no consequence in the world; that he seemed to be one who,
+though he was indeed alive, had no manner of business in life but to
+stay to be called out of it. He neither kept any company, minded any
+sport, played at any game, or indeed did anything of moment; but, in
+short, sauntered about like one that it was not two livres value whether
+he was dead or alive; that when he was gone, would leave no remembrance
+behind him that ever he was here; that if ever he did anything in the
+world to be talked of, it was only to get five beggars and starve his
+wife. The journal of his life, which I had constantly sent me every
+week, was the least significant of anything of its kind that was ever
+seen, as it had really nothing of earnest in it, so it would make no
+jest to relate it. It was not important enough so much as to make the
+reader merry withal, and for that reason I omit it.
+
+Yet this nothing-doing wretch was I obliged to watch and guard against,
+as against the only thing that was capable of doing me hurt in the
+world. I was to shun him as we would shun a spectre, or even the devil,
+if he was actually in our way; and it cost me after the rate of a
+hundred and fifty livres a month, and very cheap too, to have this
+creature constantly kept in view. That is to say, my spy undertook never
+to let him be out of his sight an hour, but so as that he could give an
+account of him, which was much the easier for to be done considering his
+way of living; for he was sure that, for whole weeks together, he would
+be ten hours of the day half asleep on a bench at the tavern-door where
+he quartered, or drunk within the house. Though this wicked life he led
+sometimes moved me to pity him, and to wonder how so well-bred,
+gentlemanly a man as he once was could degenerate into such a useless
+thing as he now appeared, yet at the same time it gave me most
+contemptible thoughts of him, and made me often say I was a warning for
+all the ladies of Europe against marrying of fools. A man of sense falls
+in the world and gets up again, and a woman has some chance for herself;
+but with a fool, once fall, and ever undone; once in the ditch, and die
+in the ditch; once poor, and sure to starve.
+
+But it is time to have done with him. Once I had nothing to hope for but
+to see him again; now my only felicity was, if possible, never to see
+him, and, above all, to keep him from seeing me, which, as above, I took
+effectual care of.
+
+I was now returned to Paris. My little son of honour, as I called him,
+was left at ----, where my last country-seat then was, and I came to
+Paris at the prince's request. Thither he came to me as soon as I
+arrived, and told me he came to give me joy of my return, and to make
+his acknowledgments for that I had given him a son. I thought, indeed,
+he had been going to give me a present, and so he did the next day, but
+in what he said then he only jested with me. He gave me his company all
+the evening, supped with me about midnight, and did me the honour, as I
+then called it, to lodge me in his arms all the night, telling me, in
+jest, that the best thanks for a son born was giving the pledge for
+another.
+
+But as I hinted, so it was; the next morning he laid me down on my
+toilet a purse with three hundred pistoles. I saw him lay it down, and
+understood what he meant, but I took no notice of it till I came to it,
+as it were, casually; then I gave a great cry out, and fell a-scolding
+in my way, for he gave me all possible freedom of speech on such
+occasions. I told him he was unkind, that he would never give me an
+opportunity to ask for anything, and that he forced me to blush by being
+too much obliged, and the like; all which I knew was very agreeable to
+him, for as he was bountiful beyond measure, so he was infinitely
+obliged by my being so backward to ask any favours; and I was even with
+him, for I never asked him for a farthing in my life.
+
+Upon this rallying him, he told me I had either perfectly studied the
+art of humour, or else what was the greatest difficulty to others was
+natural to me, adding that nothing could be more obliging to a man of
+honour than not to be soliciting and craving.
+
+I told him nothing could be craving upon him, that he left no room for
+it; that I hoped he did not give merely to avoid the trouble of being
+importuned. I told him he might depend upon it that I should be reduced
+very low indeed before I offered to disturb him that way.
+
+He said a man of honour ought always to know what he ought to do; and as
+he did nothing but what he knew was reasonable, he gave me leave to be
+free with him if I wanted anything; that he had too much value for me to
+deny me anything if I asked, but that it was infinitely agreeable to
+him to hear me say that what he did was to my satisfaction.
+
+We strained compliments thus a great while, and as he had me in his arms
+most part of the time, so upon all my expressions of his bounty to me he
+put a stop to me with his kisses, and would admit me to go on no
+farther.
+
+I should in this place mention that this prince was not a subject of
+France, though at that time he resided at Paris and was much at court,
+where, I suppose, he had or expected some considerable employment. But I
+mention it on this account, that a few days after this he came to me and
+told me he was come to bring me not the most welcome news that ever I
+heard from him in his life. I looked at him a little surprised; but he
+returned, "Do not be uneasy; it is as unpleasant to me as to you, but I
+come to consult with you about it and see if it cannot be made a little
+easy to us both."
+
+I seemed still more concerned and surprised. At last he said it was that
+he believed he should be obliged to go into Italy, which, though
+otherwise it was very agreeable to him, yet his parting with me made it
+a very dull thing but to think of.
+
+I sat mute, as one thunderstruck, for a good while; and it presently
+occurred to me that I was going to lose him, which, indeed, I could but
+ill bear the thoughts of; and as he told me I turned pale. "What's the
+matter?" said he hastily. "I have surprised you indeed," and stepping to
+the sideboard fills a dram of cordial water, which was of his own
+bringing, and comes to me. "Be not surprised," said he; "I'll go nowhere
+without you;" adding several other things so kind as nothing could
+exceed it.
+
+I might indeed turn pale, for I was very much surprised at first,
+believing that this was, as it often happens in such cases, only a
+project to drop me, and break off an amour which he had now carried on
+so long; and a thousand thoughts whirled about my head in the few
+moments while I was kept in suspense, for they were but a few. I say, I
+was indeed surprised, and might, perhaps, look pale, but I was not in
+any danger of fainting that I knew of.
+
+However, it not a little pleased me to see him so concerned and anxious
+about me, but I stopped a little when he put the cordial to my mouth,
+and taking the glass in my hand, I said, "My lord, your words are
+infinitely more of a cordial to me than this citron; for as nothing can
+be a greater affliction than to lose you, so nothing can be a greater
+satisfaction than the assurance that I shall not have that misfortune."
+
+He made me sit down, and sat down by me, and after saying a thousand
+kind things to me, he turns upon me with a smile: "Why, will you
+venture yourself to Italy with me?" says he. I stopped a while, and then
+answered that I wondered he would ask me that question, for I would go
+anywhere in the world, or all over the world, wherever he should desire
+me, and give me the felicity of his company.
+
+Then he entered into a long account of the occasion of his journey, and
+how the king had engaged him to go, and some other circumstances which
+are not proper to enter into here; it being by no means proper to say
+anything that might lead the reader into the least guess at the person.
+
+But to cut short this part of the story, and the history of our journey
+and stay abroad, which would almost fill up a volume of itself, I say we
+spent all that evening in cheerful consultations about the manner of our
+travelling, the equipage and figure he should go in, and in what manner
+I should go. Several ways were proposed, but none seemed feasible, till
+at last I told him I thought it would be so troublesome, so expensive,
+and so public that it would be many ways inconvenient to him; and though
+it was a kind of death to me to lose him, yet that, rather than so very
+much perplex his affairs, I would submit to anything.
+
+At the next visit I filled his head with the same difficulties, and then
+at last came over him with a proposal that I would stay in Paris, or
+where else he should direct; and when I heard of his safe arrival, would
+come away by myself, and place myself as near him as I could.
+
+This gave him no satisfaction at all, nor would he hear any more of it;
+but if I durst venture myself, as he called it, such a journey, he would
+not lose the satisfaction of my company; and as for the expense, that
+was not to be named; neither, indeed, was there room to name it, for I
+found that he travelled at the king's expense, as well for himself as
+for all his equipage, being upon a piece of secret service of the last
+importance.
+
+But after several debates between ourselves, he came to this resolution,
+viz., that he would travel incognito, and so he should avoid all public
+notice either of himself or of who went with him; and that then he
+should not only carry me with him, but have a perfect leisure of
+enjoying my agreeable company (as he was pleased to call it) all the
+way.
+
+This was so obliging that nothing could be more so. Upon this foot he
+immediately set to work to prepare things for his journey, and, by his
+directions, so did I too. But now I had a terrible difficulty upon me,
+and which way to get over it I knew not; and that was, in what manner to
+take care of what I had to leave behind me. I was rich, as I have said,
+very rich, and what to do with it I knew not; nor who to leave in trust
+I knew not. I had nobody but Amy in the world, and to travel without Amy
+was very uncomfortable, or to leave all I had in the world with her,
+and, if she miscarried, be ruined at once, was still a frightful
+thought; for Amy might die, and whose hands things might fall into I
+knew not. This gave me great uneasiness, and I knew not what to do; for
+I could not mention it to the prince, lest he should see that I was
+richer than he thought I was.
+
+But the prince made all this easy to me; for in concerting measures for
+our journey he started the thing himself, and asked me merrily one
+evening who I would trust with all my wealth in my absence.
+
+"My wealth, my lord," said I, "except what I owe to your goodness is but
+small, but yet that little I have, I confess, causes some
+thoughtfulness, because I have no acquaintance in Paris that I dare
+trust with it, nor anybody but my woman to leave in the house; and how
+to do without her upon the road I do not well know."
+
+"As to the road, be not concerned," says the prince; "I'll provide you
+servants to your mind; and as for your woman, if you can trust her,
+leave her here, and I'll put you in a way how to secure things as well
+as if you were at home." I bowed, and told him I could not be put into
+better hands than his own, and that, therefore, I would govern all my
+measures by his directions; so we talked no more of it that night.
+
+The next day he sent me in a great iron chest, so large that it was as
+much as six lusty fellows could get up the steps into the house; and in
+this I put, indeed, all my wealth; and for my safety he ordered a good,
+honest, ancient man and his wife to be in the house with her, to keep
+her company, and a maid-servant and boy; so that there was a good
+family, and Amy was madam, the mistress of the house.
+
+Things being thus secured, we set out incog., as he called it; but we
+had two coaches and six horses, two chaises, and about eight
+men-servants on horseback, all very well armed.
+
+Never was woman better used in this world that went upon no other
+account than I did. I had three women-servants to wait on me, one
+whereof was an old Madame ----, who thoroughly understood her business,
+and managed everything as if she had been major-domo; so I had no
+trouble. They had one coach to themselves, and the prince and I in the
+other; only that sometimes, where he knew it necessary, I went into
+their coach, and one particular gentleman of the retinue rode with him.
+
+I shall say no more of the journey than that when we came to those
+frightful mountains, the Alps, there was no travelling in our coaches,
+so he ordered a horse-litter, but carried by mules, to be provided for
+me, and himself went on horseback. The coaches went some other way back
+to Lyons. Then we had coaches hired at Turin, which met us at Suza; so
+that we were accommodated again, and went by easy journeys afterwards to
+Rome, where his business, whatever it was, called him to stay some time,
+and from thence to Venice.
+
+He was as good as his word, indeed; for I had the pleasure of his
+company, and, in a word, engrossed his conversation almost all the way.
+He took delight in showing me everything that was to be seen, and
+particularly in telling me something of the history of everything he
+showed me.
+
+What valuable pains were here thrown away upon one who he was sure, at
+last, to abandon with regret! How below himself did a man of quality and
+of a thousand accomplishments behave in all this! It is one of my
+reasons for entering into this part, which otherwise would not be worth
+relating. Had I been a daughter or a wife, of whom it might be said that
+he had a just concern in their instruction or improvement, it had been
+an admirable step; but all this to a whore; to one who he carried with
+him upon no account that could be rationally agreeable, and none but to
+gratify the meanest of human frailties--this was the wonder of it. But
+such is the power of a vicious inclination. Whoring was, in a word, his
+darling crime, the worst excursion he made, for he was otherwise one of
+the most excellent persons in the world. No passions, no furious
+excursions, no ostentatious pride; the most humble, courteous, affable
+person in the world. Not an oath, not an indecent word, or the least
+blemish in behaviour was to be seen in all his conversation, except as
+before excepted; and it has given me occasion for many dark reflections
+since, to look back and think that I should be the snare of such a
+person's life; that I should influence him to so much wickedness, and
+that I should be the instrument in the hand of the devil to do him so
+much prejudice.
+
+We were near two years upon this grand tour, as it may be called, during
+most of which I resided at Rome or at Venice, having only been twice at
+Florence and once at Naples. I made some very diverting and useful
+observations in all these places, and particularly of the conduct of the
+ladies; for I had opportunity to converse very much among them, by the
+help of the old witch that travelled with us. She had been at Naples and
+at Venice, and had lived in the former several years, where, as I found,
+she had lived but a loose life, as indeed the women of Naples generally
+do; and, in short, I found she was fully acquainted with all the
+intriguing arts of that part of the world.
+
+Here my lord bought me a little female Turkish slave, who, being taken
+at sea by a Maltese man-of-war, was brought in there, and of her I
+learnt the Turkish language, their way of dressing and dancing, and some
+Turkish, or rather Moorish, songs, of which I made use to my advantage
+on an extraordinary occasion some years after, as you shall hear in its
+place. I need not say I learnt Italian too, for I got pretty well
+mistress of that before I had been there a year; and as I had leisure
+enough and loved the language, I read all the Italian books I could come
+at.
+
+I began to be so in love with Italy, especially with Naples and Venice,
+that I could have been very well satisfied to have sent for Amy and have
+taken up my residence there for life.
+
+As to Rome, I did not like it at all. The swarms of ecclesiastics of all
+kinds on one side, and the scoundrel rabbles of the common people on the
+other, make Rome the unpleasantest place in the world to live in. The
+innumerable number of valets, lackeys, and other servants is such that
+they used to say that there are very few of the common people in Rome
+but what have been footmen, or porters, or grooms to cardinals or
+foreign ambassadors. In a word, they have an air of sharping and
+cozening, quarrelling and scolding, upon their general behaviour; and
+when I was there the footmen made such a broil between two great
+families in Rome, about which of their coaches (the ladies being in the
+coaches on either side) should give way to the other, that there was
+about thirty people wounded on both sides, five or six killed outside,
+and both the ladies frighted almost to death.
+
+But I have no mind to write the history of my travels on this side of
+the world, at least not now; it would be too full of variety.
+
+I must not, however, omit that the prince continued in all this journey
+the most kind, obliging person to me in the world, and so constant that,
+though we were in a country where it is well known all manner of
+liberties are taken, I am yet well assured he neither took the liberty
+he knew he might have, or so much as desired it.
+
+I have often thought of this noble person on that account. Had he been
+but half so true, so faithful and constant, to the best lady in the
+world--I mean his princess--how glorious a virtue had it been in him!
+And how free had he been from those just reflections which touched him
+in her behalf when it was too late!
+
+We had some very agreeable conversations upon this subject, and once he
+told me, with a kind of more than ordinary concern upon his thoughts,
+that he was greatly beholden to me for taking this hazardous and
+difficult journey, for that I had kept him honest. I looked up in his
+face, and coloured as red as fire. "Well, well," says he, "do not let
+that surprise you, I do say you have kept me honest." "My lord," said I,
+"'tis not for me to explain your words, but I wish I could turn them my
+own way. I hope," says I, "and believe we are both as honest as we can
+be in our circumstances." "Ay, ay," says he; "and honester than I doubt
+I should have been if you had not been with me. I cannot say but if you
+had not been here I should have wandered among the gay world here, in
+Naples, and in Venice too, for 'tis not such a crime here as 'tis in
+other places. But I protest," says he, "I have not touched a woman in
+Italy but yourself; and more than that, I have not so much as had any
+desire to it. So that, I say, you have kept me honest."
+
+I was silent, and was glad that he interrupted me, or kept me from
+speaking, with kissing me, for really I knew not what to say. I was once
+going to say that if his lady, the princess, had been with him, she
+would doubtless have had the same influence upon his virtue, with
+infinitely more advantage to him; but I considered this might give him
+offence; and, besides, such things might have been dangerous to the
+circumstance I stood in, so it passed off. But I must confess I saw that
+he was quite another man as to women than I understood he had always
+been before, and it was a particular satisfaction to me that I was
+thereby convinced that what he said was true, and that he was, as I may
+say, all my own.
+
+I was with child again in this journey, and lay in at Venice, but was
+not so happy as before. I brought him another son, and a very fine boy
+it was, but it lived not above two months; nor, after the first touches
+of affection (which are usual, I believe, to all mothers) were over, was
+I sorry the child did not live, the necessary difficulties attending it
+in our travelling being considered.
+
+After these several perambulations, my lord told me his business began
+to close, and we would think of returning to France, which I was very
+glad of, but principally on account of my treasure I had there, which,
+as you have heard, was very considerable. It is true I had letters very
+frequently from my maid Amy, with accounts that everything was very
+safe, and that was very much to my satisfaction. However, as the
+prince's negotiations were at an end, and he was obliged to return, I
+was very glad to go; so we returned from Venice to Turin, and in the way
+I saw the famous city of Milan. From Turin we went over the mountains
+again, as before, and our coaches met us at Pont à Voisin, between
+Chambery and Lyons; and so, by easy journeys, we arrived safely at
+Paris, having been absent two years, wanting about eleven days, as
+above.
+
+I found the little family we left just as we left them, and Amy cried
+for joy when she saw me, and I almost did the same.
+
+The prince took his leave of me the night before, for, as he told me, he
+knew he should be met upon the road by several persons of quality, and
+perhaps by the princess herself; so we lay at two different inns that
+night, lest some should come quite to the place, as indeed it happened.
+
+After this I saw him not for above twenty days, being taken up in his
+family, and also with business; but he sent me his gentleman to tell me
+the reason of it, and bid me not be uneasy, and that satisfied me
+effectually.
+
+In all this affluence of my good fortune I did not forget that I had
+been rich and poor once already alternately, and that I ought to know
+that the circumstances I was now in were not to be expected to last
+always; that I had one child, and expected another; and if I had bred
+often, it would something impair me in the great article that supported
+my interest--I mean, what he called beauty; that as that declined, I
+might expect the fire would abate, and the warmth with which I was now
+so caressed would cool, and in time, like the other mistresses of great
+men, I might be dropped again; and that therefore it was my business to
+take care that I should fall as softly as I could.
+
+I say, I did not forget, therefore, to make as good provision for
+myself as if I had had nothing to have subsisted on but what I now
+gained; whereas I had not less than ten thousand pounds, as I said
+above, which I had amassed, or secured rather, out of the ruins of my
+faithful friend the jeweller, and which he, little thinking of what was
+so near him when he went out, told me, though in a kind of a jest, was
+all my own, if he was knocked on the head, and which, upon that title, I
+took care to preserve.
+
+My greatest difficulty now was how to secure my wealth and to keep what
+I had got; for I had greatly added to this wealth by the generous bounty
+of the Prince ----, and the more by the private, retired mode of living,
+which he rather desired for privacy than parsimony; for he supplied me
+for a more magnificent way of life than I desired, if it had been
+proper.
+
+I shall cut short the history of this prosperous wickedness with telling
+you I brought him a third son, within little more than eleven months
+after our return from Italy; that now I lived a little more openly, and
+went by a particular name which he gave me abroad, but which I must
+omit, viz., the Countess de ----; and had coaches and servants, suitable
+to the quality he had given me the appearance of; and, which is more
+than usually happens in such cases, this held eight years from the
+beginning, during which time, as I had been very faithful to him, so I
+must say, as above, that I believe he was so separated to me, that
+whereas he usually had two or three women, which he kept privately, he
+had not in all that time meddled with any of them, but that I had so
+perfectly engrossed him that he dropped them all. Not, perhaps, that he
+saved much by it, for I was a very chargeable mistress to him, that I
+must acknowledge, but it was all owing to his particular affection to
+me, not to my extravagance, for, as I said, he never gave me leave to
+ask him for anything, but poured in his favours and presents faster than
+I expected, and so fast as I could not have the assurance to make the
+least mention of desiring more. Nor do I speak this of my own guess, I
+mean about his constancy to me and his quitting all other women; but the
+old harridan, as I may call her, whom he made the guide of our
+travelling, and who was a strange old creature, told me a thousand
+stories of his gallantry, as she called it, and how, as he had no less
+than three mistresses at one time, and, as I found, all of her
+procuring, he had of a sudden dropped them all, and that he was entirely
+lost to both her and them; that they did believe he had fallen into some
+new hands, but she could never hear who, or where, till he sent for her
+to go this journey; and then the old hag complimented me upon his
+choice; that she did not wonder I had so engrossed him; so much beauty,
+&c.; and there she stopped.
+
+Upon the whole, I found by her what was, you may be sure, to my
+particular satisfaction, viz., that, as above, I had him all my own. But
+the highest tide has its ebb; and in all things of this kind there is a
+reflux which sometimes, also, is more impetuously violent than the first
+aggression. My prince was a man of a vast fortune, though no sovereign,
+and therefore there was no probability that the expense of keeping a
+mistress could be injurious to him, as to his estate. He had also
+several employments, both out of France as well as in it; for, as above,
+I say he was not a subject of France, though he lived in that court. He
+had a princess, a wife with whom he had lived several years, and a woman
+(so the voice of fame reported) the most valuable of her sex, of birth
+equal to him, if not superior, and of fortune proportionable; but in
+beauty, wit, and a thousand good qualities superior, not to most women,
+but even to all her sex; and as to her virtue, the character which was
+justly her due was that of, not only the best of princesses, but even
+the best of women.
+
+They lived in the utmost harmony, as with such a princess it was
+impossible to be otherwise. But yet the princess was not insensible that
+her lord had his foibles, that he did make some excursions, and
+particularly that he had one favourite mistress, which sometimes
+engrossed him more than she (the princess) could wish, or be easily
+satisfied with. However, she was so good, so generous, so truly kind a
+wife, that she never gave him any uneasiness on this account; except so
+much as must arise from his sense of her bearing the affront of it with
+such patience, and such a profound respect for him as was in itself
+enough to have reformed him, and did sometimes shock his generous mind,
+so as to keep him at home, as I may call it, a great while together. And
+it was not long before I not only perceived it by his absence, but
+really got a knowledge of the reason of it, and once or twice he even
+acknowledged it to me.
+
+It was a point that lay not in me to manage. I made a kind of motion
+once or twice to him to leave me, and keep himself to her, as he ought
+by the laws and rites of matrimony to do, and argued the generosity of
+the princess to him, to persuade him; but I was a hypocrite, for had I
+prevailed with him really to be honest, I had lost him, which I could
+not bear the thoughts of; and he might easily see I was not in earnest.
+One time in particular, when I took upon me to talk at this rate, I
+found, when I argued so much for the virtue and honour, the birth, and,
+above all, the generous usage he found in the person of the princess
+with respect to his private amours, and how it should prevail upon him,
+&c., I found it began to affect him, and he returned, "And do you
+indeed," says he, "persuade me to leave you? Would you have me think
+you sincere?" I looked up in his face, smiling. "Not for any other
+favourite, my lord," says I; "that would break my heart; but for madam
+the princess!" said I; and then I could say no more. Tears followed, and
+I sat silent a while. "Well," said he, "if ever I do leave you, it shall
+be on the virtuous account; it shall be for the princess; I assure you
+it shall be for no other woman." "That's enough, my lord," said I;
+"there I ought to submit; and while I am assured it shall be for no
+other mistress, I promise your Highness I will not repine; or that, if I
+do, it shall be a silent grief; it shall not interrupt your felicity."
+
+All this while I said I knew not what, and said what I was no more able
+to do than he was able to leave me; which, at that time, he owned he
+could not do--no, not for the princess herself.
+
+But another turn of affairs determined this matter, for the princess was
+taken very ill, and, in the opinion of all her physicians, very
+dangerously so. In her sickness she desired to speak with her lord, and
+to take her leave of him. At this grievous parting she said so many
+passionate, kind things to him, lamented that she had left him no
+children (she had had three, but they were dead); hinted to him that it
+was one of the chief things which gave her satisfaction in death, as to
+this world, that she should leave him room to have heirs to his family,
+by some princess that should supply her place; with all humility, but
+with a Christian earnestness, recommended to him to do justice to such
+princess, whoever it should be, from whom, to be sure, he would expect
+justice; that is to say, to keep to her singly, according to the
+solemnest part of the marriage covenant; humbly asked his Highness's
+pardon if she had any way offended him; and appealing to Heaven, before
+whose tribunal she was to appear, that she had never violated her honour
+or her duty to him, and praying to Jesus and the blessed Virgin for his
+Highness; and thus, with the most moving and most passionate expressions
+of her affection to him, took her last leave of him, and died the next
+day.
+
+This discourse, from a princess so valuable in herself and so dear to
+him, and the loss of her following so immediately after, made such deep
+impressions on him that he looked back with detestation upon the former
+part of his life, grew melancholy and reserved, changed his society and
+much of the general conduct of his life, resolved on a life regulated
+most strictly by the rules of virtue and piety, and, in a word, was
+quite another man.
+
+The first part of his reformation was a storm upon me; for, about ten
+days after the princess's funeral, he sent a message to me by his
+gentleman, intimating, though in very civil terms, and with a short
+preamble or introduction, that he desired I would not take it ill that
+he was obliged to let me know that he could see me no more. His
+gentleman told me a long story of the new regulation of life his lord
+had taken up; and that he had been so afflicted for the loss of his
+princess that he thought it would either shorten his life or he would
+retire into some religious house, to end his days in solitude.
+
+I need not direct anybody to suppose how I received this news. I was
+indeed exceedingly surprised at it, and had much ado to support myself
+when the first part of it was delivered, though the gentleman delivered
+his errand with great respect, and with all the regard to me that he was
+able, and with a great deal of ceremony, also telling me how much he was
+concerned to bring me such a message.
+
+But when I heard the particulars of the story at large, and especially
+that of the lady's discourse to the prince a little before her death, I
+was fully satisfied. I knew very well he had done nothing but what any
+man must do that had a true sense upon him of the justice of the
+princess's discourse to him, and of the necessity there was of his
+altering his course of life, if he intended to be either a Christian or
+an honest man. I say, when I heard this I was perfectly easy. I confess
+it was a circumstance that it might be reasonably expected should have
+wrought something also upon me; I that had so much to reflect upon more
+than the prince; that had now no more temptation of poverty, or of the
+powerful motive which Amy used with me--namely, comply and live, deny
+and starve; I say, I that had no poverty to introduce vice, but was
+grown not only well supplied, but rich; and not only rich, but was very
+rich; in a word, richer than I knew how to think of, for the truth of it
+was, that thinking of it sometimes almost distracted me, for want of
+knowing how to dispose of it, and for fear of losing it all again by
+some cheat or trick, not knowing anybody that I could commit the trust
+of it to.
+
+Besides, I should add, at the close of this affair, that the prince did
+not, as I may say, turn me off rudely and with disgust, but with all the
+decency and goodness peculiar to himself, and that could consist with a
+man reformed and struck with the sense of his having abused so good a
+lady as his late princess had been. Nor did he send me away empty, but
+did everything like himself; and, in particular, ordered his gentleman
+to pay the rent of the house and all the expense of his two sons, and to
+tell me how they were taken care of, and where, and also that I might at
+all times inspect the usage they had, and if I disliked anything it
+should be rectified; and having thus finished everything, he retired
+into Lorraine, or somewhere that way, where he had an estate, and I
+never heard of him more--I mean, not as a mistress.
+
+Now I was at liberty to go to any part of the world, and take care of my
+money myself. The first thing that I resolved to do was to go directly
+to England, for there, I thought, being among my country-folks--for I
+esteemed myself an Englishwoman, though I was born in France--there, I
+say, I thought I could better manage things than in France; at least,
+that I would be in less danger of being circumvented and deceived; but
+how to get away with such a treasure as I had with me was a difficult
+point, and what I was greatly at a loss about.
+
+There was a Dutch merchant in Paris, that was a person of great
+reputation for a man of substance and of honesty, but I had no manner of
+acquaintance with him, nor did I know how to get acquainted with him, so
+as to discover my circumstances to him; but at last I employed my maid
+Amy (such I must be allowed to call her, notwithstanding what has been
+said of her, because she was in the place of a maid-servant); I say, I
+employed my maid Amy to go to him, and she got a recommendation to him
+from somebody else, I knew not who, so that she got access to him well
+enough.
+
+But now was my case as bad as before, for when I came to him what could
+I do? I had money and jewels to a vast value, and I might leave all
+those with him; that I might indeed do; and so I might with several
+other merchants in Paris, who would give me bills for it, payable at
+London; but then I ran a hazard of my money, and I had nobody at London
+to send the bills to, and so to stay till I had an account that they
+were accepted; for I had not one friend in London that I could have
+recourse to, so that indeed I knew not what to do.
+
+In this case I had no remedy but that I must trust somebody, so I sent
+Amy to this Dutch merchant, as I said above. He was a little surprised
+when Amy came to him and talked to him of remitting a sum of about
+twelve thousand pistoles to England, and began to think she came to put
+some cheat upon him; but when he found that Amy was but a servant, and
+that I came to him myself, the case was altered presently.
+
+When I came to him myself, I presently saw such a plainness in his
+dealing and such honesty in his countenance that I made no scruple to
+tell him my whole story, viz., that I was a widow, that I had some
+jewels to dispose of, and also some money which I had a mind to send to
+England, and to follow there myself; but being but a woman, and having
+no correspondence in London, or anywhere else, I knew not what to do,
+or how to secure my effects.
+
+He dealt very candidly with me, but advised me, when he knew my case so
+particularly, to take bills upon Amsterdam, and to go that way to
+England; for that I might lodge my treasure in the bank there, in the
+most secure manner in the world, and that there he could recommend me to
+a man who perfectly understood jewels, and would deal faithfully with me
+in the disposing them.
+
+I thanked him, but scrupled very much the travelling so far in a strange
+country, and especially with such a treasure about me; that, whether
+known or concealed, I did not know how to venture with it. Then he told
+me he would try to dispose of them there, that is, at Paris, and convert
+them into money, and so get me bills for the whole; and in a few days he
+brought a Jew to me, who pretended to buy the jewels. As soon as the Jew
+saw the jewels I saw my folly, and it was ten thousand to one but I had
+been ruined, and perhaps put to death in as cruel a manner as possible;
+and I was put in such a fright by it that I was once upon the point of
+flying for my life, and leaving the jewels and money too in the hands of
+the Dutchman, without any bills or anything else. The case was thus:--
+
+As soon as the Jew saw the jewels he falls a-jabbering, in Dutch or
+Portuguese, to the merchant; and I could presently perceive that they
+were in some great surprise, both of them. The Jew held up his hands,
+looked at me with some horror, then talked Dutch again, and put himself
+into a thousand shapes, twisting his body and wringing up his face this
+way and that way in his discourse, stamping with his feet, and throwing
+abroad his hands, as if he was not in a rage only, but in a mere fury.
+Then he would turn and give a look at me like the devil. I thought I
+never saw anything so frightful in my life.
+
+At length I put in a word. "Sir," says I to the Dutch merchant, "what is
+all this discourse to my business? What is this gentleman in all these
+passions about? I wish, if he is to treat with me, he would speak that I
+may understand him; or if you have business of your own between you that
+is to be done first, let me withdraw, and I'll come again when you are
+at leisure."
+
+"No, no, madam," says the Dutchman very kindly, "you must not go; all
+our discourse is about you and your jewels, and you shall hear it
+presently; it concerns you very much, I assure you." "Concern me!" says
+I. "What can it concern me so much as to put this gentleman into such
+agonies, and what makes him give me such devil's looks as he does? Why,
+he looks as if he would devour me."
+
+The Jew understood me presently, continuing in a kind of rage, and spoke
+in French: "Yes, madam, it does concern you much, very much, very much,"
+repeating the words, shaking his head; and then turning to the Dutchman,
+"Sir," says he, "pray tell her what is the case." "No," says the
+merchant, "not yet; let us talk a little farther of it by ourselves;"
+upon which they withdrew into another room, where still they talked very
+high, but in a language I did not understand. I began to be a little
+surprised at what the Jew had said, you may be sure, and eager to know
+what he meant, and was very impatient till the Dutch merchant came back,
+and that so impatient that I called one of his servants to let him know
+I desired to speak with him. When he came in I asked his pardon for
+being so impatient, but told him I could not be easy till he had told me
+what the meaning of all this was. "Why, madam," says the Dutch merchant,
+"in short, the meaning is what I am surprised at too. This man is a Jew,
+and understands jewels perfectly well, and that was the reason I sent
+for him, to dispose of them to him for you; but as soon as he saw them,
+he knew the jewels very distinctly, and flying out in a passion, as you
+see he did, told me, in short, that they were the very parcel of jewels
+which the English jeweller had about him who was robbed going to
+Versailles, about eight years ago, to show them the Prince de ----, and
+that it was for these very jewels that the poor gentleman was murdered;
+and he is in all this agony to make me ask you how you came by them; and
+he says you ought to be charged with the robbery and murder, and put to
+the question to discover who were the persons that did it, that they
+might be brought to justice." While he said this the Jew came impudently
+back into the room without calling, which a little surprised me again.
+
+The Dutch merchant spoke pretty good English, and he knew that the Jew
+did not understand English at all, so he told me the latter part, when
+he came into the room, in English, at which I smiled, which put the Jew
+into his mad fit again, and shaking his head and making his devil's
+faces again, he seemed to threaten me for laughing, saying, in French,
+this was an affair I should have little reason to laugh at, and the
+like. At this I laughed again, and flouted him, letting him see that I
+scorned him, and turning to the Dutch merchant, "Sir," says I, "that
+those jewels were belonging to Mr. ----, the English jeweller" (naming
+his name readily), "in that," says I, "this person is right; but that I
+should be questioned how I came to have them is a token of his
+ignorance, which, however, he might have managed with a little more good
+manners, till I told him who I am, and both he and you too will be more
+easy in that part when I should tell you that I am the unhappy widow of
+that Mr. ---- who was so barbarously murdered going to Versailles, and
+that he was not robbed of those jewels, but of others, Mr. ---- having
+left those behind him with me, lest he should be robbed. Had I, sir,
+come otherwise by them, I should not have been weak enough to have
+exposed them to sale here, where the thing was done, but have carried
+them farther off."
+
+This was an agreeable surprise to the Dutch merchant, who, being an
+honest man himself, believed everything I said, which, indeed, being all
+really and literally true, except the deficiency of my marriage, I spoke
+with such an unconcerned easiness that it might plainly be seen that I
+had no guilt upon me, as the Jew suggested.
+
+The Jew was confounded when he heard that I was the jeweller's wife. But
+as I had raised his passion with saying he looked at me with the devil's
+face, he studied mischief in his heart, and answered, that should not
+serve my turn; so called the Dutchman out again, when he told him that
+he resolved to prosecute this matter farther.
+
+There was one kind chance in this affair, which, indeed, was my
+deliverance, and that was, that the fool could not restrain his passion,
+but must let it fly to the Dutch merchant, to whom, when they withdrew a
+second time, as above, he told that he would bring a process against me
+for the murder, and that it should cost me dear for using him at that
+rate; and away he went, desiring the Dutch merchant to tell him when I
+would be there again. Had he suspected that the Dutchman would have
+communicated the particulars to me, he would never have been so foolish
+as to have mentioned that part to him.
+
+But the malice of his thoughts anticipated him, and the Dutch merchant
+was so good as to give me an account of his design, which, indeed, was
+wicked enough in its nature; but to me it would have been worse than
+otherwise it would to another, for, upon examination, I could not have
+proved myself to be the wife of the jeweller, so the suspicion might
+have been carried on with the better face; and then I should also have
+brought all his relations in England upon me, who, finding by the
+proceedings that I was not his wife, but a mistress, or, in English, a
+whore, would immediately have laid claim to the jewels, as I had owned
+them to be his.
+
+This thought immediately rushed into my head as soon as the Dutch
+merchant had told me what wicked things were in the head of that cursed
+Jew; and the villain (for so I must call him) convinced the Dutch
+merchant that he was in earnest by an expression which showed the rest
+of his design, and that was, a plot to get the rest of the jewels into
+his hand.
+
+When first he hinted to the Dutchman that the jewels were such a man's
+(meaning my husband's), he made wonderful exclamations on account of
+their having been concealed so long. Where must they have lain? And what
+was the woman that brought them? And that she (meaning me) ought to be
+immediately apprehended and put into the hands of justice. And this was
+the time that, as I said, he made such horrid gestures and looked at me
+so like a devil.
+
+The merchant, hearing him talk at that rate, and seeing him in earnest,
+said to him, "Hold your tongue a little; this is a thing of consequence.
+If it be so, let you and I go into the next room and consider of it
+there;" and so they withdrew, and left me.
+
+Here, as before, I was uneasy, and called him out, and, having heard how
+it was, gave him that answer, that I was his wife, or widow, which the
+malicious Jew said should not serve my turn. And then it was that the
+Dutchman called him out again; and in this time of his withdrawing, the
+merchant, finding, as above, that he was really in earnest,
+counterfeited a little to be of his mind, and entered into proposals
+with him for the thing itself.
+
+In this they agreed to go to an advocate, or counsel, for directions how
+to proceed, and to meet again the next day, against which time the
+merchant was to appoint me to come again with the jewels, in order to
+sell them. "No," says the merchant, "I will go farther with her than so;
+I will desire her to leave the jewels with me, to show to another
+person, in order to get the better price for them." "That's right," says
+the Jew; "and I'll engage she shall never be mistress of them again;
+they shall either be seized by us," says he, "in the king's name, or she
+shall be glad to give them up to us to prevent her being put to the
+torture."
+
+The merchant said "Yes" to everything he offered, and they agreed to
+meet the next morning about it, and I was to be persuaded to leave the
+jewels with him, and come to them the next day at four o'clock in order
+to make a good bargain for them; and on these conditions they parted.
+But the honest Dutchman, filled with indignation at the barbarous
+design, came directly to me and told me the whole story. "And now,
+madam," says he, "you are to consider immediately what you have to do."
+
+I told him, if I was sure to have justice, I would not fear all that
+such a rogue could do to me; but how such things were carried on in
+France I knew not. I told him the greatest difficulty would be to prove
+our marriage, for that it was done in England, and in a remote part of
+England too; and, which was worse, it would be hard to produce authentic
+vouchers of it, because we were married in private. "But as to the death
+of your husband, madam, what can be said to that?" said he. "Nay," said
+I, "what can they say to it? In England," added I, "if they would offer
+such an injury to any one, they must prove the fact or give just reason
+for their suspicions. That my husband was murdered, that every one
+knows; but that he was robbed, or of what, or how much, that none
+knows--no, not myself; and why was I not questioned for it then? I have
+lived in Paris ever since, lived publicly, and no man had yet the
+impudence to suggest such a thing of me."
+
+"I am fully satisfied of that," says the merchant; "but as this is a
+rogue who will stick at nothing, what can we say? And who knows what he
+may swear? Suppose he should swear that he knows your husband had those
+particular jewels with him the morning when he went out, and that he
+showed them to him to consider their value, and what price he should ask
+the Prince de ---- for them?"
+
+"Nay, by the same rule," said I, "he may swear that I murdered my
+husband, if he finds it for his turn." "That's true," said he; "and if
+he should, I do not see what could save you;" but added, "I have found
+out his more immediate design. His design is to have you carried to the
+Châtelet, that the suspicion may appear just, and then to get the jewels
+out of your hands if possible; then, at last, to drop the prosecution on
+your consenting to quit the jewels to him; and how you will do to avoid
+this is the question which I would have you consider of."
+
+"My misfortune, sir," said I, "is that I have no time to consider, and I
+have no person to consider with or advise about it. I find that
+innocence may be oppressed by such an impudent fellow as this; he that
+does not value perjury has any man's life at his mercy. But, sir," said
+I, "is the justice such here that, while I may be in the hands of the
+public and under prosecution, he may get hold of my effects and get my
+jewels into his hands?"
+
+"I don't know," says he, "what may be done in that case; but if not he,
+if the court of justice should get hold of them I do not know but you
+may find it as difficult to get them out of their hands again, and, at
+least, it may cost you half as much as they are worth; so I think it
+would be a much better way to prevent their coming at them at all."
+
+"But what course can I take to do that," says I, "now they have got
+notice that I have them? If they get me into their hands they will
+oblige me to produce them, or perhaps sentence me to prison till I do."
+
+"Nay," says he, "as this brute says, too, put you to the question--that
+is, to the torture, on pretence of making you confess who were the
+murderers of your husband."
+
+"Confess!" said I. "How can I confess what I know nothing of?"
+
+"If they come to have you to the rack," said he, "they will make you
+confess you did it yourself, whether you did it or no, and then you are
+cast."
+
+The very word rack frighted me to death almost, and I had no spirit left
+in me. "Did it myself!" said I. "That's impossible!"
+
+"No, madam," says he, "'tis far from impossible. The most innocent
+people in the world have been forced to confess themselves guilty of
+what they never heard of, much less had any hand in."
+
+"What, then, must I do?" said I. "What would you advise me to?"
+
+"Why," says he, "I would advise you to be gone. You intended to go away
+in four or five days, and you may as well go in two days; and if you can
+do so, I shall manage it so that he shall not suspect your being gone
+for several days after." Then he told me how the rogue would have me
+ordered to bring the jewels the next day for sale, and that then he
+would have me apprehended; how he had made the Jew believe he would join
+with him in his design, and that he (the merchant) would get the jewels
+into his hands. "Now," says the merchant, "I shall give you bills for
+the money you desired, immediately, and such as shall not fail of being
+paid. Take your jewels with you, and go this very evening to St.
+Germain-en-Laye; I'll send a man thither with you, and from thence he
+shall guide you to-morrow to Rouen, where there lies a ship of mine,
+just ready to sail for Rotterdam; you shall have your passage in that
+ship on my account, and I will send orders for him to sail as soon as
+you are on board, and a letter to my friend at Rotterdam to entertain
+and take care of you."
+
+This was too kind an offer for me, as things stood, not to be accepted,
+and be thankful for; and as to going away, I had prepared everything for
+parting, so that I had little to do but to go back, take two or three
+boxes and bundles, and such things, and my maid Amy, and be gone.
+
+Then the merchant told me the measures he had resolved to take to delude
+the Jew while I made my escape, which was very well contrived indeed.
+"First," said he, "when he comes to-morrow I shall tell him that I
+proposed to you to leave the jewels with me, as we agreed, but that you
+said you would come and bring them in the afternoon, so that we must
+stay for you till four o'clock; but then, at that time, I will show a
+letter from you, as if just come in, wherein you shall excuse your not
+coming, for that some company came to visit you, and prevented you; but
+that you desire me to take care that the gentleman be ready to buy your
+jewels, and that you will come to-morrow at the same hour, without
+fail.
+
+"When to-morrow is come, we shall wait at the time, but you not
+appearing, I shall seem most dissatisfied, and wonder what can be the
+reason; and so we shall agree to go the next day to get out a process
+against you. But the next day, in the morning, I'll send to give him
+notice that you have been at my house, but he not being there, have made
+another appointment, and that I desire to speak with him. When he comes,
+I'll tell him you appear perfectly blind as to your danger, and that you
+appeared much disappointed that he did not come, though you could not
+meet the night before; and obliged me to have him here to-morrow at
+three o'clock. When to-morrow comes," says he, "you shall send word that
+you are taken so ill that you cannot come out for that day, but that you
+will not fail the next day; and the next day you shall neither come or
+send, nor let us ever hear any more of you; for by that time you shall
+be in Holland, if you please."
+
+I could not but approve all his measures, seeing they were so well
+contrived, and in so friendly a manner, for my benefit; and as he seemed
+to be so very sincere, I resolved to put my life in his hands.
+Immediately I went to my lodgings, and sent away Amy with such bundles
+as I had prepared for my travelling. I also sent several parcels of my
+fine furniture to the merchant's house to be laid up for me, and
+bringing the key of the lodgings with me, I came back to his house. Here
+we finished our matters of money, and I delivered into his hands seven
+thousand eight hundred pistoles in bills and money, a copy of an
+assignment on the townhouse of Paris for four thousand pistoles, at
+three per cent. interest, attested, and a procuration for receiving the
+interest half-yearly; but the original I kept myself.
+
+I could have trusted all I had with him, for he was perfectly honest,
+and had not the least view of doing me any wrong. Indeed, after it was
+so apparent that he had, as it were, saved my life, or at least saved me
+from being exposed and ruined--I say, after this, how could I doubt him
+in anything?
+
+When I came to him, he had everything ready as I wanted, and as he had
+proposed. As to my money, he gave me first of all an accepted bill,
+payable at Rotterdam, for four thousand pistoles, and drawn from Genoa
+upon a merchant at Rotterdam, payable to a merchant at Paris, and
+endorsed by him to my merchant; this, he assured me, would be punctually
+paid; and so it was, to a day. The rest I had in other bills of
+exchange, drawn by himself upon other merchants in Holland. Having
+secured my jewels too, as well as I could, he sent me away the same
+evening in a friend's coach, which he had procured for me, to St.
+Germain, and the next morning to Rouen. He also sent a servant of his
+own on horseback with me, who provided everything for me, and who
+carried his orders to the captain of the ship, which lay about three
+miles below Rouen, in the river, and by his directions I went
+immediately on board. The third day after I was on board the ship went
+away, and we were out at sea the next day after that; and thus I took my
+leave of France, and got clear of an ugly business, which, had it gone
+on, might have ruined me, and sent me back as naked to England as I was
+a little before I left it.
+
+And now Amy and I were at leisure to look upon the mischiefs that we had
+escaped; and had I had any religion or any sense of a Supreme Power,
+managing, directing, and governing in both causes and events in this
+world, such a case as this would have given anybody room to have been
+very thankful to the Power who had not only put such a treasure into my
+hand, but given me such an escape from the ruin that threatened me; but
+I had none of those things about me. I had, indeed, a grateful sense
+upon my mind of the generous friendship of my deliverer, the Dutch
+merchant, by whom I was so faithfully served, and by whom, as far as
+relates to second causes, I was preserved from destruction.
+
+I say, I had a grateful sense upon my mind of his kindness and
+faithfulness to me, and I resolved to show him some testimony of it as
+soon as I came to the end of my rambles, for I was yet but in a state of
+uncertainty, and sometimes that gave me a little uneasiness too. I had
+paper indeed for my money, and he had showed himself very good to me in
+conveying me away, as above; but I had not seen the end of things yet,
+for unless the bills were paid, I might still be a great loser by my
+Dutchman, and he might, perhaps, have contrived all that affair of the
+Jew to put me into a fright and get me to run away, and that as if it
+were to save my life; that if the bills should be refused, I was cheated
+with a witness, and the like. But these were but surmises, and, indeed,
+were perfectly without cause, for the honest man acted as honest men
+always do, with an upright and disinterested principle, and with a
+sincerity not often to be found in the world. What gain he made by the
+exchange was just, and was nothing but what was his due, and was in the
+way of his business; but otherwise he made no advantage of me at all.
+
+When I passed in the ship between Dover and Calais and saw beloved
+England once more under my view--England, which I counted my native
+country, being the place I was bred up in, though not born there--a
+strange kind of joy possessed my mind, and I had such a longing desire
+to be there that I would have given the master of the ship twenty
+pistoles to have stood over and set me on shore in the Downs; and when
+he told me he could not do it--that is, that he durst not do it if I
+would have given him a hundred pistoles--I secretly wished that a storm
+would rise that might drive the ship over to the coast of England,
+whether they would or not, that I might be set on shore anywhere upon
+English ground.
+
+This wicked wish had not been out of my thoughts above two or three
+hours, but the master steering away to the north, as was his course to
+do, we lost sight of land on that side, and only had the Flemish shore
+in view on our right hand, or, as the seamen call it, the starboard
+side; and then, with the loss of the sight, the wish for landing in
+England abated, and I considered how foolish it was to wish myself out
+of the way of my business; that if I had been on shore in England, I
+must go back to Holland on account of my bills, which were so
+considerable, and I having no correspondence there, that I could not
+have managed it without going myself. But we had not been out of sight
+of England many hours before the weather began to change; the winds
+whistled and made a noise, and the seamen said to one another that it
+would blow hard at night. It was then about two hours before sunset, and
+we were passed by Dunkirk, and I think they said we were in sight of
+Ostend; but then the wind grew high and the sea swelled, and all things
+looked terrible, especially to us that understood nothing but just what
+we saw before us; in short, night came on, and very dark it was; the
+wind freshened and blew harder and harder, and about two hours within
+night it blew a terrible storm.
+
+I was not quite a stranger to the sea, having come from Rochelle to
+England when I was a child, and gone from London, by the River Thames,
+to France afterward, as I have said. But I began to be alarmed a little
+with the terrible clamour of the men over my head, for I had never been
+in a storm, and so had never seen the like, or heard it; and once
+offering to look out at the door of the steerage, as they called it, it
+struck me with such horror (the darkness, the fierceness of the wind,
+the dreadful height of the waves, and the hurry the Dutch sailors were
+in, whose language I did not understand one word of, neither when they
+cursed or when they prayed); I say, all these things together filled me
+with terror, and, in short, I began to be very much frighted.
+
+When I was come back into the great cabin, there sat Amy, who was very
+sea-sick, and I had a little before given her a sup of cordial waters to
+help her stomach. When Amy saw me come back and sit down without
+speaking, for so I did, she looked two or three times up at me; at last
+she came running to me. "Dear madam," says she, "what is the matter?
+What makes you look so pale? Why, you an't well; what is the matter?" I
+said nothing still, but held up my hands two or three times. Amy doubled
+her importunities; upon that I said no more but, "Step to the
+steerage-door, and look out, as I did;" so she went away immediately,
+and looked too, as I had bidden her; but the poor girl came back again
+in the greatest amazement and horror that ever I saw any poor creature
+in, wringing her hands and crying out she was undone! she was undone!
+she should be drowned! they were all lost! Thus she ran about the cabin
+like a mad thing, and as perfectly out of her senses as any one in such
+a case could be supposed to be. I was frighted myself, but when I saw
+the girl in such a terrible agony, it brought me a little to myself, and
+I began to talk to her and put her in a little hope. I told her there
+was many a ship in a storm that was not cast away, and I hoped we should
+not be drowned; that it was true the storm was very dreadful, but I did
+not see that the seamen were so much concerned as we were. And so I
+talked to her as well as I could, though my heart was full enough of it,
+as well as Amy's; and death began to stare in my face; ay, and something
+else too--that is to say, conscience, and my mind was very much
+disturbed; but I had nobody to comfort me.
+
+But Amy being in so much worse a condition--that is to say, so much more
+terrified at the storm than I was--I had something to do to comfort her.
+She was, as I have said, like one distracted, and went raving about the
+cabin, crying out she was undone! undone! she should be drowned! and the
+like. And at last, the ship giving a jerk, by the force, I suppose, of
+some violent wave, it threw poor Amy quite down, for she was weak enough
+before with being sea-sick, and as it threw her forward, the poor girl
+struck her head against the bulk-head, as the seamen call it, of the
+cabin, and laid her as dead as a stone upon the floor or deck; that is
+to say, she was so to all appearance.
+
+I cried out for help, but it had been all one to have cried out on the
+top of a mountain where nobody had been within five miles of me, for the
+seamen were so engaged and made so much noise that nobody heard me or
+came near me. I opened the great cabin door, and looked into the
+steerage to cry for help, but there, to increase my fright, was two
+seamen on their knees at prayers, and only one man who steered, and he
+made a groaning noise too, which I took to be saying his prayers, but it
+seems it was answering to those above, when they called to him to tell
+him which way to steer.
+
+Here was no help for me, or for poor Amy, and there she lay still so,
+and in such a condition, that I did not know whether she was dead or
+alive. In this fright I went to her, and lifted her a little way up,
+setting her on the deck, with her back to the boards of the bulk-head;
+and I got a little bottle out of my pocket, and I held it to her nose,
+and rubbed her temples and what else I could do, but still Amy showed no
+signs of life, till I felt for her pulse, but could hardly distinguish
+her to be alive. However, after a great while, she began to revive, and
+in about half-an-hour she came to herself, but remembered nothing at
+first of what had happened to her for a good while more.
+
+When she recovered more fully, she asked me where she was. I told her
+she was in the ship yet, but God knows how long it might be. "Why,
+madam," says she, "is not the storm over?" "No, no," says I, "Amy."
+"Why, madam," says she, "it was calm just now" (meaning when she was in
+the swooning fit occasioned by her fall). "Calm, Amy!" says I. "'Tis far
+from calm. It may be it will be calm by-and-by, when we are all drowned
+and gone to heaven."
+
+"Heaven, madam!" says she. "What makes you talk so? Heaven! I go to
+heaven! No, no; if I am drowned I am damned! Don't you know what a
+wicked creature I have been? I have been a whore to two men, and have
+lived a wretched, abominable life of vice and wickedness for fourteen
+years. Oh, madam! you know it, and God knows it, and now I am to die--to
+be drowned! Oh! what will become of me? I am undone for ever!--ay,
+madam, for ever! to all eternity! Oh! I am lost! I am lost! If I am
+drowned, I am lost for ever!"
+
+All these, you will easily suppose, must be so many stabs into the very
+soul of one in my own case. It immediately occurred to me, "Poor Amy!
+what art thou that I am not? What hast thou been that I have not been?
+Nay, I am guilty of my own sin and thine too." Then it came to my
+remembrance that I had not only been the same with Amy, but that I had
+been the devil's instrument to make her wicked; that I had stripped her,
+and prostituted her to the very man that I had been naught with myself;
+that she had but followed me, I had been her wicked example; and I had
+led her into all; and that, as we had sinned together, now we were
+likely to sink together.
+
+All this repeated itself to my thoughts at that very moment, and every
+one of Amy's cries sounded thus in my ears: "I am the wicked cause of it
+all! I have been thy ruin, Amy! I have brought thee to this, and now
+thou art to suffer for the sin I have enticed thee to! And if thou art
+lost for ever, what must I be? what must be my portion?"
+
+It is true this difference was between us, that I said all these things
+within myself, and sighed and mourned inwardly; but Amy, as her temper
+was more violent, spoke aloud, and cried, and called out aloud, like one
+in agony.
+
+I had but small encouragement to give her, and indeed could say but very
+little, but I got her to compose herself a little, and not let any of
+the people of the ship understand what she meant or what she said; but
+even in her greatest composure she continued to express herself with the
+utmost dread and terror on account of the wicked life she had lived,
+crying out she should be damned, and the like, which was very terrible
+to me, who knew what condition I was in myself.
+
+Upon these serious considerations, I was very penitent too for my former
+sins, and cried out, though softly, two or three times, "Lord, have
+mercy upon me!" To this I added abundance of resolutions of what a life
+I would live if it should please God but to spare my life but this one
+time; how I would live a single and a virtuous life, and spend a great
+deal of what I had thus wickedly got in acts of charity and doing good.
+
+Under these dreadful apprehensions I looked back on the life I had led
+with the utmost contempt and abhorrence. I blushed, and wondered at
+myself how I could act thus, how I could divest myself of modesty and
+honour, and prostitute myself for gain; and I thought, if ever it should
+please God to spare me this one time from death, it would not be
+possible that I should be the same creature again.
+
+Amy went farther; she prayed, she resolved, she vowed to lead a new
+life, if God would spare her but this time. It now began to be daylight,
+for the storm held all night long, and it was some comfort to see the
+light of another day, which none of us expected; but the sea went
+mountains high, and the noise of the water was as frightful to us as the
+sight of the waves; nor was any land to be seen, nor did the seamen know
+whereabout they were. At last, to our great joy, they made land, which
+was in England, and on the coast of Suffolk; and the ship being in the
+utmost distress, they ran for the shore at all hazards, and with great
+difficulty got into Harwich, where they were safe, as to the danger of
+death; but the ship was so full of water and so much damaged that if
+they had not laid her on shore the same day she would have sunk before
+night, according to the opinion of the seamen, and of the workmen on
+shore too who were hired to assist them in stopping their leaks.
+
+Amy was revived as soon as she heard they had espied land, and went out
+upon the deck; but she soon came in again to me. "Oh, madam!" says she,
+"there's the land indeed to be seen. It looks like a ridge of clouds,
+and may be all a cloud for aught I know; but if it be land, 'tis a
+great way off, and the sea is in such a combustion, we shall all perish
+before we can reach it. 'Tis the dreadfullest sight to look at the
+waves that ever was seen. Why, they are as high as mountains; we shall
+certainly be all swallowed up, for all the land is so near."
+
+I had conceived some hope that, if they saw land, we should be
+delivered; and I told her she did not understand things of that nature;
+that she might be sure if they saw land they would go directly towards
+it, and would make into some harbour; but it was, as Amy said, a
+frightful distance to it. The land looked like clouds, and the sea went
+as high as mountains, so that no hope appeared in the seeing the land,
+but we were in fear of foundering before we could reach it. This made
+Amy so desponding still; but as the wind, which blew from the east, or
+that way, drove us furiously towards the land, so when, about
+half-an-hour after, I stepped to the steerage-door and looked out, I saw
+the land much nearer than Amy represented it; so I went in and
+encouraged Amy again, and indeed was encouraged myself.
+
+In about an hour, or something more, we saw, to our infinite
+satisfaction, the open harbour of Harwich, and the vessel standing
+directly towards it, and in a few minutes more the ship was in smooth
+water, to our inexpressible comfort; and thus I had, though against my
+will and contrary to my true interest, what I wished for, to be driven
+away to England, though it was by a storm.
+
+Nor did this incident do either Amy or me much service, for, the danger
+being over, the fears of death vanished with it; ay, and our fear of
+what was beyond death also. Our sense of the life we had lived went off,
+and with our return to life our wicked taste of life returned, and we
+were both the same as before, if not worse. So certain is it that the
+repentance which is brought about by the mere apprehensions of death
+wears off as those apprehensions wear off, and deathbed repentance, or
+storm repentance, which is much the same, is seldom true.
+
+However, I do not tell you that this was all at once neither; the fright
+we had at sea lasted a little while afterwards; at least the impression
+was not quite blown off as soon as the storm; especially poor Amy. As
+soon as she set her foot on shore she fell flat upon the ground and
+kissed it, and gave God thanks for her deliverance from the sea; and
+turning to me when she got up, "I hope, madam," says she, "you will
+never go upon the sea again."
+
+I know not what ailed me, not I; but Amy was much more penitent at sea,
+and much more sensible of her deliverance when she landed and was safe,
+than I was. I was in a kind of stupidity, I know not well what to call
+it; I had a mind full of horror in the time of the storm, and saw death
+before me as plainly as Amy, but my thoughts got no vent, as Amy's did.
+I had a silent, sullen kind of grief, which could not break out either
+in words or tears, and which was therefore much the worse to bear.
+
+I had a terror upon me for my wicked life past, and firmly believed I
+was going to the bottom, launching into death, where I was to give an
+account of all my past actions; and in this state, and on that account,
+I looked back upon my wickedness with abhorrence, as I have said above,
+but I had no sense of repentance from the true motive of repentance; I
+saw nothing of the corruption of nature, the sin of my life, as an
+offence against God, as a thing odious to the holiness of His being, as
+abusing His mercy and despising His goodness. In short, I had no
+thorough effectual repentance, no sight of my sins in their proper
+shape, no view of a Redeemer, or hope in Him. I had only such a
+repentance as a criminal has at the place of execution, who is sorry,
+not that he has committed the crime, as it is a crime, but sorry that he
+is to be hanged for it.
+
+It is true Amy's repentance wore off too, as well as mine, but not so
+soon. However, we were both very grave for a time.
+
+As soon as we could get a boat from the town we went on shore, and
+immediately went to a public-house in the town of Harwich, where we
+were to consider seriously what was to be done, and whether we should go
+up to London or stay till the ship was refitted, which, they said, would
+be a fortnight, and then go for Holland, as we intended, and as business
+required.
+
+Reason directed that I should go to Holland, for there I had all my
+money to receive, and there I had persons of good reputation and
+character to apply to, having letters to them from the honest Dutch
+merchant at Paris, and they might perhaps give me a recommendation again
+to merchants in London, and so I should get acquaintance with some
+people of figure, which was what I loved; whereas now I knew not one
+creature in the whole city of London, or anywhere else, that I could go
+and make myself known to. Upon these considerations, I resolved to go to
+Holland, whatever came of it.
+
+But Amy cried and trembled, and was ready to fall into fits, when I did
+but mention going upon the sea again, and begged of me not to go, or if
+I would go, that I would leave her behind, though I was to send her
+a-begging. The people in the inn laughed at her, and jested with her,
+asked her if she had any sins to confess that she was ashamed should be
+heard of, and that she was troubled with an evil conscience; told her,
+if she came to sea, and to be in a storm, if she had lain with her
+master, she would certainly tell her mistress of it, and that it was a
+common thing for poor maids to confess all the young men they had lain
+with; that there was one poor girl that went over with her mistress,
+whose husband was a ......r, in ......, in the city of London, who
+confessed, in the terror of a storm, that she had lain with her master,
+and all the apprentices, so often, and in such-and-such places, and made
+the poor mistress, when she returned to London, fly at her husband, and
+make such a stir as was indeed the ruin of the whole family. Amy could
+bear all that well enough, for though she had indeed lain with her
+master, it was with her mistress's knowledge and consent, and, which was
+worse, was her mistress's own doing. I record it to the reproach of my
+own vice, and to expose the excesses of such wickedness as they deserve
+to be exposed.
+
+I thought Amy's fear would have been over by that time the ship would be
+gotten ready, but I found the girl was rather worse and worse; and when
+I came to the point that we must go on board or lose the passage, Amy
+was so terrified that she fell into fits; so the ship went away without
+us.
+
+But my going being absolutely necessary, as above, I was obliged to go
+in the packet-boat some time after, and leave Amy behind at Harwich, but
+with directions to go to London and stay there to receive letters and
+orders from me what to do. Now I was become, from a lady of pleasure, a
+woman of business, and of great business too, I assure you.
+
+I got me a servant at Harwich to go over with me, who had been at
+Rotterdam, knew the place, and spoke the language, which was a great
+help to me, and away I went. I had a very quick passage and pleasant
+weather, and, coming to Rotterdam, soon found out the merchant to whom I
+was recommended, who received me with extraordinary respect. And first
+he acknowledged the accepted bill for four thousand pistoles, which he
+afterwards paid punctually; other bills that I had also payable at
+Amsterdam he procured to be received for me; and whereas one of the
+bills for one thousand two hundred crowns was protested at Amsterdam, he
+paid it me himself, for the honour of the indorser, as he called it,
+which was my friend the merchant at Paris.
+
+There I entered into a negotiation by his means for my jewels, and he
+brought me several jewellers to look on them, and particularly one to
+value them, and to tell me what every particular was worth. This was a
+man who had great skill in jewels, but did not trade at that time, and
+he was desired by the gentleman that I was with to see that I might not
+be imposed upon.
+
+All this work took me up near half a year, and by managing my business
+thus myself, and having large sums to do with, I became as expert in it
+as any she-merchant of them all. I had credit in the bank for a large
+sum of money, and bills and notes for much more.
+
+After I had been here about three months, my maid Amy writes me word
+that she had received a letter from her friend, as she called him. That,
+by the way, was the prince's gentleman, that had been Amy's
+extraordinary friend indeed, for Amy owned to me he had lain with her a
+hundred times, that is to say, as often as he pleased, and perhaps in
+the eight years which that affair lasted it might be a great deal
+oftener. This was what she called her friend, who she corresponded with
+upon this particular subject, and, among other things, sent her this
+particular news, that my extraordinary friend, my real husband, who rode
+in the _gens d'armes_, was dead, that he was killed in a rencounter, as
+they call it, or accidental scuffle among the troopers; and so the jade
+congratulated me upon my being now a real free woman. "And now, madam,"
+says she at the end of her letter, "you have nothing to do but to come
+hither and set up a coach and a good equipage, and if beauty and a good
+fortune won't make you a duchess, nothing will." But I had not fixed my
+measures yet. I had no inclination to be a wife again. I had had such
+bad luck with my first husband, I hated the thoughts of it. I found
+that a wife is treated with indifference, a mistress with a strong
+passion; a wife is looked upon as but an upper servant, a mistress is a
+sovereign; a wife must give up all she has, have every reserve she makes
+for herself be thought hard of, and be upbraided with her very
+pin-money, whereas a mistress makes the saying true, that what the man
+has is hers, and what she has is her own; the wife bears a thousand
+insults, and is forced to sit still and bear it, or part, and be undone;
+a mistress insulted helps herself immediately, and takes another.
+
+These were my wicked arguments for whoring, for I never set against them
+the difference another way--I may say, every other way; how that, first,
+a wife appears boldly and honourably with her husband, lives at home,
+and possesses his house, his servants, his equipages, and has a right to
+them all, and to call them her own; entertains his friends, owns his
+children, and has the return of duty and affection from them, as they
+are here her own, and claims upon his estate, by the custom of England,
+if he dies and leaves her a widow.
+
+The whore skulks about in lodgings, is visited in the dark, disowned
+upon all occasions before God and man; is maintained, indeed, for a
+time, but is certainly condemned to be abandoned at last, and left to
+the miseries of fate and her own just disaster. If she has any
+children, her endeavour is to get rid of them, and not maintain them;
+and if she lives, she is certain to see them all hate her, and be
+ashamed of her. While the vice rages, and the man is in the devil's
+hand, she has him; and while she has him, she makes a prey of him; but
+if he happens to fall sick, if any disaster befalls him, the cause of
+all lies upon her. He is sure to lay all his misfortunes at her door;
+and if once he comes to repentance, or makes but one step towards a
+reformation, he begins with her--leaves her, uses her as she deserves,
+hates her, abhors her, and sees her no more; and that with this
+never-failing addition, namely, that the more sincere and unfeigned his
+repentance is, the more earnestly he looks up, and the more effectually
+he looks in, the more his aversion to her increases, and he curses her
+from the bottom of his soul; nay, it must be a kind of excess of charity
+if he so much as wishes God may forgive her.
+
+The opposite circumstances of a wife and whore are such and so many, and
+I have since seen the difference with such eyes, as I could dwell upon
+the subject a great while; but my business is history. I had a long
+scene of folly yet to run over. Perhaps the moral of all my story may
+bring me back again to this part, and if it does I shall speak of it
+fully.
+
+While I continued in Holland I received several letters from my friend
+(so I had good reason to call him) the merchant in Paris, in which he
+gave me a farther account of the conduct of that rogue the Jew, and how
+he acted after I was gone; how impatient he was while the said merchant
+kept him in suspense, expecting me to come again; and how he raged when
+he found I came no more.
+
+It seems, after he found I did not come, he found out by his unwearied
+inquiry where I had lived, and that I had been kept as a mistress by
+some great person; but he could never learn by who, except that he
+learnt the colour of his livery. In pursuit of this inquiry he guessed
+at the right person, but could not make it out, or offer any positive
+proof of it; but he found out the prince's gentleman, and talked so
+saucily to him of it that the gentleman treated him, as the French call
+it, _à coup de baton_--that is to say, caned him very severely, as he
+deserved; and that not satisfying him, or curing his insolence, he was
+met one night late upon the Pont Neuf, in Paris, by two men, who,
+muffling him up in a great cloak, carried him into a more private place
+and cut off both his ears, telling him it was for talking impudently of
+his superiors; adding that he should take care to govern his tongue
+better and behave with more manners, or the next time they would cut his
+tongue out of his head.
+
+This put a check to his sauciness that way; but he comes back to the
+merchant and threatened to begin a process against him for corresponding
+with me, and being accessory to the murder of the jeweller, &c.
+
+The merchant found by his discourse that he supposed I was protected by
+the said Prince de ----; nay, the rogue said he was sure I was in his
+lodgings at Versailles, for he never had so much as the least intimation
+of the way I was really gone; but that I was there he was certain, and
+certain that the merchant was privy to it. The merchant bade him
+defiance. However, he gave him a great deal of trouble and put him to a
+great charge, and had like to have brought him in for a party to my
+escape; in which case he would have been obliged to have produced me,
+and that in the penalty of some capital sum of money.
+
+But the merchant was too many for him another way, for he brought an
+information against him for a cheat; wherein laying down the whole fact,
+how he intended falsely to accuse the widow of the jeweller for the
+supposed murder of her husband; that he did it purely to get the jewels
+from her; and that he offered to bring him (the merchant) in, to be
+confederate with him, and to share the jewels between them; proving also
+his design to get the jewels into his hands, and then to have dropped
+the prosecution upon condition of my quitting the jewels to him. Upon
+this charge he got him laid by the heels; so he was sent to the
+Conciergerie--that is to say, to Bridewell--and the merchant cleared. He
+got out of jail in a little while, though not without the help of money,
+and continued teasing the merchant a long while, and at last threatening
+to assassinate and murder him. So the merchant, who, having buried his
+wife about two months before, was now a single man, and not knowing what
+such a villain might do, thought fit to quit Paris, and came away to
+Holland also.
+
+It is most certain that, speaking of originals, I was the source and
+spring of all that trouble and vexation to this honest gentleman; and as
+it was afterwards in my power to have made him full satisfaction, and
+did not, I cannot say but I added ingratitude to all the rest of my
+follies; but of that I shall give a fuller account presently.
+
+I was surprised one morning, when, being at the merchant's house who he
+had recommended me to in Rotterdam, and being busy in his
+counting-house, managing my bills, and preparing to write a letter to
+him to Paris, I heard a noise of horses at the door, which is not very
+common in a city where everybody passes by water; but he had, it seems,
+ferried over the Maas from Willemstadt, and so came to the very door,
+and I, looking towards the door upon hearing the horses, saw a gentleman
+alight and come in at the gate. I knew nothing, and expected nothing,
+to be sure, of the person; but, as I say, was surprised, and indeed more
+than ordinarily surprised, when, coming nearer to me, I saw it was my
+merchant of Paris, my benefactor, and indeed my deliverer.
+
+I confess it was an agreeable surprise to me, and I was exceeding glad
+to see him, who was so honourable and so kind to me, and who indeed had
+saved my life. As soon as he saw me he ran to me, took me in his arms,
+and kissed me with a freedom that he never offered to take with me
+before. "Dear Madam ----," says he, "I am glad to see you safe in this
+country; if you had stayed two days longer in Paris you had been
+undone." I was so glad to see him that I could not speak a good while,
+and I burst out into tears without speaking a word for a minute; but I
+recovered that disorder, and said, "The more, sir, is my obligation to
+you that saved my life;" and added, "I am glad to see you here, that I
+may consider how to balance an account in which I am so much your
+debtor." "You and I will adjust that matter easily," says he, "now we
+are so near together. Pray where do you lodge?" says he.
+
+"In a very honest, good house," said I, "where that gentleman, your
+friend, recommended me," pointing to the merchant in whose house we then
+were.
+
+"And where you may lodge too, sir," says the gentleman, "if it suits
+with your business and your other conveniency."
+
+"With all my heart," says he. "Then, madam," adds he, turning to me, "I
+shall be near you, and have time to tell you a story which will be very
+long, and yet many ways very pleasant to you; how troublesome that
+devilish fellow, the Jew, has been to me on your account, and what a
+hellish snare he had laid for you, if he could have found you."
+
+"I shall have leisure too, sir," said I, "to tell you all my adventures
+since that, which have not been a few, I assure you."
+
+In short, he took up his lodgings in the same house where I lodged, and
+the room he lay in opened, as he was wishing it would, just opposite to
+my lodging-room, so we could almost call out of bed to one another; and
+I was not at all shy of him on that score, for I believed him perfectly
+honest, and so indeed he was; and if he had not, that article was at
+present no part of my concern.
+
+It was not till two or three days, and after his first hurries of
+business were over, that we began to enter into the history of our
+affairs on every side, but when we began, it took up all our
+conversation for almost a fortnight. First, I gave him a particular
+account of everything that happened material upon my voyage, and how we
+were driven into Harwich by a very terrible storm; how I had left my
+woman behind me, so frighted with the danger she had been in that she
+durst not venture to set her foot into a ship again any more, and that I
+had not come myself if the bills I had of him had not been payable in
+Holland; but that money, he might see, would make a woman go anywhere.
+
+He seemed to laugh at all our womanish fears upon the occasion of the
+storm, telling me it was nothing but what was very ordinary in those
+seas, but that they had harbours on every coast so near that they were
+seldom in danger of being lost indeed. "For," says he, "if they cannot
+fetch one coast, they can always stand away for another, and run afore
+it," as he called it, "for one side or other." But when I came to tell
+him what a crazy ship it was, and how, even when they got into Harwich,
+and into smooth water, they were fain to run the ship on shore, or she
+would have sunk in the very harbour; and when I told him that when I
+looked out at the cabin-door I saw the Dutchmen, one upon his knees
+here, and another there, at their prayers, then indeed he acknowledged I
+had reason to be alarmed; but, smiling, he added, "But you, madam," says
+he, "are so good a lady, and so pious, you would but have gone to heaven
+a little the sooner; the difference had not been much to you."
+
+I confess when he said this it made all the blood turn in my veins, and
+I thought I should have fainted. "Poor gentleman," thought I, "you know
+little of me. What would I give to be really what you really think me to
+be!" He perceived the disorder, but said nothing till I spoke; when,
+shaking my head, "Oh, sir!" said I, "death in any shape has some terror
+in it, but in the frightful figure of a storm at sea and a sinking ship,
+it comes with a double, a treble, and indeed an inexpressible horror;
+and if I were that saint you think me to be (which God knows I am not),
+it is still very dismal. I desire to die in a calm, if I can." He said a
+great many good things, and very prettily ordered his discourse between
+serious reflection and compliment, but I had too much guilt to relish it
+as it was meant, so I turned it off to something else, and talked of the
+necessity I had on me to come to Holland, but I wished myself safe on
+shore in England again.
+
+He told me he was glad I had such an obligation upon me to come over
+into Holland, however, but hinted that he was so interested in my
+welfare, and, besides, had such further designs upon me, that if I had
+not so happily been found in Holland he was resolved to have gone to
+England to see me, and that it was one of the principal reasons of his
+leaving Paris.
+
+I told him I was extremely obliged to him for so far interesting himself
+in my affairs, but that I had been so far his debtor before that I knew
+not how anything could increase the debt; for I owed my life to him
+already, and I could not be in debt for anything more valuable than
+that. He answered in the most obliging manner possible, that he would
+put it in my power to pay that debt, and all the obligations besides
+that ever he had, or should be able to lay upon me.
+
+I began to understand him now, and to see plainly that he resolved to
+make love to me, but I would by no means seem to take the hint; and,
+besides, I knew that he had a wife with him in Paris; and I had, just
+then at least, no gust to any more intriguing. However, he surprised me
+into a sudden notice of the thing a little while after by saying
+something in his discourse that he did, as he said, in his wife's days.
+I started at that word, "What mean you by that, sir?" said I. "Have you
+not a wife at Paris?" "No, madam, indeed," said he; "my wife died the
+beginning of September last," which, it seems, was but a little after I
+came away.
+
+We lived in the same house all this while, and as we lodged not far off
+of one another, opportunities were not wanting of as near an
+acquaintance as we might desire; nor have such opportunities the least
+agency in vicious minds to bring to pass even what they might not intend
+at first.
+
+However, though he courted so much at a distance, yet his pretensions
+were very honourable; and as I had before found him a most
+disinterested friend, and perfectly honest in his dealings, even when I
+trusted him with all I had, so now I found him strictly virtuous, till I
+made him otherwise myself, even almost whether he would or no, as you
+shall hear.
+
+It was not long after our former discourse, when he repeated what he had
+insinuated before, namely, that he had yet a design to lay before me,
+which, if I would agree to his proposals, would more than balance all
+accounts between us. I told him I could not reasonably deny him
+anything; and except one thing, which I hoped and believed he would not
+think of, I should think myself very ungrateful if I did not do
+everything for him that lay in my power.
+
+He told me what he should desire of me would be fully in my power to
+grant, or else he should be very unfriendly to offer it; and still all
+this while he declined making the proposal, as he called it, and so for
+that time we ended our discourse, turning it off to other things. So
+that, in short, I began to think he might have met with some disaster in
+his business, and might have come away from Paris in some discredit, or
+had had some blow on his affairs in general; and as really I had
+kindness enough to have parted with a good sum to have helped him, and
+was in gratitude bound to have done so, he having so effectually saved
+to me all I had, so I resolved to make him the offer the first time I
+had an opportunity, which two or three days after offered itself, very
+much to my satisfaction.
+
+He had told me at large, though on several occasions, the treatment he
+had met with from the Jew, and what expense he had put him to; how at
+length he had cast him, as above, and had recovered good damage of him,
+but that the rogue was unable to make him any considerable reparation.
+He had told me also how the Prince de ----'s gentleman had resented his
+treatment of his master, and how he had caused him to be used upon the
+Pont Neuf, &c., as I have mentioned above, which I laughed at most
+heartily.
+
+"It is a pity," said I, "that I should sit here and make that gentleman
+no amends; if you would direct me, sir," said I, "how to do it, I would
+make him a handsome present, and acknowledge the justice he had done to
+me, as well as to the prince, his master." He said he would do what I
+directed in it; so I told him I would send him five hundred crowns.
+"That's too much," said he, "for you are but half interested in the
+usage of the Jew; it was on his master's account he corrected him, not
+on yours." Well, however, we were obliged to do nothing in it, for
+neither of us knew how to direct a letter to him, or to direct anybody
+to him; so I told him I would leave it till I came to England, for that
+my woman, Amy, corresponded with him, and that he had made love to her.
+
+"Well, but, sir," said I, "as, in requital for his generous concern for
+me, I am careful to think of him, it is but just that what expense you
+have been obliged to be at, which was all on my account, should be
+repaid you; and therefore," said I, "let me see--." And there I paused,
+and began to reckon up what I had observed, from his own discourse, it
+had cost him in the several disputes and hearings which he had with that
+dog of a Jew, and I cast them up at something above 2130 crowns; so I
+pulled out some bills which I had upon a merchant in Amsterdam, and a
+particular account in bank, and was looking on them in order to give
+them to him; when he, seeing evidently what I was going about,
+interrupted me with some warmth, and told me he would have nothing of me
+on that account, and desired I would not pull out my bills and papers on
+that score; that he had not told me the story on that account, or with
+any such view; that it had been his misfortune first to bring that ugly
+rogue to me, which, though it was with a good design, yet he would
+punish himself with the expense he had been at for his being so unlucky
+to me; that I could not think so hard of him as to suppose he would take
+money of me, a widow, for serving me, and doing acts of kindness to me
+in a strange country, and in distress too; but he said he would repeat
+what he had said before, that he kept me for a deeper reckoning, and
+that, as he had told me, he would put me into a posture to even all that
+favour, as I called it, at once, so we should talk it over another time,
+and balance all together.
+
+Now I expected it would come out, but still he put it off, as before,
+from whence I concluded it could not be matter of love, for that those
+things are not usually delayed in such a manner, and therefore it must
+be matter of money. Upon which thought I broke the silence, and told
+him, that as he knew I had, by obligation, more kindness for him than to
+deny any favour to him that I could grant, and that he seemed backward
+to mention his case, I begged leave of him to give me leave to ask him
+whether anything lay upon his mind with respect to his business and
+effects in the world; that if it did, he knew what I had in the world as
+well as I did, and that, if he wanted money, I would let him have any
+sum for his occasion, as far as five or six thousand pistoles, and he
+should pay me as his own affairs would permit; and that, if he never
+paid me, I would assure him that I would never give him any trouble for
+it.
+
+He rose up with ceremony, and gave me thanks in terms that sufficiently
+told me he had been bred among people more polite and more courteous
+than is esteemed the ordinary usage of the Dutch; and after his
+compliment was over he came nearer to me, and told me he was obliged to
+assure me, though with repeated acknowledgments of my kind offer, that
+he was not in any want of money; that he had met with no uneasiness in
+any of his affairs--no, not of any kind whatever, except that of the
+loss of his wife and one of his children, which indeed had troubled him
+much; but that this was no part of what he had to offer me, and by
+granting which I should balance all obligations; but that, in short, it
+was that, seeing Providence had (as it were for that purpose) taken his
+wife from him, I would make up the loss to him; and with that he held me
+fast in his arms, and, kissing me, would not give me leave to say no,
+and hardly to breathe.
+
+At length, having got room to speak, I told him that, as I had said
+before, I could deny him but one thing in the world; I was very sorry he
+should propose that thing only that I could not grant.
+
+I could not but smile, however, to myself that he should make so many
+circles and roundabout motions to come at a discourse which had no such
+rarity at the bottom of it, if he had known all. But there was another
+reason why I resolved not to have him, when, at the same time, if he had
+courted me in a manner less honest or virtuous, I believe I should not
+have denied him; but I shall come to that part presently.
+
+He was, as I have said, long a-bringing it out, but when he had brought
+it out he pursued it with such importunities as would admit of no
+denial; at least he intended they should not; but I resisted them
+obstinately, and yet with expressions of the utmost kindness and respect
+for him that could be imagined, often telling him there was nothing else
+in the world that I could deny him, and showing him all the respect, and
+upon all occasions treating him with intimacy and freedom, as if he had
+been my brother.
+
+He tried all the ways imaginable to bring his design to pass, but I was
+inflexible. At last he thought of a way which, he flattered himself,
+would not fail; nor would he have been mistaken, perhaps, in any other
+woman in the world but me. This was, to try if he could take me at an
+advantage and get to bed to me, and then, as was most rational to think,
+I should willingly enough marry him afterwards.
+
+We were so intimate together that nothing but man and wife could, or at
+least ought, to be more; but still our freedoms kept within the bounds
+of modesty and decency. But one evening, above all the rest, we were
+very merry, and I fancied he pushed the mirth to watch for his
+advantage, and I resolved that I would at least feign to be as merry as
+he; and that, in short, if he offered anything he should have his will
+easily enough.
+
+About one o'clock in the morning--for so long we sat up together--I
+said, "Come, 'tis one o'clock; I must go to bed." "Well," says he, "I'll
+go with you." "No, no;" says I; "go to your own chamber." He said he
+would go to bed with me. "Nay," says I, "if you will, I don't know what
+to say; if I can't help it, you must." However, I got from him, left
+him, and went into my chamber, but did not shut the door, and as he
+could easily see that I was undressing myself, he steps to his own room,
+which was but on the same floor, and in a few minutes undresses himself
+also, and returns to my door in his gown and slippers.
+
+I thought he had been gone indeed, and so that he had been in jest; and,
+by the way, thought either he had no mind to the thing, or that he never
+intended it; so I shut my door--that is, latched it, for I seldom locked
+or bolted it--and went to bed. I had not been in bed a minute but he
+comes in his gown to the door and opens it a little way, but not enough
+to come in or look in, and says softly, "What! are you really gone to
+bed?" "Yes, yes," says I; "get you gone." "No, indeed," says he, "I
+shall not be gone; you gave me leave before to come to bed, and you
+shan't say 'Get you gone' now." So he comes into my room, and then
+turns about and fastens the door, and immediately comes to the bedside
+to me. I pretended to scold and struggle, and bid him begone with more
+warmth than before; but it was all one; he had not a rag of clothes on
+but his gown and slippers and shirt, so he throws off his gown, and
+throws open the bed, and came in at once.
+
+I made a seeming resistance, but it was no more indeed; for, as above, I
+resolved from the beginning he should lie with me if he would, and, for
+the rest, I left it to come after.
+
+Well, he lay with me that night, and the two next, and very merry we
+were all the three days between; but the third night he began to be a
+little more grave. "Now, my dear," says he, "though I have pushed this
+matter farther than ever I intended, or than I believe you expected from
+me, who never made any pretences to you but what were very honest, yet
+to heal it all up, and let you see how sincerely I meant at first, and
+how honest I will ever be to you, I am ready to marry you still, and
+desire you to let it be done to-morrow morning; and I will give you the
+same fair conditions of marriage as I would have done before."
+
+This, it must be owned, was a testimony that he was very honest, and
+that he loved me sincerely; but I construed it quite another way,
+namely, that he aimed at the money. But how surprised did he look, and
+how was he confounded, when he found me receive his proposal with
+coldness and indifference, and still tell him that it was the only thing
+I could not grant!
+
+He was astonished. "What! not take me now," says he, "when I have been
+abed with you!" I answered coldly, though respectfully still, "It is
+true, to my shame be it spoken," says I, "that you have taken me by
+surprise, and have had your will of me; but I hope you will not take it
+ill that I cannot consent to marry for all that. If I am with child,"
+said I, "care must be taken to manage that as you shall direct; I hope
+you won't expose me for my having exposed myself to you, but I cannot go
+any farther." And at that point I stood, and would hear of no matrimony
+by any means.
+
+Now, because this may seem a little odd, I shall state the matter
+clearly, as I understood it myself. I knew that, while I was a mistress,
+it is customary for the person kept to receive from them that keep; but
+if I should be a wife, all I had then was given up to the husband, and I
+was henceforth to be under his authority only; and as I had money
+enough, and needed not fear being what they call a cast-off mistress, so
+I had no need to give him twenty thousand pounds to marry me, which had
+been buying my lodging too dear a great deal.
+
+Thus his project of coming to bed to me was a bite upon himself, while
+he intended it for a bite upon me; and he was no nearer his aim of
+marrying me than he was before. All his arguments he could urge upon the
+subject of matrimony were at an end, for I positively declined marrying
+him; and as he had refused the thousand pistoles which I had offered him
+in compensation for his expenses and loss at Paris with the Jew, and had
+done it upon the hopes he had of marrying me, so when he found his way
+difficult still, he was amazed, and, I had some reason to believe,
+repented that he had refused the money.
+
+But thus it is when men run into wicked measures to bring their designs
+about. I, that was infinitely obliged to him before, began to talk to
+him as if I had balanced accounts with him now, and that the favour of
+lying with a whore was equal, not to the thousand pistoles only, but to
+all the debt I owed him for saving my life and all my effects.
+
+But he drew himself into it, and though it was a dear bargain, yet it
+was a bargain of his own making; he could not say I had tricked him into
+it. But as he projected and drew me in to lie with him, depending that
+was a sure game in order to a marriage, so I granted him the favour, as
+he called it, to balance the account of favours received from him, and
+keep the thousand pistoles with a good grace.
+
+He was extremely disappointed in this article, and knew not how to
+manage for a great while; and as I dare say, if he had not expected to
+have made it an earnest for marrying me, he would not have attempted me
+the other way, so, I believed, if it had not been for the money which he
+knew I had, he would never have desired to marry me after he had lain
+with me. For where is the man that cares to marry a whore, though of his
+own making? And as I knew him to be no fool, so I did him no wrong when
+I supposed that, but for the money, he would not have had any thoughts
+of me that way, especially after my yielding as I had done; in which it
+is to be remembered that I made no capitulation for marrying him when I
+yielded to him, but let him do just what he pleased, without any
+previous bargain.
+
+Well, hitherto we went upon guesses at one another's designs; but as he
+continued to importune me to marry, though he had lain with me, and
+still did lie with me as often as he pleased, and I continued to refuse
+to marry him, though I let him lie with me whenever he desired it; I
+say, as these two circumstances made up our conversation, it could not
+continue long thus, but we must come to an explanation.
+
+One morning, in the middle of our unlawful freedoms--that is to say,
+when we were in bed together--he sighed, and told me he desired my
+leave to ask me one question, and that I would give him an answer to it
+with the same ingenious freedom and honesty that I had used to treat him
+with. I told him I would. Why, then, his question was, why I would not
+marry him, seeing I allowed him all the freedom of a husband. "Or," says
+he, "my dear, since you have been so kind as to take me to your bed, why
+will you not make me your own, and take me for good and all, that we may
+enjoy ourselves without any reproach to one another?"
+
+I told him, that as I confessed it was the only thing I could not comply
+with him in, so it was the only thing in all my actions that I could not
+give him a reason for; that it was true I had let him come to bed to me,
+which was supposed to be the greatest favour a woman could grant; but it
+was evident, and he might see it, that, as I was sensible of the
+obligation I was under to him for saving me from the worst circumstance
+it was possible for me to be brought to, I could deny him nothing; and
+if I had had any greater favour to yield him, I should have done it,
+that of matrimony only excepted, and he could not but see that I loved
+him to an extraordinary degree, in every part of my behaviour to him;
+but that as to marrying, which was giving up my liberty, it was what
+once he knew I had done, and he had seen how it had hurried me up and
+down in the world, and what it had exposed me to; that I had an aversion
+to it, and desired he would not insist upon it. He might easily see I
+had no aversion to him; and that, if I was with child by him, he should
+see a testimony of my kindness to the father, for that I would settle
+all I had in the world upon the child.
+
+He was mute a good while. At last says he, "Come, my dear, you are the
+first woman in the world that ever lay with a man and then refused to
+marry him, and therefore there must be some other reason for your
+refusal; and I have therefore one other request, and that is, if I guess
+at the true reason, and remove the objection, will you then yield to
+me?" I told him if he removed the objection I must needs comply, for I
+should certainly do everything that I had no objection against.
+
+"Why then, my dear, it must be that either you are already engaged or
+married to some other man, or you are not willing to dispose of your
+money to me, and expect to advance yourself higher with your fortune.
+Now, if it be the first of these, my mouth will be stopped, and I have
+no more to say; but if it be the last, I am prepared effectually to
+remove the objection, and answer all you can say on that subject."
+
+I took him up short at the first of these, telling him he must have base
+thoughts of me indeed, to think that I could yield to him in such a
+manner as I had done, and continue it with so much freedom as he found I
+did, if I had a husband or were engaged to any other man; and that he
+might depend upon it that was not my case, nor any part of my case.
+
+"Why then," said he, "as to the other, I have an offer to make to you
+that shall take off all the objection, viz., that I will not touch one
+pistole of your estate more than shall be with your own voluntary
+consent, neither now or at any other time, but you shall settle it as
+you please for your life, and upon who you please after your death;"
+that I should see he was able to maintain me without it, and that it was
+not for that that he followed me from Paris.
+
+I was indeed surprised at that part of his offer, and he might easily
+perceive it; it was not only what I did not expect, but it was what I
+knew not what answer to make to. He had, indeed, removed my principal
+objection--nay, all my objections, and it was not possible for me to
+give any answer; for, if upon so generous an offer I should agree with
+him, I then did as good as confess that it was upon the account of my
+money that I refused him; and that though I could give up my virtue and
+expose myself, yet I would not give up my money, which, though it was
+true, yet was really too gross for me to acknowledge, and I could not
+pretend to marry him upon that principle neither. Then as to having
+him, and make over all my estate out of his hands, so as not to give him
+the management of what I had, I thought it would be not only a little
+Gothic and inhuman, but would be always a foundation of unkindness
+between us, and render us suspected one to another; so that, upon the
+whole, I was obliged to give a new turn to it, and talk upon a kind of
+an elevated strain, which really was not in my thoughts, at first, at
+all; for I own, as above, the divesting myself of my estate and putting
+my money out of my hand was the sum of the matter that made me refuse to
+marry; but, I say, I gave it a new turn upon this occasion, as
+follows:--
+
+I told him I had, perhaps, different notions of matrimony from what the
+received custom had given us of it; that I thought a woman was a free
+agent as well as a man, and was born free, and, could she manage herself
+suitably, might enjoy that liberty to as much purpose as the men do;
+that the laws of matrimony were indeed otherwise, and mankind at this
+time acted quite upon other principles, and those such that a woman gave
+herself entirely away from herself, in marriage, and capitulated, only
+to be, at best, but an upper servant, and from the time she took the man
+she was no better or worse than the servant among the Israelites, who
+had his ears bored--that is, nailed to the door-post--who by that act
+gave himself up to be a servant during life; that the very nature of the
+marriage contract was, in short, nothing but giving up liberty, estate,
+authority, and everything to the man, and the woman was indeed a mere
+woman ever after--that is to say, a slave.
+
+He replied, that though in some respects it was as I had said, yet I
+ought to consider that, as an equivalent to this, the man had all the
+care of things devolved upon him; that the weight of business lay upon
+his shoulders, and as he had the trust, so he had the toil of life upon
+him; his was the labour, his the anxiety of living; that the woman had
+nothing to do but to eat the fat and drink the sweet; to sit still and
+look around her, be waited on and made much of, be served and loved and
+made easy, especially if the husband acted as became him; and that, in
+general, the labour of the man was appointed to make the woman live
+quiet and unconcerned in the world; that they had the name of subjection
+without the thing; and if in inferior families they had the drudgery of
+the house and care of the provisions upon them, yet they had indeed much
+the easier part; for, in general, the women had only the care of
+managing--that is, spending what their husbands get; and that a woman
+had the name of subjection, indeed, but that they generally commanded,
+not the men only, but all they had; managed all for themselves; and
+where the man did his duty, the woman's life was all ease and
+tranquillity, and that she had nothing to do but to be easy, and to make
+all that were about her both easy and merry.
+
+I returned, that while a woman was single, she was a masculine in her
+politic capacity; that she had then the full command of what she had,
+and the full direction of what she did; that she was a man in her
+separate capacity, to all intents and purposes that a man could be so to
+himself; that she was controlled by none, because accountable to none,
+and was in subjection to none. So I sung these two lines of Mr. ----'s:--
+
+    "Oh! 'tis pleasant to be free,
+    The sweetest Miss is Liberty."
+
+I added, that whoever the woman was that had an estate, and would give
+it up to be the slave of a great man, that woman was a fool, and must be
+fit for nothing but a beggar; that it was my opinion a woman was as fit
+to govern and enjoy her own estate without a man as a man was without a
+woman; and that, if she had a mind to gratify herself as to sexes, she
+might entertain a man as a man does a mistress; that while she was thus
+single she was her own, and if she gave away that power she merited to
+be as miserable as it was possible that any creature could be.
+
+All he could say could not answer the force of this as to argument;
+only this, that the other way was the ordinary method that the world was
+guided by; that he had reason to expect I should be content with that
+which all the world was contented with; that he was of the opinion that
+a sincere affection between a man and his wife answered all the
+objections that I had made about the being a slave, a servant, and the
+like; and where there was a mutual love there could be no bondage, but
+that there was but one interest, one aim, one design, and all conspired
+to make both very happy.
+
+"Ay," said I, "that is the thing I complain of. The pretence of
+affection takes from a woman everything that can be called herself; she
+is to have no interest, no aim, no view; but all is the interest, aim,
+and view of the husband; she is to be the passive creature you spoke
+of," said I. "She is to lead a life of perfect indolence, and living by
+faith, not in God, but in her husband, she sinks or swims, as he is
+either fool or wise man, unhappy or prosperous; and in the middle of
+what she thinks is her happiness and prosperity, she is engulfed in
+misery and beggary, which she had not the least notice, knowledge, or
+suspicion of. How often have I seen a woman living in all the splendour
+that a plentiful fortune ought to allow her, with her coaches and
+equipages, her family and rich furniture, her attendants and friends,
+her visitors and good company, all about her to-day; to-morrow
+surprised with a disaster, turned out of all by a commission of
+bankrupt, stripped to the clothes on her back; her jointure, suppose she
+had it, is sacrificed to the creditors so long as her husband lived, and
+she turned into the street, and left to live on the charity of her
+friends, if she has any, or follow the monarch, her husband, into the
+Mint, and live there on the wreck of his fortunes, till he is forced to
+run away from her even there; and then she sees her children starve,
+herself miserable, breaks her heart, and cries herself to death! This,"
+says I, "is the state of many a lady that has had £10,000 to her
+portion."
+
+He did not know how feelingly I spoke this, and what extremities I had
+gone through of this kind; how near I was to the very last article
+above, viz., crying myself to death; and how I really starved for almost
+two years together.
+
+But he shook his head, and said, where had I lived? and what dreadful
+families had I lived among, that had frighted me into such terrible
+apprehensions of things? that these things indeed might happen where men
+run into hazardous things in trade, and, without prudence or due
+consideration, launched their fortunes in a degree beyond their
+strength, grasping at adventures beyond their stocks, and the like; but
+that, as he was stated in the world, if I would embark with him, he had
+a fortune equal with mine; that together we should have no occasion of
+engaging in business any more, but that in any part of the world where I
+had a mind to live, whether England, France, Holland, or where I would,
+we might settle, and live as happily as the world could make any one
+live; that if I desired the management of our estate, when put together,
+if I would not trust him with mine, he would trust me with his; that we
+would be upon one bottom, and I should steer. "Ay," says I, "you'll
+allow me to steer--that is, hold the helm--but you'll con the ship, as
+they call it; that is, as at sea, a boy serves to stand at the helm, but
+he that gives him the orders is pilot."
+
+He laughed at my simile. "No," says he; "you shall be pilot then; you
+shall con the ship." "Ay," says I, "as long as you please; but you can
+take the helm out of my hand when you please, and bid me go spin. It is
+not you," says I, "that I suspect, but the laws of matrimony puts the
+power into your hands, bids you do it, commands you to command, and
+binds me, forsooth, to obey. You, that are now upon even terms with me,
+and I with you," says I, "are the next hour set up upon the throne, and
+the humble wife placed at your footstool; all the rest, all that you
+call oneness of interest, mutual affection, and the like, is courtesy
+and kindness then, and a woman is indeed infinitely obliged where she
+meets with it, but can't help herself where it fails."
+
+Well, he did not give it over yet, but came to the serious part, and
+there he thought he should be too many for me. He first hinted that
+marriage was decreed by Heaven; that it was the fixed state of life,
+which God had appointed for man's felicity, and for establishing a legal
+posterity; that there could be no legal claim of estates by inheritance
+but by children born in wedlock; that all the rest was sunk under
+scandal and illegitimacy; and very well he talked upon that subject
+indeed.
+
+But it would not do; I took him short there. "Look you, sir," said I,
+"you have an advantage of me there indeed, in my particular case, but it
+would not be generous to make use of it. I readily grant that it were
+better for me to have married you than to admit you to the liberty I
+have given you, but as I could not reconcile my judgment to marriage,
+for the reasons above, and had kindness enough for you, and obligation
+too much on me to resist you, I suffered your rudeness and gave up my
+virtue. But I have two things before me to heal up that breach of honour
+without that desperate one of marriage, and those are, repentance for
+what is past, and putting an end to it for time to come."
+
+He seemed to be concerned to think that I should take him in that
+manner. He assured me that I misunderstood him; that he had more manners
+as well as more kindness for me, and more justice than to reproach me
+with what he had been the aggressor in, and had surprised me into; that
+what he spoke referred to my words above, that the woman, if she thought
+fit, might entertain a man, as a man did a mistress; and that I seemed
+to mention that way of living as justifiable, and setting it as a lawful
+thing, and in the place of matrimony.
+
+Well, we strained some compliments upon those points, not worth
+repeating; and I added, I supposed when he got to bed to me he thought
+himself sure of me; and, indeed, in the ordinary course of things, after
+he had lain with me he ought to think so, but that, upon the same foot
+of argument which I had discoursed with him upon, it was just the
+contrary; and when a woman had been weak enough to yield up the last
+point before wedlock, it would be adding one weakness to another to take
+the man afterwards, to pin down the shame of it upon herself all the
+days of her life, and bind herself to live all her time with the only
+man that could upbraid her with it; that in yielding at first, she must
+be a fool, but to take the man is to be sure to be called fool; that to
+resist a man is to act with courage and vigour, and to cast off the
+reproach, which, in the course of things, drops out of knowledge and
+dies. The man goes one way and the woman another, as fate and the
+circumstances of living direct; and if they keep one another's counsel,
+the folly is heard no more of. "But to take the man," says I, "is the
+most preposterous thing in nature, and (saving your presence) is to
+befoul one's self, and live always in the smell of it. No, no," added I;
+"after a man has lain with me as a mistress, he ought never to lie with
+me as a wife. That's not only preserving the crime in memory, but it is
+recording it in the family. If the woman marries the man afterwards, she
+bears the reproach of it to the last hour. If her husband is not a man
+of a hundred thousand, he some time or other upbraids her with it. If he
+has children, they fail not one way or other to hear of it. If the
+children are virtuous, they do their mother the justice to hate her for
+it; if they are wicked, they give her the mortification of doing the
+like, and giving her for the example. On the other hand, if the man and
+the woman part, there is an end of the crime and an end of the clamour;
+time wears out the memory of it, or a woman may remove but a few
+streets, and she soon outlives it, and hears no more of it."
+
+He was confounded at this discourse, and told me he could not say but I
+was right in the main. That as to that part relating to managing
+estates, it was arguing _à la cavalier_; it was in some sense right, if
+the women were able to carry it on so, but that in general the sex were
+not capable of it; their heads were not turned for it, and they had
+better choose a person capable and honest, that knew how to do them
+justice as women, as well as to love them; and that then the trouble was
+all taken off of their hands.
+
+I told him it was a dear way of purchasing their ease, for very often
+when the trouble was taken off of their hands, so was their money too;
+and that I thought it was far safer for the sex not to be afraid of the
+trouble, but to be really afraid of their money; that if nobody was
+trusted, nobody would be deceived, and the staff in their own hands was
+the best security in the world.
+
+He replied, that I had started a new thing in the world; that however I
+might support it by subtle reasoning, yet it was a way of arguing that
+was contrary to the general practice, and that he confessed he was much
+disappointed in it; that, had he known I would have made such a use of
+it, he would never have attempted what he did, which he had no wicked
+design in, resolving to make me reparation, and that he was very sorry
+he had been so unhappy; that he was very sure he should never upbraid me
+with it hereafter, and had so good an opinion of me as to believe I did
+not suspect him; but seeing I was positive in refusing him,
+notwithstanding what had passed, he had nothing to do but secure me from
+reproach by going back again to Paris, that so, according to my own way
+of arguing, it might die out of memory, and I might never meet with it
+again to my disadvantage.
+
+I was not pleased with this part at all, for I had no mind to let him go
+neither, and yet I had no mind to give him such hold of me as he would
+have had; and thus I was in a kind of suspense, irresolute, and doubtful
+what course to take.
+
+I was in the house with him, as I have observed, and I saw evidently
+that he was preparing to go back to Paris; and particularly I found he
+was remitting money to Paris, which was, as I understood afterwards, to
+pay for some wines which he had given order to have bought for him at
+Troyes, in Champagne, and I knew not what course to take; and, besides
+that, I was very loth to part with him. I found also that I was with
+child by him, which was what I had not yet told him of, and sometimes I
+thought not to tell him of it at all; but I was in a strange place, and
+had no acquaintance, though I had a great deal of substance, which
+indeed, having no friends there, was the more dangerous to me.
+
+This obliged me to take him one morning when I saw him, as I thought, a
+little anxious about his going, and irresolute. Says I to him, "I fancy
+you can hardly find in your heart to leave me now." "The more unkind is
+it in you," said he, "severely unkind, to refuse a man that knows not
+how to part with you."
+
+"I am so far from being unkind to you," said I, "that I will go over all
+the world with you if you desire me to, except to Paris, where you know
+I can't go."
+
+"It is a pity so much love," said he, "on both sides should ever
+separate."
+
+"Why, then," said I, "do you go away from me?"
+
+"Because," said he, "you won't take me."
+
+"But if I won't take you," said I, "you may take me anywhere but to
+Paris."
+
+He was very loth to go anywhere, he said, without me, but he must go to
+Paris or the East Indies.
+
+I told him I did not use to court, but I durst venture myself to the
+East Indies with him, if there was a necessity of his going.
+
+He told me, God be thanked he was in no necessity of going anywhere, but
+that he had a tempting invitation to go to the Indies.
+
+I answered, I would say nothing to that, but that I desired he would go
+anywhere but to Paris, because there he knew I must not go.
+
+He said he had no remedy but to go where I could not go, for he could
+not bear to see me if he must not have me.
+
+I told him that was the unkindest thing he could say of me, and that I
+ought to take it very ill, seeing I knew how very well to oblige him to
+stay, without yielding to what he knew I could not yield to.
+
+This amazed him, and he told me I was pleased to be mysterious, but that
+he was sure it was in nobody's power to hinder him going, if he
+resolved upon it, except me, who had influence enough upon him to make
+him do anything.
+
+Yes, I told him, I could hinder him, because I knew he could no more do
+an unkind thing by me than he could do an unjust one; and to put him out
+of his pain, I told him I was with child.
+
+He came to me, and taking me in his arms and kissing me a thousand times
+almost, said, why would I be so unkind not to tell him that before?
+
+I told him 'twas hard, that to have him stay, I should be forced to do
+as criminals do to avoid the gallows, plead my belly; and that I thought
+I had given him testimonies enough of an affection equal to that of a
+wife, if I had not only lain with him, been with child by him, shown
+myself unwilling to part with him, but offered to go to the East Indies
+with him; and except one thing that I could not grant, what could he ask
+more?
+
+He stood mute a good while, but afterwards told me he had a great deal
+more to say if I could assure him that I would not take ill whatever
+freedom he might use with me in his discourse.
+
+I told him he might use any freedom in words with me; for a woman who
+had given leave to such other freedoms as I had done had left herself no
+room to take anything ill, let it be what it would.
+
+"Why, then," he said, "I hope you believe, madam, I was born a
+Christian, and that I have some sense of sacred things upon my mind.
+When I first broke in upon my own virtue and assaulted yours; when I
+surprised and, as it were, forced you to that which neither you intended
+or I designed but a few hours before, it was upon a presumption that you
+would certainly marry me, if once I could go that length with you, and
+it was with an honest resolution to make you my wife.
+
+"But I have been surprised with such a denial that no woman in such
+circumstances ever gave to a man; for certainly it was never known that
+any woman refused to marry a man that had first lain with her, much less
+a man that had gotten her with child. But you go upon different notions
+from all the world, and though you reason upon it so strongly that a man
+knows hardly what to answer, yet I must own there is something in it
+shocking to nature, and something very unkind to yourself. But, above
+all, it is unkind to the child that is yet unborn, who, if we marry,
+will come into the world with advantage enough, but if not, is ruined
+before it is born; must bear the eternal reproach of what it is not
+guilty of; must be branded from its cradle with a mark of infamy, be
+loaded with the crimes and follies of its parents, and suffer for sins
+that it never committed. This I take to be very hard, and, indeed, cruel
+to the poor infant not yet born, who you cannot think of with any
+patience, if you have the common affection of a mother, and not do that
+for it which should at once place it on a level with the rest of the
+world, and not leave it to curse its parents for what also we ought to
+be ashamed of. I cannot, therefore," says he, "but beg and entreat you,
+as you are a Christian and a mother, not to let the innocent lamb you go
+with be ruined before it is born, and leave it to curse and reproach us
+hereafter for what may be so easily avoided.
+
+"Then, dear madam," said he, with a world of tenderness (and I thought I
+saw tears in his eyes), "allow me to repeat it, that I am a Christian,
+and consequently I do not allow what I have rashly, and without due
+consideration, done; I say, I do not approve of it as lawful, and
+therefore, though I did, with the view I have mentioned, one
+unjustifiable action, I cannot say that I could satisfy myself to live
+in a continual practice of what in judgment we must both condemn; and
+though I love you above all the women in the world, and have done enough
+to convince you of it by resolving to marry you after what has passed
+between us, and by offering to quit all pretensions to any part of your
+estate, so that I should, as it were, take a wife after I had lain with
+her, and without a farthing portion, which, as my circumstances are, I
+need not do; I say, notwithstanding my affection to you, which is
+inexpressible, yet I cannot give up soul as well as body, the interest
+of this world and the hopes of another; and you cannot call this my
+disrespect to you."
+
+If ever any man in the world was truly valuable for the strictest
+honesty of intention, this was the man; and if ever woman in her senses
+rejected a man of merit on so trivial and frivolous a pretence, I was
+the woman; but surely it was the most preposterous thing that ever woman
+did.
+
+He would have taken me as a wife, but would not entertain me as a whore.
+Was ever woman angry with any gentleman on that head? And was ever woman
+so stupid to choose to be a whore, where she might have been an honest
+wife? But infatuations are next to being possessed of the devil. I was
+inflexible, and pretended to argue upon the point of a woman's liberty
+as before, but he took me short, and with more warmth than he had yet
+used with me, though with the utmost respect, replied, "Dear madam, you
+argue for liberty, at the same time that you restrain yourself from that
+liberty which God and nature has directed you to take, and, to supply
+the deficiency, propose a vicious liberty, which is neither honourable
+or religious. Will you propose liberty at the expense of modesty?"
+
+I returned, that he mistook me; I did not propose it; I only said that
+those that could not be content without concerning the sexes in that
+affair might do so indeed; might entertain a man as men do a mistress,
+if they thought fit, but he did not hear me say I would do so; and
+though, by what had passed, he might well censure me in that part, yet
+he should find, for the future, that I should freely converse with him
+without any inclination that way.
+
+He told me he could not promise that for himself, and thought he ought
+not to trust himself with the opportunity, for that, as he had failed
+already, he was loth to lead himself into the temptation of offending
+again, and that this was the true reason of his resolving to go back to
+Paris; not that he could willingly leave me, and would be very far from
+wanting my invitation; but if he could not stay upon terms that became
+him, either as an honest man or a Christian, what could he do? And he
+hoped, he said, I could not blame him that he was unwilling anything
+that was to call him father should upbraid him with leaving him in the
+world to be called bastard; adding that he was astonished to think how I
+could satisfy myself to be so cruel to an innocent infant not yet born;
+professed he could neither bear the thoughts of it, much less bear to
+see it, and hoped I would not take it ill that he could not stay to see
+me delivered, for that very reason.
+
+I saw he spoke this with a disturbed mind, and that it was with some
+difficulty that he restrained his passion, so I declined any farther
+discourse upon it; only said I hoped he would consider of it. "Oh,
+madam!" says he, "do not bid me consider; 'tis for you to consider;" and
+with that he went out of the room, in a strange kind of confusion, as
+was easy to be seen in his countenance.
+
+If I had not been one of the foolishest as well as wickedest creatures
+upon earth, I could never have acted thus. I had one of the honestest,
+completest gentlemen upon earth at my hand. He had in one sense saved my
+life, but he had saved that life from ruin in a most remarkable manner.
+He loved me even to distraction, and had come from Paris to Rotterdam on
+purpose to seek me. He had offered me marriage even after I was with
+child by him, and had offered to quit all his pretensions to my estate,
+and give it up to my own management, having a plentiful estate of his
+own. Here I might have settled myself out of the reach even of disaster
+itself; his estate and mine would have purchased even then above two
+thousand pounds a year, and I might have lived like a queen--nay, far
+more happy than a queen; and, which was above all, I had now an
+opportunity to have quitted a life of crime and debauchery, which I had
+been given up to for several years, and to have sat down quiet in plenty
+and honour, and to have set myself apart to the great work which I have
+since seen so much necessity of and occasion for--I mean that of
+repentance.
+
+But my measure of wickedness was not yet full. I continued obstinate
+against matrimony, and yet I could not bear the thoughts of his going
+away neither. As to the child, I was not very anxious about it. I told
+him I would promise him it should never come to him to upbraid him with
+its being illegitimate; that if it was a boy, I would breed it up like
+the son of a gentleman, and use it well for his sake; and after a little
+more such talk as this, and seeing him resolved to go, I retired, but
+could not help letting him see the tears run down my cheeks. He came to
+me and kissed me, entreated me, conjured me by the kindness he had shown
+me in my distress, by the justice he had done me in my bills and money
+affairs, by the respect which made him refuse a thousand pistoles from
+me for his expenses with that traitor the Jew, by the pledge of our
+misfortunes--so he called it--which I carried with me, and by all that
+the sincerest affection could propose to do, that I would not drive him
+away.
+
+But it would not do. I was stupid and senseless, deaf to all his
+importunities, and continued so to the last. So we parted, only desiring
+me to promise that I would write him word when I was delivered, and how
+he might give me an answer; and this I engaged my word I would do. And
+upon his desiring to be informed which way I intended to dispose of
+myself, I told him I resolved to go directly to England, and to London,
+where I proposed to lie in; but since he resolved to leave me, I told
+him I supposed it would be of no consequence to him what became of me.
+
+He lay in his lodgings that night, but went away early in the morning,
+leaving me a letter in which he repeated all he had said, recommended
+the care of the child, and desired of me that as he had remitted to me
+the offer of a thousand pistoles which I would have given him for the
+recompense of his charges and trouble with the Jew, and had given it me
+back, so he desired I would allow him to oblige me to set apart that
+thousand pistoles, with its improvement, for the child, and for its
+education; earnestly pressing me to secure that little portion for the
+abandoned orphan when I should think fit, as he was sure I would, to
+throw away the rest upon something as worthless as my sincere friend at
+Paris. He concluded with moving me to reflect, with the same regret as
+he did, on our follies we had committed together; asked me forgiveness
+for being the aggressor in the fact, and forgave me everything, he said,
+but the cruelty of refusing him, which he owned he could not forgive me
+so heartily as he should do, because he was satisfied it was an injury
+to myself, would be an introduction to my ruin, and that I would
+seriously repent of it. He foretold some fatal things which, he said, he
+was well assured I should fall into, and that at last I would be ruined
+by a bad husband; bid me be the more wary, that I might render him a
+false prophet; but to remember that, if ever I came into distress, I had
+a fast friend at Paris, who would not upbraid me with the unkind things
+past, but would be always ready to return me good for evil.
+
+This letter stunned me. I could not think it possible for any one that
+had not dealt with the devil to write such a letter, for he spoke of
+some particular things which afterwards were to befall me with such an
+assurance that it frighted me beforehand; and when those things did come
+to pass, I was persuaded he had some more than human knowledge. In a
+word, his advices to me to repent were very affectionate, his warnings
+of evil to happen to me were very kind, and his promises of assistance,
+if I wanted him, were so generous that I have seldom seen the like; and
+though I did not at first set much by that part because I looked upon
+them as what might not happen, and as what was improbable to happen at
+that time, yet all the rest of his letter was so moving that it left me
+very melancholy, and I cried four-and-twenty hours after, almost without
+ceasing, about it; and yet even all this while, whatever it was that
+bewitched me, I had not one serious wish that I had taken him. I wished
+heartily, indeed, that I could have kept him with me, but I had a mortal
+aversion to marrying him, or indeed anybody else, but formed a thousand
+wild notions in my head that I was yet gay enough, and young and
+handsome enough, to please a man of quality, and that I would try my
+fortune at London, come of it what would.
+
+Thus blinded by my own vanity, I threw away the only opportunity I then
+had to have effectually settled my fortunes, and secured them for this
+world; and I am a memorial to all that shall read my story, a standing
+monument of the madness and distraction which pride and infatuations
+from hell run us into, how ill our passions guide us, and how
+dangerously we act when we follow the dictates of an ambitious mind.
+
+I was rich, beautiful, and agreeable, and not yet old. I had known
+something of the influence I had had upon the fancies of men even of the
+highest rank. I never forgot that the Prince de ---- had said, with an
+ecstasy, that I was the finest woman in France. I knew I could make a
+figure at London, and how well I could grace that figure. I was not at a
+loss how to behave, and having already been adored by princes, I thought
+of nothing less than of being mistress to the king himself. But I go
+back to my immediate circumstances at that time.
+
+I got over the absence of my honest merchant but slowly at first. It was
+with infinite regret that I let him go at all; and when I read the
+letter he left I was quite confounded. As soon as he was out of call
+and irrecoverable I would have given half I had in the world for him
+back again; my notion of things changed in an instant, and I called
+myself a thousand fools for casting myself upon a life of scandal and
+hazard, when, after the shipwreck of virtue, honour, and principle, and
+sailing at the utmost risk in the stormy seas of crime and abominable
+levity, I had a safe harbour presented, and no heart to cast anchor in
+it.
+
+His predictions terrified me; his promises of kindness if I came to
+distress melted me into tears, but frighted me with the apprehensions of
+ever coming into such distress, and filled my head with a thousand
+anxieties and thoughts how it should be possible for me, who had now
+such a fortune, to sink again into misery.
+
+Then the dreadful scene of my life, when I was left with my five
+children, &c., as I have related, represented itself again to me, and I
+sat considering what measures I might take to bring myself to such a
+state of desolation again, and how I should act to avoid it.
+
+But these things wore off gradually. As to my friend the merchant, he
+was gone, and gone irrecoverably, for I durst not follow him to Paris,
+for the reasons mentioned above. Again, I was afraid to write to him to
+return, lest he should have refused, as I verily believed he would; so
+I sat and cried intolerably for some days--nay, I may say for some
+weeks; but, I say, it wore off gradually, and as I had a pretty deal of
+business for managing my effects, the hurry of that particular part
+served to divert my thoughts, and in part to wear out the impressions
+which had been made upon my mind.
+
+I had sold my jewels, all but the diamond ring which my gentleman the
+jeweller used to wear, and this, at proper times, I wore myself; as also
+the diamond necklace which the prince had given me, and a pair of
+extraordinary earrings worth about 600 pistoles; the other, which was a
+fine casket, he left with me at his going to Versailles, and a small
+case with some rubies and emeralds, &c. I say I sold them at the Hague
+for 7600 pistoles. I had received all the bills which the merchant had
+helped me to at Paris, and with the money I brought with me, they made
+up 13,900 pistoles more; so that I had in ready money, and in account in
+the bank at Amsterdam, above one-and-twenty thousand pistoles, besides
+jewels; and how to get this treasure to England was my next care.
+
+The business I had had now with a great many people for receiving such
+large sums and selling jewels of such considerable value gave me
+opportunity to know and converse with several of the best merchants of
+the place, so that I wanted no direction now how to get my money
+remitted to England. Applying, therefore, to several merchants, that I
+might neither risk it all on the credit of one merchant, nor suffer any
+single man to know the quantity of money I had; I say, applying myself
+to several merchants, I got bills of exchange payable in London for all
+my money. The first bills I took with me; the second bills I left in
+trust (in case of any disaster at sea) in the hands of the first
+merchant, him to whom I was recommended by my friend from Paris.
+
+Having thus spent nine months in Holland, refused the best offer ever
+woman in my circumstances had, parted unkindly, and indeed barbarously,
+with the best friend and honestest man in the world, got all my money in
+my pocket, and a bastard in my belly, I took shipping at the Brill in
+the packet-boat, and arrived safe at Harwich, where my woman Amy was
+come by my direction to meet me.
+
+I would willingly have given ten thousand pounds of my money to have
+been rid of the burthen I had in my belly, as above; but it could not
+be, so I was obliged to bear with that part, and get rid of it by the
+ordinary method of patience and a hard travail.
+
+I was above the contemptible usage that women in my circumstances
+oftentimes meet with. I had considered all that beforehand; and having
+sent Amy beforehand, and remitted her money to do it, she had taken me
+a very handsome house in ---- Street, near Charing Cross; had hired me
+two maids and a footman, who she had put in a good livery; and having
+hired a glass coach and four horses, she came with them and the
+man-servant to Harwich to meet me, and had been there near a week before
+I came, so I had nothing to do but to go away to London to my own house,
+where I arrived in very good health, and where I passed for a French
+lady, by the title of ----.
+
+My first business was to get all my bills accepted, which, to cut the
+story short, was all both accepted and currently paid; and I then
+resolved to take me a country lodging somewhere near the town, to be
+incognito, till I was brought to bed; which, appearing in such a figure
+and having such an equipage, I easily managed without anybody's offering
+the usual insults of parish inquiries. I did not appear in my new house
+for some time, and afterwards I thought fit, for particular reasons, to
+quit that house, and not to come to it at all, but take handsome large
+apartments in the Pall Mall, in a house out of which was a private door
+into the king's garden, by the permission of the chief gardener, who had
+lived in the house.
+
+I had now all my effects secured; but my money being my great concern at
+that time, I found it a difficulty how to dispose of it so as to bring
+me in an annual interest. However, in some time I got a substantial
+safe mortgage for £14,000 by the assistance of the famous Sir Robert
+Clayton, for which I had an estate of £1800 a year bound to me, and had
+£700 per annum interest for it.
+
+This, with some other securities, made me a very handsome estate of
+above a thousand pounds a year; enough, one would think, to keep any
+woman in England from being a whore.
+
+I lay in at ----, about four miles from London, and brought a fine boy
+into the world, and, according to my promise, sent an account of it to
+my friend at Paris, the father of it; and in the letter told him how
+sorry I was for his going away, and did as good as intimate that, if he
+would come once more to see me, I should use him better than I had done.
+He gave me a very kind and obliging answer, but took not the least
+notice of what I had said of his coming over, so I found my interest
+lost there for ever. He gave me joy of the child, and hinted that he
+hoped I would make good what he had begged for the poor infant as I had
+promised, and I sent him word again that I would fulfil his order to a
+tittle; and such a fool and so weak I was in this last letter,
+notwithstanding what I have said of his not taking notice of my
+invitation, as to ask his pardon almost for the usage I gave him at
+Rotterdam, and stooped so low as to expostulate with him for not taking
+notice of my inviting him to come to me again, as I had done; and,
+which was still more, went so far as to make a second sort of an offer
+to him, telling him, almost in plain words, that if he would come over
+now I would have him; but he never gave me the least reply to it at all,
+which was as absolute a denial to me as he was ever able to give; so I
+sat down, I cannot say contented, but vexed heartily that I had made the
+offer at all, for he had, as I may say, his full revenge of me in
+scorning to answer, and to let me twice ask that of him which he with so
+much importunity begged of me before.
+
+I was now up again, and soon came to my City lodging in the Pall Mall,
+and here I began to make a figure suitable to my estate, which was very
+great; and I shall give you an account of my equipage in a few words,
+and of myself too.
+
+I paid £60 a year for my new apartments, for I took them by the year;
+but then they were handsome lodgings indeed, and very richly furnished.
+I kept my own servants to clean and look after them, found my own
+kitchen ware and firing. My equipage was handsome, but not very great; I
+had a coach, a coachman, a footman, my woman Amy, who I now dressed like
+a gentlewoman and made her my companion, and three maids; and thus I
+lived for a time. I dressed to the height of every mode, went extremely
+rich in clothes, and as for jewels, I wanted none. I gave a very good
+livery, laced with silver, and as rich as anybody below the nobility
+could be seen with; and thus I appeared, leaving the world to guess who
+or what I was, without offering to put myself forward.
+
+I walked sometimes in the Mall with my woman Amy, but I kept no company
+and made no acquaintances, only made as gay a show as I was able to do,
+and that upon all occasions. I found, however, the world was not
+altogether so unconcerned about me as I seemed to be about them; and
+first I understood that the neighbours began to be mighty inquisitive
+about me, as who I was, and what my circumstances were.
+
+Amy was the only person that could answer their curiosity or give any
+account of me; and she, a tattling woman and a true gossip, took care to
+do that with all the art that she was mistress of. She let them know
+that I was the widow of a person of quality in France, that I was very
+rich, that I came over hither to look after an estate that fell to me by
+some of my relations who died here, that I was worth £40,000 all in my
+own hands, and the like.
+
+This was all wrong in Amy, and in me too, though we did not see it at
+first, for this recommended me indeed to those sort of gentlemen they
+call fortune-hunters, and who always besieged ladies, as they called
+it--on purpose to take them prisoners, as I called it--that is to say,
+to marry the women and have the spending of their money. But if I was
+wrong in refusing the honourable proposals of the Dutch merchant, who
+offered me the disposal of my whole estate, and had as much of his own
+to maintain me with, I was right now in refusing those offers which came
+generally from gentlemen of good families and good estates, but who,
+living to the extent of them, were always needy and necessitous, and
+wanted a sum of money to make themselves easy, as they call it--that is
+to say, to pay off encumbrances, sisters' portions, and the like; and
+then the woman is prisoner for life, and may live as they give her
+leave. This life I had seen into clearly enough, and therefore I was not
+to be catched that way. However, as I said, the reputation of my money
+brought several of those sort of gentry about me, and they found means,
+by one stratagem or other, to get access to my ladyship; but, in short,
+I answered them well enough, that I lived single and was happy; that as
+I had no occasion to change my condition for an estate, so I did not see
+that by the best offer that any of them could make me I could mend my
+fortune; that I might be honoured with titles indeed, and in time rank
+on public occasions with the peeresses (I mention that because one that
+offered at me was the eldest son of a peer), but that I was as well
+without the title as long as I had the estate, and while I had £2000 a
+year of my own I was happier than I could be in being prisoner of state
+to a nobleman, for I took the ladies of that rank to be little better.
+
+As I have mentioned Sir Robert Clayton, with whom I had the good fortune
+to become acquainted, on account of the mortgage which he helped me to,
+it is necessary to take notice that I had much advantage in my ordinary
+affairs by his advice, and therefore I called it my good fortune; for as
+he paid me so considerable an annual income as £700 a year, so I am to
+acknowledge myself much a debtor, not only to the justice of his
+dealings with me, but to the prudence and conduct which he guided me to,
+by his advice, for the management of my estate. And as he found I was
+not inclined to marry, he frequently took occasion to hint how soon I
+might raise my fortune to a prodigious height if I would but order my
+family economy so far within my revenue as to lay up every year
+something to add to the capital.
+
+I was convinced of the truth of what he said, and agreed to the
+advantages of it. You are to take it as you go that Sir Robert supposed
+by my own discourse, and especially by my woman Amy, that I had £2000 a
+year income. He judged, as he said, by my way of living that I could not
+spend above one thousand, and so, he added, I might prudently lay by
+£1000 every year to add to the capital; and by adding every year the
+additional interest or income of the money to the capital, he proved to
+me that in ten years I should double the £1000 per annum that I laid by.
+And he drew me out a table, as he called it, of the increase, for me to
+judge by; and by which, he said, if the gentlemen of England would but
+act so, every family of them would increase their fortunes to a great
+degree, just as merchants do by trade; whereas now, says Sir Robert, by
+the humour of living up to the extent of their fortunes, and rather
+beyond, the gentlemen, says he, ay, and the nobility too, are almost all
+of them borrowers, and all in necessitous circumstances.
+
+As Sir Robert frequently visited me, and was (if I may say so from his
+own mouth) very well pleased with my way of conversing with him, for he
+knew nothing, not so much as guessed at what I had been; I say, as he
+came often to see me, so he always entertained me with this scheme of
+frugality; and one time he brought another paper, wherein he showed me,
+much to the same purpose as the former, to what degree I should increase
+my estate if I would come into his method of contracting my expenses;
+and by this scheme of his, it appeared that, laying up a thousand pounds
+a year, and every year adding the interest to it, I should in twelve
+years' time have in bank one-and-twenty thousand and fifty-eight
+pounds, after which I might lay up two thousand pounds a year.
+
+I objected that I was a young woman, that I had been used to live
+plentifully, and with a good appearance, and that I knew not how to be a
+miser.
+
+He told me that if I thought I had enough it was well, but that if I
+desired to have more, this was the way; that in another twelve years I
+should be too rich, so that I should not know what to do with it.
+
+"Ay, sir," says I, "you are contriving how to make me a rich old woman,
+but that won't answer my end; I had rather have £20,000 now than £60,000
+when I am fifty years old."
+
+"Then, madam," says he, "I suppose your honour has no children?"
+
+"None, Sir Robert," said I, "but what are provided for." So I left him
+in the dark as much as I found him. However, I considered his scheme
+very well, though I said no more to him at that time, and I resolved,
+though I would make a very good figure, I say I resolved to abate a
+little of my expense, and draw in, live closer, and save something, if
+not so much as he proposed to me. It was near the end of the year that
+Sir Robert made this proposal to me, and when the year was up I went to
+his house in the City, and there I told him I came to thank him for his
+scheme of frugality; that I had been studying much upon it, and though I
+had not been able to mortify myself so much as to lay up a thousand
+pounds a year, yet, as I had not come to him for my interest
+half-yearly, as was usual, I was now come to let him know that I had
+resolved to lay up that seven hundred pounds a year, and never use a
+penny of it, desiring him to help me to put it out to advantage.
+
+Sir Robert, a man thoroughly versed in arts of improving money, but
+thoroughly honest, said to me, "Madam, I am glad you approve of the
+method that I proposed to you; but you have begun wrong; you should have
+come for your interest at the half-year, and then you had had the money
+to put out. Now you have lost half a year's interest of £350, which is
+£9; for I had but 5 per cent, on the mortgage."
+
+"Well, well, sir," says I, "can you put this out for me now?"
+
+"Let it lie, madam," says he, "till the next year, and then I'll put out
+your £1400 together, and in the meantime I'll pay you interest for the
+£700." So he gave me his bill for the money, which he told me should be
+no less than £6 per cent. Sir Robert Clayton's bill was what nobody
+would refuse, so I thanked him and let it lie; and next year I did the
+same, and the third year Sir Robert got me a good mortgage for £2200 at
+£6 per cent interest. So I had £132 a year added to my income, which was
+a very satisfying article.
+
+But I return to my history. As I have said, I found that my measures
+were all wrong; the posture I set up in exposed me to innumerable
+visitors of the kind I have mentioned above. I was cried up for a vast
+fortune, and one that Sir Robert Clayton managed for; and Sir Robert
+Clayton was courted for me as much as I was for myself. But I had given
+Sir Robert his cue. I had told him my opinion of matrimony, in just the
+same terms as I had done my merchant, and he came into it presently. He
+owned that my observation was just, and that if I valued my liberty, as
+I knew my fortune, and that it was in my own hands, I was to blame if I
+gave it away to any one.
+
+But Sir Robert knew nothing of my design, that I aimed at being a kept
+mistress, and to have a handsome maintenance; and that I was still for
+getting money, and laying it up too, as much as he could desire me, only
+by a worse way.
+
+However, Sir Robert came seriously to me one day, and told me he had an
+offer of matrimony to make to me that was beyond all that he had heard
+had offered themselves, and this was a merchant. Sir Robert and I agreed
+exactly in our notions of a merchant. Sir Robert said, and I found it to
+be true, that a true-bred merchant is the best gentleman in the nation;
+that in knowledge, in manners, in judgment of things, the merchant
+outdid many of the nobility; that having once mastered the world, and
+being above the demand of business, though no real estate, they were
+then superior to most gentlemen, even in estate; that a merchant in
+flush business and a capital stock is able to spend more money than a
+gentleman of £5000 a year estate; that while a merchant spent, he only
+spent what he got, and not that, and that he laid up great sums every
+year; that an estate is a pond, but that a trade was a spring; that if
+the first is once mortgaged, it seldom gets clear, but embarrassed the
+person for ever; but the merchant had his estate continually flowing;
+and upon this he named me merchants who lived in more real splendour and
+spent more money than most of the noblemen in England could singly
+expend, and that they still grew immensely rich.
+
+He went on to tell me that even the tradesmen in London, speaking of the
+better sort of trades, could spend more money in their families, and yet
+give better fortunes to their children, than, generally speaking, the
+gentry of England from £1000 a year downward could do, and yet grow rich
+too.
+
+The upshot of all this was to recommend to me rather the bestowing my
+fortune upon some eminent merchant, who lived already in the first
+figure of a merchant, and who, not being in want or scarcity of money,
+but having a flourishing business and a flowing cash, would at the first
+word settle all my fortune on myself and children, and maintain me like
+a queen.
+
+This was certainly right, and had I taken his advice, I had been really
+happy; but my heart was bent upon an independency of fortune, and I told
+him I knew no state of matrimony but what was at best a state of
+inferiority, if not of bondage; that I had no notion of it; that I lived
+a life of absolute liberty now, was free as I was born, and having a
+plentiful fortune, I did not understand what coherence the words "honour
+and obey" had with the liberty of a free woman; that I knew no reason
+the men had to engross the whole liberty of the race, and make the
+woman, notwithstanding any disparity of fortune, be subject to the laws
+of marriage, of their own making; that it was my misfortune to be a
+woman, but I was resolved it should not be made worse by the sex; and,
+seeing liberty seemed to be the men's property, I would be a man-woman,
+for, as I was born free, I would die so.
+
+Sir Robert smiled, and told me I talked a kind of Amazonian language;
+that he found few women of my mind, or that, if they were, they wanted
+resolution to go on with it; that, notwithstanding all my notions, which
+he could not but say had once some weight in them, yet he understood I
+had broke in upon them, and had been married. I answered, I had so; but
+he did not hear me say that I had any encouragement from what was past
+to make a second venture; that I was got well out of the toil, and if I
+came in again I should have nobody to blame but myself.
+
+Sir Robert laughed heartily at me, but gave over offering any more
+arguments, only told me he had pointed me out for some of the best
+merchants in London, but since I forbade him he would give me no
+disturbance of that kind. He applauded my way of managing my money, and
+told me I should soon be monstrous rich; but he neither knew or
+mistrusted that, with all this wealth, I was yet a whore, and was not
+averse to adding to my estate at the farther expense of my virtue.
+
+But to go on with my story as to my way of living. I found, as above,
+that my living as I did would not answer; that it only brought the
+fortune-hunters and bites about me, as I have said before, to make a
+prey of me and my money; and, in short, I was harassed with lovers,
+beaux, and fops of quality, in abundance, but it would not do. I aimed
+at other things, and was possessed with so vain an opinion of my own
+beauty, that nothing less than the king himself was in my eye. And this
+vanity was raised by some words let fall by a person I conversed with,
+who was, perhaps, likely enough to have brought such a thing to pass,
+had it been sooner; but that game began to be pretty well over at
+court. However, the having mentioned such a thing, it seems a little
+too publicly, it brought abundance of people about me, upon a wicked
+account too.
+
+And now I began to act in a new sphere. The court was exceedingly gay
+and fine, though fuller of men than of women, the queen not affecting to
+be very much in public. On the other hand, it is no slander upon the
+courtiers to say, they were as wicked as anybody in reason could desire
+them. The king had several mistresses, who were prodigious fine, and
+there was a glorious show on that side indeed. If the sovereign gave
+himself a loose, it could not be expected the rest of the court should
+be all saints; so far was it from that, though I would not make it worse
+than it was, that a woman that had anything agreeable in her appearance
+could never want followers.
+
+I soon found myself thronged with admirers, and I received visits from
+some persons of very great figure, who always introduced themselves by
+the help of an old lady or two who were now become my intimates; and one
+of them, I understood afterwards, was set to work on purpose to get into
+my favour, in order to introduce what followed.
+
+The conversation we had was generally courtly, but civil. At length some
+gentlemen proposed to play, and made what they called a party. This, it
+seems, was a contrivance of one of my female hangers-on, for, as I
+said, I had two of them, who thought this was the way to introduce
+people as often as she pleased; and so indeed it was. They played high
+and stayed late, but begged my pardon, only asked leave to make an
+appointment for the next night. I was as gay and as well pleased as any
+of them, and one night told one of the gentlemen, my Lord ----, that
+seeing they were doing me the honour of diverting themselves at my
+apartment, and desired to be there sometimes, I did not keep a
+gaming-table, but I would give them a little ball the next day if they
+pleased, which they accepted very willingly.
+
+Accordingly, in the evening the gentlemen began to come, where I let
+them see that I understood very well what such things meant. I had a
+large dining-room in my apartments, with five other rooms on the same
+floor, all which I made drawing-rooms for the occasion, having all the
+beds taken down for the day. In three of these I had tables placed,
+covered with wine and sweetmeats, the fourth had a green table for play,
+and the fifth was my own room, where I sat, and where I received all the
+company that came to pay their compliments to me. I was dressed, you may
+be sure, to all the advantage possible, and had all the jewels on that I
+was mistress of. My Lord ----, to whom I had made the invitation, sent me
+a set of fine music from the playhouse, and the ladies danced, and we
+began to be very merry, when about eleven o'clock I had notice given me
+that there were some gentlemen coming in masquerade. I seemed a little
+surprised, and began to apprehend some disturbance, when my Lord ----
+perceiving it, spoke to me to be easy, for that there was a party of the
+guards at the door which should be ready to prevent any rudeness; and
+another gentleman gave me a hint as if the king was among the masks. I
+coloured as red as blood itself could make a face look, and expressed a
+great surprise; however, there was no going back, so I kept my station
+in my drawing-room, but with the folding-doors wide open.
+
+A while after the masks came in, and began with a dance _à la comique_,
+performing wonderfully indeed. While they were dancing I withdrew, and
+left a lady to answer for me that I would return immediately. In less
+than half-an-hour I returned, dressed in the habit of a Turkish
+princess; the habit I got at Leghorn, when my foreign prince bought me a
+Turkish slave, as I have said. The Maltese man-of-war had, it seems,
+taken a Turkish vessel going from Constantinople to Alexandria, in which
+were some ladies bound for Grand Cairo in Egypt; and as the ladies were
+made slaves, so their fine clothes were thus exposed; and with this
+Turkish slave I bought the rich clothes too. The dress was
+extraordinary fine indeed; I had bought it as a curiosity, having never
+seen the like. The robe was a fine Persian or India damask, the ground
+white, and the flowers blue and gold, and the train held five yards. The
+dress under it was a vest of the same, embroidered with gold, and set
+with some pearl in the work and some turquoise stones. To the vest was a
+girdle five or six inches wide, after the Turkish mode; and on both ends
+where it joined, or hooked, was set with diamonds for eight inches
+either way, only they were not true diamonds, but nobody knew that but
+myself.
+
+The turban, or head-dress, had a pinnacle on the top, but not above five
+inches, with a piece of loose sarcenet hanging from it; and on the
+front, just over the forehead, was a good jewel which I had added to it.
+
+This habit, as above, cost me about sixty pistoles in Italy, but cost
+much more in the country from whence it came; and little did I think
+when I bought it that I should put it to such a use as this, though I
+had dressed myself in it many times by the help of my little Turk, and
+afterwards between Amy and I, only to see how I looked in it. I had sent
+her up before to get it ready, and when I came up I had nothing to do
+but slip it on, and was down in my drawing-room in a little more than a
+quarter of an hour. When I came there the room was full of company; but
+I ordered the folding-doors to be shut for a minute or two till I had
+received the compliments of the ladies that were in the room, and had
+given them a full view of my dress.
+
+But my Lord ----, who happened to be in the room, slipped out at another
+door, and brought back with him one of the masks, a tall, well-shaped
+person, but who had no name, being all masked; nor would it have been
+allowed to ask any person's name on such an occasion. The person spoke
+in French to me, that it was the finest dress he had ever seen, and
+asked me if he should have the honour to dance with me. I bowed, as
+giving my consent, but said, as I had been a Mahometan, I could not
+dance after the manner of this country; I supposed their music would not
+play _à la Moresque_. He answered merrily. I had a Christian's face, and
+he'd venture it that I could dance like a Christian; adding that so much
+beauty could not be Mahometan. Immediately the folding-doors were flung
+open, and he led me into the room. The company were under the greatest
+surprise imaginable; the very music stopped awhile to gaze, for the
+dress was indeed exceedingly surprising, perfectly new, very agreeable,
+and wonderful rich.
+
+The gentleman, whoever he was, for I never knew, led me only _à
+courant_, and then asked me if I had a mind to dance an antic--that is
+to say, whether I would dance the antic as they had danced in
+masquerade, or anything by myself. I told him anything else rather, if
+he pleased; so we danced only two French dances, and he led me to the
+drawing-room door, when he retired to the rest of the masks. When he
+left me at the drawing-room door I did not go in, as he thought I would
+have done, but turned about and showed myself to the whole room, and
+calling my woman to me, gave her some directions to the music, by which
+the company presently understood that I would give them a dance by
+myself. Immediately all the house rose up and paid me a kind of a
+compliment by removing back every way to make me room, for the place was
+exceedingly full. The music did not at first hit the tune that I
+directed, which was a French tune, so I was forced to send my woman to
+them again, standing all this while at my drawing-room door; but as soon
+as my woman spoke to them again, they played it right, and I, to let
+them see it was so, stepped forward to the middle of the room. Then they
+began it again, and I danced by myself a figure which I learnt in
+France, when the Prince de ---- desired I would dance for his diversion.
+It was, indeed, a very fine figure, invented by a famous master at
+Paris, for a lady or a gentleman to dance single; but being perfectly
+new, it pleased the company exceedingly, and they all thought it had
+been Turkish; nay, one gentleman had the folly to expose himself so
+much as to say, and I think swore too, that he had seen it danced at
+Constantinople, which was ridiculous enough.
+
+At the finishing the dance the company clapped, and almost shouted; and
+one of the gentlemen cried out "Roxana! Roxana! by ----," with an oath;
+upon which foolish accident I had the name of Roxana presently fixed
+upon me all over the court end of town as effectually as if I had been
+christened Roxana. I had, it seems, the felicity of pleasing everybody
+that night to an extreme; and my ball, but especially my dress, was the
+chat of the town for that week; and so the name of Roxana was the toast
+at and about the court; no other health was to be named with it.
+
+Now things began to work as I would have them, and I began to be very
+popular, as much as I could desire. The ball held till (as well as I was
+pleased with the show) I was sick of the night; the gentlemen masked
+went off about three o'clock in the morning, the other gentlemen sat
+down to play; the music held it out, and some of the ladies were dancing
+at six in the morning.
+
+But I was mighty eager to know who it was danced with me. Some of the
+lords went so far as to tell me I was very much honoured in my company;
+one of them spoke so broad as almost to say it was the king, but I was
+convinced afterwards it was not; and another replied if he had been his
+Majesty he should have thought it no dishonour to lead up a Roxana; but
+to this hour I never knew positively who it was; and by his behaviour I
+thought he was too young, his Majesty being at that time in an age that
+might be discovered from a young person, even in his dancing.
+
+Be that as it would, I had five hundred guineas sent me the next
+morning, and the messenger was ordered to tell me that the persons who
+sent it desired a ball again at my lodgings on the next Tuesday, but
+that they would have my leave to give the entertainment themselves. I
+was mighty well pleased with this, to be sure, but very inquisitive to
+know who the money came from; but the messenger was silent as death as
+to that point, and bowing always at my inquiries, begged me to ask no
+questions which he could not give an obliging answer to.
+
+I forgot to mention, that the gentlemen that played gave a hundred
+guineas to the box, as they called it, and at the end of their play they
+asked for my gentlewoman of the bedchamber, as they called her (Mrs.
+Amy, forsooth), and gave it her, and gave twenty guineas more among the
+servants.
+
+These magnificent doings equally both pleased and surprised me, and I
+hardly knew where I was; but especially that notion of the king being
+the person that danced with me, puffed me up to that degree, that I not
+only did not know anybody else, but indeed was very far from knowing
+myself.
+
+I had now, the next Tuesday, to provide for the like company. But, alas!
+it was all taken out of my hand. Three gentlemen, who yet were, it
+seems, but servants, came on the Saturday, and bringing sufficient
+testimonies that they were right, for one was the same who brought the
+five hundred guineas; I say, three of them came, and brought bottles of
+all sorts of wines, and hampers of sweetmeats to such a quantity, it
+appeared they designed to hold the trade on more than once, and that
+they would furnish everything to a profusion.
+
+However, as I found a deficiency in two things, I made provision of
+about twelve dozen of fine damask napkins, with tablecloths of the same,
+sufficient to cover all the tables, with three tablecloths upon every
+table, and sideboards in proportion. Also I bought a handsome quantity
+of plate, necessary to have served all the sideboards; but the gentlemen
+would not suffer any of it to be used, telling me they had bought fine
+china dishes and plates for the whole service, and that in such public
+places they could not be answerable for the plate. So it was set all up
+in a large glass cupboard in the room I sat in, where it made a very
+good show indeed.
+
+On Tuesday there came such an appearance of gentlemen and ladies, that
+my apartments were by no means able to receive them, and those who in
+particular appeared as principals gave order below to let no more
+company come up. The street was full of coaches with coronets, and fine
+glass chairs, and, in short, it was impossible to receive the company. I
+kept my little room as before, and the dancers filled the great room;
+all the drawing-rooms also were filled, and three rooms below stairs,
+which were not mine.
+
+It was very well that there was a strong party of the guards brought to
+keep the door, for without that there had been such a promiscuous crowd,
+and some of them scandalous too, that we should have been all disorder
+and confusion; but the three head servants managed all that, and had a
+word to admit all the company by.
+
+It was uncertain to me, and is to this day, who it was that danced with
+me the Wednesday before, when the ball was my own; but that the king was
+at this assembly was out of question with me, by circumstances that, I
+suppose, I could not be deceived in, and particularly that there were
+five persons who were not masked; three of them had blue garters, and
+they appeared not to me till I came out to dance.
+
+This meeting was managed just as the first, though with much more
+magnificence, because of the company. I placed myself (exceedingly rich
+in clothes and jewels) in the middle of my little room, as before, and
+made my compliment to all the company as they passed me, as I did
+before. But my Lord ----, who had spoken openly to me the first night,
+came to me, and, unmasking, told me the company had ordered him to tell
+me they hoped they should see me in the dress I had appeared in the
+first day, which had been so acceptable that it had been the occasion of
+this new meeting. "And, madam," says he, "there are some in this
+assembly who it is worth your while to oblige."
+
+I bowed to my Lord ----, and immediately withdrew. While I was above,
+a-dressing in my new habit, two ladies, perfectly unknown to me, were
+conveyed into my apartment below, by the order of a noble person, who,
+with his family, had been in Persia; and here, indeed, I thought I
+should have been outdone, or perhaps balked.
+
+One of these ladies was dressed most exquisitely fine indeed, in the
+habit of a virgin lady of quality of Georgia, and the other in the same
+habit of Armenia, with each of them a woman slave to attend them.
+
+The ladies had their petticoats short to their ankles, but plaited all
+round, and before them short aprons, but of the finest point that could
+be seen. Their gowns were made with long antique sleeves hanging down
+behind, and a train let down. They had no jewels, but their heads and
+breasts were dressed up with flowers, and they both came in veiled.
+
+Their slaves were bareheaded, but their long, black hair was braided in
+locks hanging down behind to their waists, and tied up with ribands.
+They were dressed exceeding rich, and were as beautiful as their
+mistresses; for none of them had any masks on. They waited in my room
+till I came down, and all paid their respects to me after the Persian
+manner, and sat down on a safra--that is to say, almost crosslegged, on
+a couch made up of cushions laid on the ground.
+
+This was admirably fine, and I was indeed startled at it. They made
+their compliment to me in French, and I replied in the same language.
+When the doors were opened, they walked into the dancing-room, and
+danced such a dance as indeed nobody there had ever seen, and to an
+instrument like a guitar, with a small low-sounding trumpet, which
+indeed was very fine, and which my Lord ---- had provided.
+
+They danced three times all alone, for nobody indeed could dance with
+them. The novelty pleased, truly, but yet there was something wild and
+_bizarre_ in it, because they really acted to the life the barbarous
+country whence they came; but as mine had the French behaviour under the
+Mahometan dress, it was every way as new, and pleased much better
+indeed.
+
+As soon as they had shown their Georgian and Armenian shapes, and
+danced, as I have said, three times, they withdrew, paid their
+compliment to me (for I was queen of the day), and went off to undress.
+
+Some gentlemen then danced with ladies all in masks; and when they
+stopped, nobody rose up to dance, but all called out "Roxana, Roxana."
+In the interval, my Lord ---- had brought another masked person into my
+room, who I knew not, only that I could discern it was not the same
+person that led me out before. This noble person (for I afterwards
+understood it was the Duke of ----), after a short compliment, led me
+out into the middle of the room.
+
+I was dressed in the same vest and girdle as before, but the robe had a
+mantle over it, which is usual in the Turkish habit, and it was of
+crimson and green, the green brocaded with gold; and my tyhiaai, or
+head-dress, varied a little from that I had before, as it stood higher,
+and had some jewels about the rising part, which made it look like a
+turban crowned.
+
+I had no mask, neither did I paint, and yet I had the day of all the
+ladies that appeared at the ball, I mean of those that appeared with
+faces on. As for those masked, nothing could be said of them, no doubt
+there might be many finer than I was; it must be confessed that the
+habit was infinitely advantageous to me, and everybody looked at me with
+a kind of pleasure, which gave me great advantage too.
+
+After I had danced with that noble person, I did not offer to dance by
+myself, as I had before; but they all called out "Roxana" again; and two
+of the gentlemen came into the drawing-room to entreat me to give them
+the Turkish dance, which I yielded to readily, so I came out and danced
+just as at first.
+
+While I was dancing, I perceived five persons standing all together, and
+among them only one with his hat on. It was an immediate hint to me who
+it was, and had at first almost put me into some disorder; but I went
+on, received the applause of the house, as before, and retired into my
+own room. When I was there, the five gentlemen came across the room to
+my side, and, coming in, followed by a throng of great persons, the
+person with his hat on said, "Madam Roxana, you perform to admiration."
+I was prepared, and offered to kneel to kiss his hand, but he declined
+it, and saluted me, and so, passing back again through the great room,
+went away.
+
+I do not say here who this was, but I say I came afterwards to know
+something more plainly. I would have withdrawn, and disrobed, being
+somewhat too thin in that dress, unlaced and open-breasted, as if I had
+been in my shift; but it could not be, and I was obliged to dance
+afterwards with six or eight gentlemen most, if not all of them, of the
+first rank; and I was told afterwards that one of them was the Duke of
+M[onmou]th.
+
+About two or three o'clock in the morning the company began to decrease;
+the number of women especially dropped away home, some and some at a
+time; and the gentlemen retired downstairs, where they unmasked and went
+to play.
+
+Amy waited at the room where they played, sat up all night to attend
+them, and in the morning when they broke up they swept the box into her
+lap, when she counted out to me sixty-two guineas and a half; and the
+other servants got very well too. Amy came to me when they were all
+gone; "Law, madam," says Amy, with a long gaping cry, "what shall I do
+with all this money?" And indeed the poor creature was half mad with
+joy.
+
+I was now in my element. I was as much talked of as anybody could
+desire, and I did not doubt but something or other would come of it; but
+the report of my being so rich rather was a balk to my view than
+anything else; for the gentlemen that would perhaps have been
+troublesome enough otherwise, seemed to be kept off, for Roxana was too
+high for them.
+
+There is a scene which came in here which I must cover from human eyes
+or ears. For three years and about a month Roxana lived retired, having
+been obliged to make an excursion in a manner, and with a person which
+duty and private vows obliges her not to reveal, at least not yet.
+
+At the end of this time I appeared again; but, I must add, that as I had
+in this time of retreat made hay, &c., so I did not come abroad again
+with the same lustre, or shine with so much advantage as before. For as
+some people had got at least a suspicion of where I had been, and who
+had had me all the while, it began to be public that Roxana was, in
+short, a mere Roxana, neither better nor worse, and not that woman of
+honour and virtue that was at first supposed.
+
+You are now to suppose me about seven years come to town, and that I had
+not only suffered the old revenue, which I hinted was managed by Sir
+Robert Clayton, to grow, as was mentioned before, but I had laid up an
+incredible wealth, the time considered; and had I yet had the least
+thought of reforming, I had all the opportunity to do it with advantage
+that ever woman had. For the common vice of all whores, I mean money,
+was out of the question, nay, even avarice itself seemed to be glutted;
+for, including what I had saved in reserving the interest of £14,000,
+which, as above, I had left to grow, and including some very good
+presents I had made to me in mere compliment upon these shining
+masquerading meetings, which I held up for about two years, and what I
+made of three years of the most glorious retreat, as I call it, that
+ever woman had, I had fully doubled my first substance, and had near
+£5000 in money which I kept at home, besides abundance of plate and
+jewels, which I had either given me or had bought to set myself out for
+public days.
+
+In a word, I had now five-and-thirty thousand pounds estate; and as I
+found ways to live without wasting either principal or interest, I laid
+up £2000 every year at least out of the mere interest, adding it to the
+principal, and thus I went on.
+
+After the end of what I call my retreat, and out of which I brought a
+great deal of money, I appeared again, but I seemed like an old piece of
+plate that had been hoarded up some years, and comes out tarnished and
+discoloured; so I came out blown, and looked like a cast-off mistress;
+nor, indeed, was I any better, though I was not at all impaired in
+beauty except that I was a little fatter than I was formerly, and always
+granting that I was four years older.
+
+However, I preserved the youth of my temper, was always bright, pleasant
+in company, and agreeable to everybody, or else everybody flattered me;
+and in this condition I came abroad to the world again. And though I was
+not so popular as before, and indeed did not seek it, because I knew it
+could not be, yet I was far from being without company, and that of the
+greatest quality (of subjects I mean), who frequently visited me, and
+sometimes we had meetings for mirth and play at my apartments, where I
+failed not to divert them in the most agreeable manner possible.
+
+Nor could any of them make the least particular application to me, from
+the notion they had of my excessive wealth, which, as they thought,
+placed me above the meanness of a maintenance, and so left no room to
+come easily about me.
+
+But at last I was very handsomely attacked by a person of honour, and
+(which recommended him particularly to me) a person of a very great
+estate. He made a long introduction to me upon the subject of my wealth.
+"Ignorant creature!" said I to myself, considering him as a lord, "was
+there ever woman in the world that could stoop to the baseness of being
+a whore, and was above taking the reward of her vice! No, no, depend
+upon it, if your lordship obtains anything of me, you must pay for it;
+and the notion of my being so rich serves only to make it cost you the
+dearer, seeing you cannot offer a small matter to a woman of £2000 a
+year estate."
+
+After he had harangued upon that subject a good while, and had assured
+me he had no design upon me, that he did not come to make a prize of me,
+or to pick my pocket, which, by the way, I was in no fear of, for I took
+too much care of my money to part with any of it that way, he then
+turned his discourse to the subject of love, a point so ridiculous to me
+without the main thing, I mean the money, that I had no patience to hear
+him make so long a story of it.
+
+I received him civilly, and let him see I could bear to hear a wicked
+proposal without being affronted, and yet I was not to be brought into
+it too easily. He visited me a long while, and, in short, courted me as
+closely and assiduously as if he had been wooing me to matrimony. He
+made me several valuable presents, which I suffered myself to be
+prevailed with to accept, but not without great difficulty.
+
+Gradually I suffered also his other importunities; and when he made a
+proposal of a compliment or appointment to me for a settlement, he said
+that though I was rich, yet there was not the less due from him to
+acknowledge the favours he received; and that if I was to be his I
+should not live at my own expense, cost what it would. I told him I was
+far from being extravagant, and yet I did not live at the expense of
+less than £500 a year out of my own pocket; that, however, I was not
+covetous of settled allowances, for I looked upon that as a kind of
+golden chain, something like matrimony; that though I knew how to be
+true to a man of honour, as I knew his lordship to be, yet I had a kind
+of aversion to the bonds; and though I was not so rich as the world
+talked me up to be, yet I was not so poor as to bind myself to hardships
+for a pension.
+
+He told me he expected to make my life perfectly easy, and intended it
+so; that he knew of no bondage there could be in a private engagement
+between us; that the bonds of honour he knew I would be tied by, and
+think them no burthen; and for other obligations, he scorned to expect
+anything from me but what he knew as a woman of honour I could grant.
+Then as to maintenance, he told me he would soon show me that he valued
+me infinitely above £500 a year, and upon this foot we began.
+
+I seemed kinder to him after this discourse, and as time and private
+conversation made us very intimate, we began to come nearer to the main
+article, namely, the £500 a year. He offered that at first word, and to
+acknowledge it as an infinite favour to have it be accepted of; and I,
+that thought it was too much by all the money, suffered myself to be
+mastered, or prevailed with to yield, even on but a bare engagement upon
+parole.
+
+When he had obtained his end that way, I told him my mind. "Now you
+see, my lord," said I, "how weakly I have acted, namely, to yield to you
+without any capitulation, or anything secured to me but that which you
+may cease to allow when you please. If I am the less valued for such a
+confidence, I shall be injured in a manner that I will endeavour not to
+deserve."
+
+He told me that he would make it evident to me that he did not seek me
+by way of bargain, as such things were often done; that as I had treated
+him with a generous confidence, so I should find I was in the hands of a
+man of honour, and one that knew how to value the obligation; and upon
+this he pulled out a goldsmith's bill for £300, which (putting it into
+my hand), he said, he gave me as a pledge that I should not be a loser
+by my not having made a bargain with him.
+
+This was engaging indeed, and gave me a good idea of our future
+correspondence; and, in short, as I could not refrain treating him with
+more kindness than I had done before, so one thing begetting another, I
+gave him several testimonies that I was entirely his own by inclination
+as well as by the common obligation of a mistress, and this pleased him
+exceedingly.
+
+Soon after this private engagement I began to consider whether it were
+not more suitable to the manner of life I now led to be a little less
+public; and, as I told my lord, it would rid me of the importunities of
+others, and of continual visits from a sort of people who he knew of,
+and who, by the way, having now got the notion of me which I really
+deserved, began to talk of the old game, love and gallantry, and to
+offer at what was rude enough--things as nauseous to me now as if I had
+been married and as virtuous as other people. The visits of these people
+began indeed to be uneasy to me, and particularly as they were always
+very tedious and impertinent; nor could my Lord ---- be pleased with
+them at all if they had gone on. It would be diverting to set down here
+in what manner I repulsed these sort of people; how in some I resented
+it as an affront, and told them that I was sorry they should oblige me
+to vindicate myself from the scandal of such suggestions by telling them
+that I could see them no more, and by desiring them not to give
+themselves the trouble of visiting me, who, though I was not willing to
+be uncivil, yet thought myself obliged never to receive any visit from
+any gentleman after he had made such proposals as those to me. But these
+things would be too tedious to bring in here. It was on this account I
+proposed to his lordship my taking new lodgings for privacy; besides, I
+considered that as I might live very handsomely, and yet not so
+publicly, so I needed not spend so much money by a great deal; and if I
+made £500 a year of this generous person, it was more than I had any
+occasion to spend by a great deal.
+
+My lord came readily into this proposal, and went further than I
+expected, for he found out a lodging for me in a very handsome house,
+where yet he was not known--I suppose he had employed somebody to find
+it out for him--and where he had a convenient way to come into the
+garden by a door that opened into the park, a thing very rarely allowed
+in those times.
+
+By this key he could come in at what time of night or day he pleased;
+and as we had also a little door in the lower part of the house which
+was always left upon a lock, and his was the master-key, so if it was
+twelve, one, or two o'clock at night, he could come directly into my
+bedchamber. _N.B._--I was not afraid I should be found abed with anybody
+else, for, in a word, I conversed with nobody at all.
+
+It happened pleasantly enough one night, his lordship had stayed late,
+and I, not expecting him that night, had taken Amy to bed with me, and
+when my lord came into the chamber we were both fast asleep. I think it
+was near three o'clock when he came in, and a little merry, but not at
+all fuddled or what they call in drink; and he came at once into the
+room.
+
+Amy was frighted out of her wits, and cried out. I said calmly, "Indeed,
+my lord, I did not expect you to-night, and we have been a little
+frighted to-night with fire." "Oh!" says he, "I see you have got a
+bedfellow with you." I began to make an apology. "No, no," says my lord,
+"you need no excuse, 'tis not a man bedfellow, I see;" but then, talking
+merrily enough, he catched his words back: "But, hark ye," says he, "now
+I think on 't, how shall I be satisfied it is not a man bedfellow?"
+"Oh," says I, "I dare say your lordship is satisfied 'tis poor Amy."
+"Yes," says he, "'tis Mrs. Amy; but how do I know what Amy is? it may be
+Mr. Amy for aught I know; I hope you'll give me leave to be satisfied."
+I told him, yes, by all means, I would have his lordship satisfied; but
+I supposed he knew who she was.
+
+Well, he fell foul of poor Amy, and indeed I thought once he would have
+carried the jest on before my face, as was once done in a like case; but
+his lordship was not so hot neither, but he would know whether Amy was
+Mr. Amy or Mrs. Amy, and so, I suppose, he did; and then being satisfied
+in that doubtful case, he walked to the farther end of the room, and
+went into a little closet and sat down.
+
+In the meantime Amy and I got up, and I bid her run and make the bed in
+another chamber for my lord, and I gave her sheets to put into it; which
+she did immediately, and I put my lord to bed there, and when I had
+done, at his desire went to bed to him. I was backward at first to come
+to bed to him, and made my excuse because I had been in bed with Amy,
+and had not shifted me; but he was past those niceties at that time; and
+as long as he was sure it was Mrs. Amy, and not Mr. Amy, he was very
+well satisfied, and so the jest passed over. But Amy appeared no more
+all that night, or the next day, and when she did, my lord was so merry
+with her upon his eclaircissement, as he called it, that Amy did not
+know what to do with herself.
+
+Not that Amy was such a nice lady in the main, if she had been fairly
+dealt with, as has appeared in the former part of this work; but now she
+was surprised, and a little hurried, that she scarce knew where she was;
+and besides, she was, as to his lordship, as nice a lady as any in the
+world, and for anything he knew of her she appeared as such. The rest
+was to us only that knew of it.
+
+I held this wicked scene of life out eight years, reckoning from my
+first coming to England; and though my lord found no fault, yet I found,
+without much examining, that any one who looked in my face might see I
+was above twenty years old; and yet, without flattering myself, I
+carried my age, which was above fifty, very well too.
+
+I may venture to say that no woman ever lived a life like me, of
+six-and-twenty years of wickedness, without the least signals of
+remorse, without any signs of repentance, or without so much as a wish
+to put an end to it; I had so long habituated myself to a life of vice,
+that really it appeared to be no vice to me. I went on smooth and
+pleasant, I wallowed in wealth, and it flowed in upon me at such a rate,
+having taken the frugal measures that the good knight directed, so that
+I had at the end of the eight years two thousand eight hundred pounds
+coming yearly in, of which I did not spend one penny, being maintained
+by my allowance from my Lord ----, and more than maintained by above
+£200 per annum; for though he did not contract for £500 a year, as I
+made dumb signs to have it be, yet he gave me money so often, and that
+in such large parcels, that I had seldom so little as seven to eight
+hundred pounds a year of him, one year with another.
+
+[Illustration: THE DUTCH MERCHANT CALLS ON ROXANA
+
+_"There," says she (ushering him in), "is the person who, I suppose,
+thou inquirest for"_
+
+PAGE 338]
+
+I must go back here, after telling openly the wicked things I did, to
+mention something which, however, had the face of doing good. I
+remembered that when I went from England, which was fifteen years
+before, I had left five little children, turned out as it were to the
+wide world, and to the charity of their father's relations; the eldest
+was not six years old, for we had not been married full seven years when
+their father went away.
+
+After my coming to England I was greatly desirous to hear how things
+stood with them, and whether they were all alive or not, and in what
+manner they had been maintained; and yet I resolved not to discover
+myself to them in the least, or to let any of the people that had the
+breeding of them up know that there was such a body left in the world as
+their mother.
+
+Amy was the only body I could trust with such a commission, and I sent
+her into Spitalfields, to the old aunt and to the poor woman that were
+so instrumental in disposing the relations to take some care of the
+children, but they were both gone, dead and buried some years. The next
+inquiry she made was at the house where she carried the poor children,
+and turned them in at the door. When she came there she found the house
+inhabited by other people, so that she could make little or nothing of
+her inquiries, and came back with an answer that indeed was no answer to
+me, for it gave me no satisfaction at all. I sent her back to inquire in
+the neighbourhood what was become of the family that lived in that
+house; and if they were removed, where they lived, and what
+circumstances they were in; and, withal, if she could, what became of
+the poor children, and how they lived, and where; how they had been
+treated; and the like.
+
+She brought me back word upon this second going, that she heard, as to
+the family, that the husband, who, though but uncle-in-law to the
+children, had yet been kindest to them, was dead; and that the widow was
+left but in mean circumstances--that is to say, she did not want, but
+that she was not so well in the world as she was thought to be when her
+husband was alive; that, as to the poor children, two of them, it seems,
+had been kept by her, that is to say, by her husband, while he lived,
+for that it was against her will, that we all knew; but the honest
+neighbours pitied the poor children, they said, heartily; for that their
+aunt used them barbarously, and made them little better than servants in
+the house to wait upon her and her children, and scarce allowed them
+clothes fit to wear.
+
+These were, it seems, my eldest and third, which were daughters; the
+second was a son, the fourth a daughter, and the youngest a son.
+
+To finish the melancholy part of this history of my two unhappy girls,
+she brought me word that as soon as they were able to go out and get any
+work they went from her, and some said she had turned them out of doors;
+but it seems she had not done so, but she used them so cruelly that they
+left her, and one of them went to service to a neighbour's, a little way
+off, who knew her, an honest, substantial weaver's wife, to whom she was
+chambermaid, and in a little time she took her sister out of the
+Bridewell of her aunt's house, and got her a place too.
+
+This was all melancholy and dull. I sent her then to the weaver's house,
+where the eldest had lived, but found that, her mistress being dead, she
+was gone, and nobody knew there whither she went, only that they heard
+she had lived with a great lady at the other end of the town; but they
+did not know who that lady was.
+
+These inquiries took us up three or four weeks, and I was not one jot
+the better for it, for I could hear nothing to my satisfaction. I sent
+her next to find out the honest man who, as in the beginning of my story
+I observed, made them be entertained, and caused the youngest to be
+fetched from the town where we lived, and where the parish officers had
+taken care of him. This gentleman was still alive; and there she heard
+that my youngest daughter and eldest son was dead also; but that my
+youngest son was alive, and was at that time about seventeen years old,
+and that he was put out apprentice by the kindness and charity of his
+uncle, but to a mean trade, and at which he was obliged to work very
+hard.
+
+Amy was so curious in this part that she went immediately to see him,
+and found him all dirty and hard at work. She had no remembrance at all
+of the youth, for she had not seen him since he was about two years old;
+and it was evident he could have no knowledge of her.
+
+However, she talked with him, and found him a good, sensible, mannerly
+youth; that he knew little of the story of his father or mother, and had
+no view of anything but to work hard for his living; and she did not
+think fit to put any great things into his head, lest it should take him
+off of his business, and perhaps make him turn giddy-headed and be good
+for nothing; but she went and found out that kind man, his benefactor,
+who had put him out, and finding him a plain, well-meaning, honest, and
+kind-hearted man, she opened her tale to him the easier. She made a long
+story, how she had a prodigious kindness for the child, because she had
+the same for his father and mother; told him that she was the
+servant-maid that brought all of them to their aunt's door, and run away
+and left them; that their poor mother wanted bread, and what came of her
+after she would have been glad to know. She added that her circumstances
+had happened to mend in the world, and that, as she was in condition,
+so she was disposed to show some kindness to the children if she could
+find them out.
+
+He received her with all the civility that so kind a proposal demanded,
+gave her an account of what he had done for the child, how he had
+maintained him, fed and clothed him, put him to school, and at last put
+him out to a trade. She said he had indeed been a father to the child.
+"But, sir," says she, "'tis a very laborious, hard-working trade, and he
+is but a thin, weak boy." "That's true," says he; "but the boy chose the
+trade, and I assure you I gave £20 with him, and am to find him clothes
+all his apprenticeship; and as to its being a hard trade," says he,
+"that's the fate of his circumstances, poor boy. I could not well do
+better for him."
+
+"Well, sir, as you did all for him in charity," says she, "it was
+exceeding well; but, as my resolution is to do something for him, I
+desire you will, if possible, take him away again from that place, where
+he works so hard, for I cannot bear to see the child work so very hard
+for his bread, and I will do something for him that shall make him live
+without such hard labour."
+
+He smiled at that. "I can, indeed," says he, "take him away, but then I
+must lose my £20 that I gave with him."
+
+"Well, sir," said Amy, "I'll enable you to lose that £20 immediately;"
+and so she put her hand in her pocket and pulls out her purse.
+
+He begun to be a little amazed at her, and looked her hard in the face,
+and that so very much that she took notice of it, and said, "Sir, I
+fancy by your looking at me you think you know me, but I am assured you
+do not, for I never saw your face before. I think you have done enough
+for the child, and that you ought to be acknowledged as a father to him;
+but you ought not to lose by your kindness to him, more than the
+kindness of bringing him up obliges you to; and therefore there's the
+£20," added she, "and pray let him be fetched away."
+
+"Well, madam," says he, "I will thank you for the boy, as well as for
+myself; but will you please to tell me what I must do with him?"
+
+"Sir," says Amy, "as you have been so kind to keep him so many years, I
+beg you will take him home again one year more, and I'll bring you a
+hundred pounds more, which I will desire you to lay out in schooling and
+clothes for him, and to pay you for his board. Perhaps I may put him in
+a condition to return your kindness."
+
+He looked pleased, but surprised very much, and inquired of Amy, but
+with very great respect, what he should go to school to learn, and what
+trade she would please to put him out to.
+
+Amy said he should put him to learn a little Latin, and then merchants'
+accounts, and to write a good hand, for she would have him be put to a
+Turkey merchant.
+
+"Madam," says he, "I am glad for his sake to hear you talk so; but do
+you know that a Turkey merchant will not take him under £400 or £500?"
+
+"Yes, sir," says Amy, "I know it very well."
+
+"And," says he, "that it will require as many thousands to set him up?"
+
+"Yes, sir," says Amy, "I know that very well too;" and, resolving to
+talk very big, she added, "I have no children of my own, and I resolve
+to make him my heir, and if £10,000 be required to set him up, he shall
+not want it. I was but his mother's servant when he was born, and I
+mourned heartily for the disaster of the family, and I always said, if
+ever I was worth anything in the world, I would take the child for my
+own, and I'll be as good as my word now, though I did not then foresee
+that it would be with me as it has been since." And so Amy told him a
+long story how she was troubled for me, and what she would give to hear
+whether I was dead or alive, and what circumstances I was in; that if
+she could but find me, if I was ever so poor, she would take care of me,
+and make a gentlewoman of me again.
+
+He told her that, as to the child's mother, she had been reduced to the
+last extremity, and was obliged (as he supposed she knew) to send the
+children all among her husband's friends; and if it had not been for
+him, they had all been sent to the parish; but that he obliged the other
+relations to share the charge among them; that he had taken two, whereof
+he had lost the eldest, who died of the smallpox, but that he had been
+as careful of this as of his own, and had made very little difference in
+their breeding up, only that when he came to put him out he thought it
+was best for the boy to put him to a trade which he might set up in
+without a stock, for otherwise his time would be lost; and that as to
+his mother, he had never been able to hear one word of her, no, not
+though he had made the utmost inquiry after her; that there went a
+report that she had drowned herself, but that he could never meet with
+anybody that could give him a certain account of it.
+
+Amy counterfeited a cry for her poor mistress; told him she would give
+anything in the world to see her, if she was alive; and a great deal
+more such-like talk they had about that; then they returned to speak of
+the boy.
+
+He inquired of her why she did not seek after the child before, that he
+might have been brought up from a younger age, suitable to what she
+designed to do for him.
+
+She told him she had been out of England, and was but newly returned
+from the East Indies. That she had been out of England, and was but
+newly returned, was true, but the latter was false, and was put in to
+blind him, and provide against farther inquiries; for it was not a
+strange thing for young women to go away poor to the East Indies, and
+come home vastly rich. So she went on with directions about him, and
+both agreed in this, that the boy should by no means be told what was
+intended for him, but only that he should be taken home again to his
+uncle's, that his uncle thought the trade too hard for him, and the
+like.
+
+About three days after this Amy goes again, and carried him the hundred
+pounds she promised him, but then Amy made quite another figure than she
+did before; for she went in my coach, with two footmen after her, and
+dressed very fine also, with jewels and a gold watch; and there was
+indeed no great difficulty to make Amy look like a lady, for she was a
+very handsome, well-shaped woman, and genteel enough. The coachman and
+servants were particularly ordered to show her the same respect as they
+would to me, and to call her Madam Collins, if they were asked any
+questions about her.
+
+When the gentleman saw what a figure she made it added to the former
+surprise, and he entertained her in the most respectful manner possible,
+congratulated her advancement in fortune, and particularly rejoiced that
+it should fall to the poor child's lot to be so provided for, contrary
+to all expectation.
+
+Well, Amy talked big, but very free and familiar, told them she had no
+pride in her good fortune (and that was true enough, for, to give Amy
+her due, she was far from it, and was as good-humoured a creature as
+ever lived); that she was the same as ever; and that she always loved
+this boy, and was resolved to do something extraordinary for him.
+
+Then she pulled out her money, and paid him down a hundred and twenty
+pounds, which, she said, she paid him that he might be sure he should
+be no loser by taking him home again, and that she would come and see
+him again, and talk farther about things with him, so that all might be
+settled for him, in such a manner as accidents, such as mortality, or
+anything else, should make no alteration to the child's prejudice.
+
+At this meeting the uncle brought his wife out, a good, motherly,
+comely, grave woman, who spoke very tenderly of the youth, and, as it
+appeared, had been very good to him, though she had several children of
+her own. After a long discourse, she put in a word of her own. "Madam,"
+says she, "I am heartily glad of the good intentions you have for this
+poor orphan, and I rejoice sincerely in it for his sake; but, madam, you
+know, I suppose, that there are two sisters alive too; may we not speak
+a word for them? Poor girls," says she, "they have not been so kindly
+used as he has, and are turned out to the wide world."
+
+"Where are they, madam?" says Amy.
+
+"Poor creatures," says the gentlewoman, "they are out at service, nobody
+knows where but themselves; their case is very hard."
+
+"Well, madam," says Amy, "though if I could find them I would assist
+them, yet my concern is for my boy, as I call him, and I will put him
+into a condition to take care of his sisters."
+
+"But, madam," says the good, compassionate creature, "he may not be so
+charitable perhaps by his own inclination, for brothers are not
+fathers, and they have been cruelly used already, poor girls; we have
+often relieved them, both with victuals and clothes too, even while they
+were pretended to be kept by their barbarous aunt."
+
+"Well, madam," says Amy, "what can I do for them? They are gone, it
+seems, and cannot be heard of. When I see them 'tis time enough."
+
+She pressed Amy then to oblige their brother, out of the plentiful
+fortune he was like to have, to do something for his sisters when he
+should be able.
+
+Amy spoke coldly of that still, but said she would consider of it; and
+so they parted for that time. They had several meetings after this, for
+Amy went to see her adopted son, and ordered his schooling, clothes, and
+other things, but enjoined them not to tell the young man anything, but
+that they thought the trade he was at too hard for him, and they would
+keep him at home a little longer, and give him some schooling to fit him
+for other business; and Amy appeared to him as she did before, only as
+one that had known his mother and had some kindness for him.
+
+Thus this matter passed on for near a twelvemonth, when it happened that
+one of my maid-servants having asked Amy leave (for Amy was mistress of
+the servants, and took and put out such as she pleased)--I say, having
+asked leave to go into the city to see her friends, came home crying
+bitterly, and in a most grievous agony she was, and continued so
+several days till Amy, perceiving the excess, and that the maid would
+certainly cry herself sick, she took an opportunity with her and
+examined her about it.
+
+The maid told her a long story, that she had been to see her brother,
+the only brother she had in the world, and that she knew he was put out
+apprentice to a ----; but there had come a lady in a coach to his uncle
+----, who had brought him up, and made him take him home again; and so
+the wench run on with the whole story just as 'tis told above, till she
+came to that part that belonged to herself. "And there," says she, "I
+had not let them know where I lived, and the lady would have taken me,
+and, they say, would have provided for me too, as she has done for my
+brother; but nobody could tell where to find me, and so I have lost it
+all, and all the hopes of being anything but a poor servant all my
+days;" and then the girl fell a-crying again.
+
+Amy said, "What's all this story? Who could this lady be? It must be
+some trick, sure." "No," she said, "it was not a trick, for she had made
+them take her brother home from apprentice, and bought him new clothes,
+and put him to have more learning; and the gentlewoman said she would
+make him her heir."
+
+"Her heir!" says Amy. "What does that amount to? It may be she had
+nothing to leave him; she might make anybody her heir."
+
+"No, no,"' says the girl; "she came in a fine coach and horses, and I
+don't know how many footmen to attend her, and brought a great bag of
+gold and gave it to my uncle ----, he that brought up my brother, to buy
+him clothes and to pay for his schooling and board."
+
+"He that brought up your brother?" says Amy. "Why, did not he bring you
+up too as well as your brother? Pray who brought you up, then?"
+
+Here the poor girl told a melancholy story, how an aunt had brought up
+her and her sister, and how barbarously she had used them, as we have
+heard.
+
+By this time Amy had her head full enough, and her heart too, and did
+not know how to hold it, or what to do, for she was satisfied that this
+was no other than my own daughter, for she told her all the history of
+her father and mother, and how she was carried by their maid to her
+aunt's door, just as is related in the beginning of my story.
+
+Amy did not tell me this story for a great while, nor did she well know
+what course to take in it; but as she had authority to manage everything
+in the family, she took occasion some time after, without letting me
+know anything of it, to find some fault with the maid and turn her away.
+
+Her reasons were good, though at first I was not pleased when I heard of
+it, but I was convinced afterwards that she was in the right, for if she
+had told me of it I should have been in great perplexity between the
+difficulty of concealing myself from my own child and the inconvenience
+of having my way of living be known among my first husband's relations,
+and even to my husband himself; for as to his being dead at Paris, Amy,
+seeing me resolved against marrying any more, had told me that she had
+formed that story only to make me easy when I was in Holland if anything
+should offer to my liking.
+
+However, I was too tender a mother still, notwithstanding what I had
+done, to let this poor girl go about the world drudging, as it were, for
+bread, and slaving at the fire and in the kitchen as a cook-maid;
+besides, it came into my head that she might perhaps marry some poor
+devil of a footman, or a coachman, or some such thing, and be undone
+that way, or, which was worse, be drawn in to lie with some of that
+coarse, cursed kind, and be with child, and be utterly ruined that way;
+and in the midst of all my prosperity this gave me great uneasiness.
+
+As to sending Amy to her, there was no doing that now, for, as she had
+been servant in the house, she knew Amy as well as Amy knew me; and no
+doubt, though I was much out of her sight, yet she might have had the
+curiosity to have peeped at me, and seen me enough to know me again if I
+had discovered myself to her; so that, in short, there was nothing to be
+done that way.
+
+However, Amy, a diligent indefatigable creature, found out another
+woman, and gave her her errand, and sent her to the honest man's house
+in Spitalfields, whither she supposed the girl would go after she was
+out of her place; and bade her talk with her, and tell her at a distance
+that as something had been done for her brother, so something would be
+done for her too; and, that she should not be discouraged, she carried
+her £20 to buy her clothes, and bid her not go to service any more, but
+think of other things; that she should take a lodging in some good
+family, and that she should soon hear farther.
+
+The girl was overjoyed with this news, you may be sure, and at first a
+little too much elevated with it, and dressed herself very handsomely
+indeed, and as soon as she had done so came and paid a visit to Madam
+Amy, to let her see how fine she was. Amy congratulated her, and wished
+it might be all as she expected, but admonished her not to be elevated
+with it too much; told her humility was the best ornament of a
+gentlewoman, and a great deal of good advice she gave her, but
+discovered nothing.
+
+All this was acted in the first years of my setting up my new figure
+here in town, and while the masks and balls were in agitation; and Amy
+carried on the affair of setting out my son into the world, which we
+were assisted in by the sage advice of my faithful counsellor, Sir
+Robert Clayton, who procured us a master for him, by whom he was
+afterwards sent abroad to Italy, as you shall hear in its place; and Amy
+managed my daughter too very well, though by a third hand.
+
+My amour with my Lord ---- began now to draw to an end, and indeed,
+notwithstanding his money, it had lasted so long that I was much more
+sick of his lordship than he could be of me. He grew old and fretful,
+and captious, and I must add, which made the vice itself begin to grow
+surfeiting and nauseous to me, he grew worse and wickeder the older he
+grew, and that to such degree as is not fit to write of, and made me so
+weary of him that upon one of his capricious humours, which he often
+took occasion to trouble me with, I took occasion to be much less
+complaisant to him than I used to be; and as I knew him to be hasty, I
+first took care to put him into a little passion, and then to resent it,
+and this brought us to words, in which I told him I thought he grew sick
+of me; and he answered in a heat that truly so he was. I answered that I
+found his lordship was endeavouring to make me sick too; that I had met
+with several such rubs from him of late, and that he did not use me as
+he used to do, and I begged his lordship he would make himself easy.
+This I spoke with an air of coldness and indifference such as I knew he
+could not bear; but I did not downright quarrel with him and tell him I
+was sick of him too, and desire him to quit me, for I knew that would
+come of itself; besides, I had received a great deal of handsome usage
+from him, and I was loth to have the breach be on my side, that he might
+not be able to say I was ungrateful.
+
+[Illustration: THE AMOUR DRAWS TO AN END
+
+_I told him I thought he grew sick of me; and he answered in a heat that
+truly so he was_]
+
+But he put the occasion into my hands, for he came no more to me for two
+months; indeed I expected a fit of absence, for such I had had several
+times before, but not for above a fortnight or three weeks at most;
+but after I had stayed a month, which was longer than ever he kept away
+yet, I took a new method with him, for I was resolved now it should be
+in my power to continue or not, as I thought fit. At the end of a month,
+therefore, I removed, and took lodgings at Kensington Gravel Pits, at
+that part next to the road to Acton, and left nobody in my lodgings but
+Amy and a footman, with proper instructions how to behave when his
+lordship, being come to himself, should think fit to come again, which I
+knew he would.
+
+About the end of two months, he came in the dusk of the evening as
+usual. The footman answered him, and told him his lady was not at home,
+but there was Mrs. Amy above; so he did not order her to be called down,
+but went upstairs into the dining-room, and Mrs. Amy came to him. He
+asked where I was. "My lord," said she, "my mistress has been removed a
+good while from hence, and lives at Kensington." "Ah, Mrs. Amy! how came
+you to be here, then?" "My lord," said she, "we are here till the
+quarter-day, because the goods are not removed, and to give answers if
+any comes to ask for my lady." "Well, and what answer are you to give to
+me?" "Indeed, my lord," says Amy, "I have no particular answer to your
+lordship, but to tell you and everybody else where my lady lives, that
+they may not think she's run away." "No, Mrs. Amy," says he, "I don't
+think she's run away; but, indeed, I can't go after her so far as
+that." Amy said nothing to that, but made a courtesy, and said she
+believed I would be there again for a week or two in a little time. "How
+little time, Mrs Amy?" says my lord. "She comes next Tuesday," says Amy.
+"Very well," says my lord; "I'll call and see her then;" and so he went
+away.
+
+Accordingly I came on the Tuesday, and stayed a fortnight, but he came
+not; so I went back to Kensington, and after that I had very few of his
+lordship's visits, which I was very glad of, and in a little time after
+was more glad of it than I was at first, and upon a far better account
+too.
+
+For now I began not to be sick of his lordship only, but really I began
+to be sick of the vice; and as I had good leisure now to divert and
+enjoy myself in the world as much as it was possible for any woman to do
+that ever lived in it, so I found that my judgment began to prevail upon
+me to fix my delight upon nobler objects than I had formerly done, and
+the very beginning of this brought some just reflections upon me
+relating to things past, and to the former manner of my living; and
+though there was not the least hint in all this from what may be called
+religion or conscience, and far from anything of repentance, or anything
+that was akin to it, especially at first, yet the sense of things, and
+the knowledge I had of the world, and the vast variety of scenes that I
+had acted my part in, began to work upon my senses, and it came so very
+strong upon my mind one morning when I had been lying awake some time
+in my bed, as if somebody had asked me the question, What was I a whore
+for now? It occurred naturally upon this inquiry, that at first I
+yielded to the importunity of my circumstances, the misery of which the
+devil dismally aggravated, to draw me to comply; for I confess I had
+strong natural aversions to the crime at first, partly owing to a
+virtuous education, and partly to a sense of religion; but the devil,
+and that greater devil of poverty, prevailed; and the person who laid
+siege to me did it in such an obliging, and I may almost say
+irresistible, manner, all still managed by the evil spirit; for I must
+be allowed to believe that he has a share in all such things, if not the
+whole management of them. But, I say, it was carried on by that person
+in such an irresistible manner that, as I said when I related the fact,
+there was no withstanding it; these circumstances, I say, the devil
+managed not only to bring me to comply, but he continued them as
+arguments to fortify my mind against all reflection, and to keep me in
+that horrid course I had engaged in, as if it were honest and lawful.
+
+But not to dwell upon that now; this was a pretence, and here was
+something to be said, though I acknowledge it ought not to have been
+sufficient to me at all; but, I say, to leave that, all this was out of
+doors; the devil himself could not form one argument, or put one reason
+into my head now, that could serve for an answer--no, not so much as a
+pretended answer to this question, why I should be a whore now.
+
+It had for a while been a little kind of excuse to me that I was engaged
+with this wicked old lord, and that I could not in honour forsake him;
+but how foolish and absurd did it look to repeat the word "honour" on so
+vile an occasion! as if a woman should prostitute her honour in point of
+honour--horrid inconsistency! Honour called upon me to detest the crime
+and the man too, and to have resisted all the attacks which, from the
+beginning, had been made upon my virtue; and honour, had it been
+consulted, would have preserved me honest from the beginning:
+
+     "For 'honesty' and 'honour' are the same."
+
+This, however, shows us with what faint excuses and with what trifles we
+pretend to satisfy ourselves, and suppress the attempts of conscience,
+in the pursuit of agreeable crime, and in the possessing those pleasures
+which we are loth to part with.
+
+But this objection would now serve no longer, for my lord had in some
+sort broke his engagements (I won't call it honour again) with me, and
+had so far slighted me as fairly to justify my entire quitting of him
+now; and so, as the objection was fully answered, the question remained
+still unanswered, Why am I a whore now? Nor indeed had I anything to say
+for myself, even to myself; I could not without blushing, as wicked as I
+was, answer that I loved it for the sake of the vice, and that I
+delighted in being a whore, as such; I say, I could not say this, even
+to myself, and all alone, nor indeed would it have been true. I was
+never able, in justice and with truth, to say I was so wicked as that;
+but as necessity first debauched me, and poverty made me a whore at the
+beginning, so excess of avarice for getting money and excess of vanity
+continued me in the crime, not being able to resist the flatteries of
+great persons; being called the finest woman in France; being caressed
+by a prince; and afterwards, I had pride enough to expect and folly
+enough to believe, though indeed without ground, by a great monarch.
+These were my baits, these the chains by which the devil held me bound,
+and by which I was indeed too fast held for any reasoning that I was
+then mistress of to deliver me from.
+
+But this was all over now; avarice could have no pretence. I was out of
+the reach of all that fate could be supposed to do to reduce me; now I
+was so far from poor, or the danger of it, that I had £50,000 in my
+pocket at least; nay, I had the income of £50,000, for I had £2500 a
+year coming in upon very good land security, besides three or four
+thousand pounds in money, which I kept by me for ordinary occasions,
+and, besides, jewels, and plate, and goods which were worth near £5600
+more; these put together, when I ruminated on it all in my thoughts, as
+you may be sure I did often, added weight still to the question, as
+above, and it sounded continually in my head, "What next? What am I a
+whore for now?"
+
+It is true this was, as I say, seldom out of my thoughts, but yet it
+made no impressions upon me of that kind which might be expected from a
+reflection of so important a nature, and which had so much of substance
+and seriousness in it.
+
+But, however, it was not without some little consequences, even at that
+time, and which gave a little turn to my way of living at first, as you
+shall hear in its place.
+
+But one particular thing intervened besides this which gave me some
+uneasiness at this time, and made way for other things that followed. I
+have mentioned in several little digressions the concern I had upon me
+for my children, and in what manner I had directed that affair; I must
+go on a little with that part, in order to bring the subsequent parts of
+my story together.
+
+My boy, the only son I had left that I had a legal right to call "son,"
+was, as I have said, rescued from the unhappy circumstances of being
+apprentice to a mechanic, and was brought up upon a new foot; but though
+this was infinitely to his advantage, yet it put him back near three
+years in his coming into this world; for he had been near a year at the
+drudgery he was first put to, and it took up two years more to form him
+for what he had hopes given him he should hereafter be, so that he was
+full nineteen years old, or rather twenty years, before he came to be
+put out as I intended; at the end of which time I put him to a very
+flourishing Italian merchant, and he again sent him to Messina, in the
+island of Sicily; and a little before the juncture I am now speaking of
+I had letters from him--that is to say, Mrs. Amy had letters from him,
+intimating that he was out of his time, and that he had an opportunity
+to be taken into an English house there, on very good terms, if his
+support from hence might answer what he was bid to hope for; and so
+begged that what would be done for him might be so ordered that he might
+have it for his present advancement, referring for the particulars to
+his master, the merchant in London, who he had been put apprentice to
+here; who, to cut the story short, gave such a satisfactory account of
+it, and of my young man, to my steady and faithful counsellor, Sir
+Robert Clayton, that I made no scruple to pay £4000, which was £1000
+more than he demanded, or rather proposed, that he might have
+encouragement to enter into the world better than he expected.
+
+His master remitted the money very faithfully to him; and finding, by
+Sir Robert Clayton, that the young gentleman--for so he called him--was
+well supported, wrote such letters on his account as gave him a credit
+at Messina equal in value to the money itself.
+
+I could not digest it very well that I should all this while conceal
+myself thus from my own child, and make all this favour due, in his
+opinion, to a stranger; and yet I could not find in my heart to let my
+son know what a mother he had, and what a life she lived; when, at the
+same time that he must think himself infinitely obliged to me, he must
+be obliged, if he was a man of virtue, to hate his mother, and abhor the
+way of living by which all the bounty he enjoyed was raised.
+
+This is the reason of mentioning this part of my son's story, which is
+otherwise no ways concerned in my history, but as it put me upon
+thinking how to put an end to that wicked course I was in, that my own
+child, when he should afterwards come to England in a good figure, and
+with the appearance of a merchant, should not be ashamed to own me.
+
+But there was another difficulty, which lay heavier upon me a great
+deal, and that was my daughter, who, as before, I had relieved by the
+hands of another instrument, which Amy had procured. The girl, as I have
+mentioned, was directed to put herself into a good garb, take lodgings,
+and entertain a maid to wait upon her, and to give herself some
+breeding--that is to say, to learn to dance, and fit herself to appear
+as a gentlewoman; being made to hope that she should, some time or
+other, find that she should be put into a condition to support her
+character, and to make herself amends for all her former troubles. She
+was only charged not to be drawn into matrimony till she was secured of
+a fortune that might assist to dispose of herself suitable not to what
+she then was, but what she was to be.
+
+The girl was too sensible of her circumstances not to give all possible
+satisfaction of that kind, and indeed she was mistress of too much
+understanding not to see how much she should be obliged to that part for
+her own interest.
+
+It was not long after this, but being well equipped, and in everything
+well set out, as she was directed, she came, as I have related above,
+and paid a visit to Mrs. Amy, and to tell her of her good fortune. Amy
+pretended to be much surprised at the alteration, and overjoyed for her
+sake, and began to treat her very well, entertained her handsomely, and
+when she would have gone away, pretended to ask my leave, and sent my
+coach home with her; and, in short, learning from her where she lodged,
+which was in the city, Amy promised to return her visit, and did so;
+and, in a word, Amy and Susan (for she was my own name) began an
+intimate acquaintance together.
+
+There was an inexpressible difficulty in the poor girl's way, or else I
+should not have been able to have forborne discovering myself to her,
+and this was, her having been a servant in my particular family; and I
+could by no means think of ever letting the children know what a kind of
+creature they owed their being to, or giving them an occasion to upbraid
+their mother with her scandalous life, much less to justify the like
+practice from my example.
+
+Thus it was with me; and thus, no doubt, considering parents always find
+it that their own children are a restraint to them in their worst
+courses, when the sense of a superior power has not the same influence.
+But of that hereafter.
+
+There happened, however, one good circumstance in the case of this poor
+girl, which brought about a discovery sooner than otherwise it would
+have been, and it was thus. After she and Amy had been intimate for some
+time, and had exchanged several visits, the girl, now grown a woman,
+talking to Amy of the gay things that used to fall out when she was
+servant in my family, spoke of it with a kind of concern that she could
+not see (me) her lady; and at last she adds, "'Twas very strange,
+madam," says she to Amy, "but though I lived near two years in the
+house, I never saw my mistress in my life, except it was that public
+night when she danced in the fine Turkish habit, and then she was so
+disguised that I knew nothing of her afterwards."
+
+Amy was glad to hear this, but as she was a cunning girl from the
+beginning, she was not to be bit, and so she laid no stress upon that at
+first, but gave me an account of it; and I must confess it gave me a
+secret joy to think that I was not known to her, and that, by virtue of
+that only accident, I might, when other circumstances made room for it,
+discover myself to her, and let her know she had a mother in a condition
+fit to be owned.
+
+It was a dreadful restraint to me before, and this gave me some very sad
+reflections, and made way for the great question I have mentioned above;
+and by how much the circumstance was bitter to me, by so much the more
+agreeable it was to understand that the girl had never seen me, and
+consequently did not know me again if she was to be told who I was.
+
+However, the next time she came to visit Amy, I was resolved to put it
+to a trial, and to come into the room and let her see me, and to see by
+that whether she knew me or not; but Amy put me by, lest indeed, as
+there was reason enough to question, I should not be able to contain or
+forbear discovering myself to her; so it went off for that time.
+
+But both these circumstances, and that is the reason of mentioning them,
+brought me to consider of the life I lived, and to resolve to put myself
+into some figure of life in which I might not be scandalous to my own
+family, and be afraid to make myself known to my own children, who were
+my own flesh and blood.
+
+There was another daughter I had, which, with all our inquiries, we
+could not hear of, high nor low, for several years after the first. But
+I return to my own story.
+
+Being now in part removed from my old station, I seemed to be in a fair
+way of retiring from my old acquaintances, and consequently from the
+vile, abominable trade I had driven so long; so that the door seemed to
+be, as it were, particularly open to my reformation, if I had any mind
+to it in earnest; but, for all that, some of my old friends, as I had
+used to call them, inquired me out, and came to visit me at Kensington,
+and that more frequently than I wished they would do; but it being once
+known where I was, there was no avoiding it, unless I would have
+downright refused and affronted them; and I was not yet in earnest
+enough with my resolutions to go that length.
+
+The best of it was, my old lewd favourite, who I now heartily hated,
+entirely dropped me. He came once to visit me, but I caused Amy to deny
+me, and say I was gone out. She did it so oddly, too, that when his
+lordship went away, he said coldly to her, "Well, well, Mrs. Amy, I find
+your mistress does not desire to be seen; tell her I won't trouble her
+any more," repeating the words "any more" two or three times over, just
+at his going away.
+
+I reflected a little on it at first as unkind to him, having had so many
+considerable presents from him, but, as I have said, I was sick of him,
+and that on some accounts which, if I could suffer myself to publish
+them, would fully justify my conduct. But that part of the story will
+not bear telling, so I must leave it, and proceed.
+
+I had begun a little, as I have said above, to reflect upon my manner of
+living, and to think of putting a new face upon it, and nothing moved me
+to it more than the consideration of my having three children, who were
+now grown up; and yet that while I was in that station of life I could
+not converse with them or make myself known to them; and this gave me a
+great deal of uneasiness. At last I entered into talk on this part of it
+with my woman Amy.
+
+We lived at Kensington, as I have said, and though I had done with my
+old wicked l----, as above, yet I was frequently visited, as I said, by
+some others; so that, in a word, I began to be known in the town, not by
+name only, but by my character too, which was worse.
+
+It was one morning when Amy was in bed with me, and I had some of my
+dullest thoughts about me, that Amy, hearing me sigh pretty often, asked
+me if I was not well. "Yes, Amy, I am well enough," says I, "but my mind
+is oppressed with heavy thoughts, and has been so a good while;" and
+then I told her how it grieved me that I could not make myself known to
+my own children, or form any acquaintances in the world. "Why so?" says
+Amy. "Why, prithee, Amy," says I, "what will my children say to
+themselves, and to one another, when they find their mother, however
+rich she may be, is at best but a whore, a common whore? And as for
+acquaintance, prithee, Amy, what sober lady or what family of any
+character will visit or be acquainted with a whore?"
+
+"Why, all that's true, madam," says Amy; "but how can it be remedied
+now?" "'Tis true, Amy," said I, "the thing cannot be remedied now, but
+the scandal of it, I fancy, may be thrown off."
+
+"Truly," says Amy, "I do not see how, unless you will go abroad again,
+and live in some other nation where nobody has known us or seen us, so
+that they cannot say they ever saw us before."
+
+That very thought of Amy put what follows into my head, and I returned,
+"Why, Amy," says I, "is it not possible for me to shift my being from
+this part of the town and go and live in another part of the city, or
+another part of the country, and be as entirely concealed as if I had
+never been known?"
+
+"Yes," says Amy, "I believe it might; but then you must put off all your
+equipages and servants, coaches and horses, change your liveries--nay,
+your own clothes, and, if it was possible, your very face."
+
+"Well," says I, "and that's the way, Amy, and that I'll do, and that
+forthwith; for I am not able to live in this manner any longer." Amy
+came into this with a kind of pleasure particular to herself--that is to
+say, with an eagerness not to be resisted; for Amy was apt to be
+precipitant in her motions, and was for doing it immediately. "Well,"
+says I, "Amy, as soon as you will; but what course must we take to do
+it? We cannot put off servants, and coach and horses, and everything,
+leave off housekeeping, and transform ourselves into a new shape all in
+a moment; servants must have warning, and the goods must be sold off,
+and a thousand things;" and this began to perplex us, and in particular
+took us up two or three days' consideration.
+
+At last Amy, who was a clever manager in such cases, came to me with a
+scheme, as she called it. "I have found it out, madam," says she, "I
+have found a scheme how you shall, if you have a mind to it, begin and
+finish a perfect entire change of your figure and circumstances in one
+day, and shall be as much unknown, madam, in twenty-four hours, as you
+would be in so many years."
+
+"Come, Amy," says I, "let us hear of it, for you please me mightily with
+the thoughts of it." "Why, then," says Amy, "let me go into the city
+this afternoon, and I'll inquire out some honest, plain sober family,
+where I will take lodgings for you, as for a country gentlewoman that
+desires to be in London for about half a year, and to board yourself and
+a kinswoman--that is, half a servant, half a companion, meaning myself;
+and so agree with them by the month. To this lodging (if I hit upon one
+to your mind) you may go to-morrow morning in a hackney-coach, with
+nobody but me, and leave such clothes and linen as you think fit, but,
+to be sure, the plainest you have; and then you are removed at once; you
+never need set your foot in this house again" (meaning where we then
+were), "or see anybody belonging to it. In the meantime I'll let the
+servants know that you are going over to Holland upon extraordinary
+business, and will leave off your equipages, and so I'll give them
+warning, or, if they will accept of it, give them a month's wages. Then
+I'll sell off your furniture as well as I can. As to your coach, it is
+but having it new painted and the lining changed, and getting new
+harness and hammercloths, and you may keep it still or dispose of it as
+you think fit. And only take care to let this lodging be in some remote
+part of the town, and you may be as perfectly unknown as if you had
+never been in England in your life."
+
+This was Amy's scheme, and it pleased me so well that I resolved not
+only to let her go, but was resolved to go with her myself; but Amy put
+me off of that, because, she said, she should have occasion to hurry up
+and down so long that if I was with her it would rather hinder than
+further her, so I waived it.
+
+In a word, Amy went, and was gone five long hours; but when she came
+back I could see by her countenance that her success had been suitable
+to her pains, for she came laughing and gaping. "O madam!" says she, "I
+have pleased you to the life;" and with that she tells me how she had
+fixed upon a house in a court in the Minories; that she was directed to
+it merely by accident; that it was a female family, the master of the
+house being gone to New England, and that the woman had four children,
+kept two maids, and lived very handsomely, but wanted company to divert
+her; and that on that very account she had agreed to take boarders.
+
+Amy agreed for a good, handsome price, because she was resolved I should
+be used well; so she bargained to give her £35 for the half-year, and
+£50 if we took a maid, leaving that to my choice; and that we might be
+satisfied we should meet with nothing very gay, the people were Quakers,
+and I liked them the better.
+
+I was so pleased that I resolved to go with Amy the next day to see the
+lodgings, and to see the woman of the house, and see how I liked them;
+but if I was pleased with the general, I was much more pleased with the
+particulars, for the gentlewoman--I must call her so, though she was a
+Quaker--was a most courteous, obliging, mannerly person, perfectly
+well-bred and perfectly well-humoured, and, in short, the most agreeable
+conversation that ever I met with; and, which was worth all, so grave,
+and yet so pleasant and so merry, that 'tis scarcely possible for me to
+express how I was pleased and delighted with her company; and
+particularly, I was so pleased that I would go away no more; so I e'en
+took up my lodging there the very first night.
+
+In the meantime, though it took up Amy almost a month so entirely to put
+off all the appearances of housekeeping, as above, it need take me up no
+time to relate it; 'tis enough to say that Amy quitted all that part of
+the world and came pack and package to me, and here we took up our
+abode.
+
+I was now in a perfect retreat indeed, remote from the eyes of all that
+ever had seen me, and as much out of the way of being ever seen or heard
+of by any of the gang that used to follow me as if I had been among the
+mountains in Lancashire; for when did a blue garter or a coach-and-six
+come into a little narrow passage in the Minories or Goodman's Fields?
+And as there was no fear of them, so really I had no desire to see them,
+or so much as to hear from them any more as long as I lived.
+
+I seemed in a little hurry while Amy came and went so every day at
+first, but when that was over I lived here perfectly retired, and with a
+most pleasant and agreeable lady; I must call her so, for, though a
+Quaker, she had a full share of good breeding, sufficient to her if she
+had been a duchess; in a word, she was the most agreeable creature in
+her conversation, as I said before, that ever I met with.
+
+I pretended, after I had been there some time, to be extremely in love
+with the dress of the Quakers, and this pleased her so much that she
+would needs dress me up one day in a suit of her own clothes; but my
+real design was to see whether it would pass upon me for a disguise.
+
+Amy was struck with the novelty, though I had not mentioned my design to
+her, and when the Quaker was gone out of the room says Amy, "I guess
+your meaning; it is a perfect disguise to you. Why, you look quite
+another body; I should not have known you myself. Nay," says Amy, "more
+than that, it makes you look ten years younger than you did."
+
+Nothing could please me better than that, and when Amy repeated it, I
+was so fond of it that I asked my Quaker (I won't call her landlady;
+'tis indeed too coarse a word for her, and she deserved a much
+better)--I say, I asked her if she would sell it. I told her I was so
+fond of it that I would give her enough to buy her a better suit. She
+declined it at first, but I soon perceived that it was chiefly in good
+manners, because I should not dishonour myself, as she called it, to put
+on her old clothes; but if I pleased to accept of them, she would give
+me them for my dressing-clothes, and go with me, and buy a suit for me
+that might be better worth my wearing.
+
+But as I conversed in a very frank, open manner with her, I bid her do
+the like with me; that I made no scruples of such things, but that if
+she would let me have them I would satisfy her. So she let me know what
+they cost, and to make her amends I gave her three guineas more than
+they cost her.
+
+This good (though unhappy) Quaker had the misfortune to have had a bad
+husband, and he was gone beyond sea. She had a good house, and well
+furnished, and had some jointure of her own estate which supported her
+and her children, so that she did not want; but she was not at all above
+such a help as my being there was to her; so she was as glad of me as I
+was of her.
+
+However, as I knew there was no way to fix this new acquaintance like
+making myself a friend to her, I began with making her some handsome
+presents and the like to her children. And first, opening my bundles one
+day in my chamber, I heard her in another room, and called her in with a
+kind of familiar way. There I showed her some of my fine clothes, and
+having among the rest of my things a piece of very fine new holland,
+which I had bought a little before, worth about 9s. an ell, I pulled it
+out: "Here, my friend," says I, "I will make you a present, if you will
+accept of it;" and with that I laid the piece of Holland in her lap.
+
+I could see she was surprised, and that she could hardly speak. "What
+dost thou mean?" says she. "Indeed I cannot have the face to accept so
+fine a present as this;" adding, "'Tis fit for thy own use, but 'tis
+above my wear, indeed." I thought she had meant she must not wear it so
+fine because she was a Quaker. So I returned, "Why, do not you Quakers
+wear fine linen neither?" "Yes," says she, "we wear fine linen when we
+can afford it, but this is too good for me." However, I made her take
+it, and she was very thankful too. But my end was answered another way,
+for by this I engaged her so, that as I found her a woman of
+understanding, and of honesty too, I might, upon any occasion, have a
+confidence in her, which was, indeed, what I very much wanted.
+
+By accustoming myself to converse with her, I had not only learned to
+dress like a Quaker, but so used myself to "thee" and "thou" that I
+talked like a Quaker too, as readily and naturally as if I had been born
+among them; and, in a word, I passed for a Quaker among all people that
+did not know me. I went but little abroad, but I had been so used to a
+coach that I knew not how well to go without one; besides, I thought it
+would be a farther disguise to me, so I told my Quaker friend one day
+that I thought I lived too close, that I wanted air. She proposed
+taking a hackney-coach sometimes, or a boat; but I told her I had always
+had a coach of my own till now, and I could find in my heart to have one
+again.
+
+She seemed to think it strange at first, considering how close I lived,
+but had nothing to say when she found I did not value the expense; so,
+in short, I resolved I would have a coach. When we came to talk of
+equipages, she extolled the having all things plain. I said so too; so I
+left it to her direction, and a coachmaker was sent for, and he provided
+me a plain coach, no gilding or painting, lined with a light grey cloth,
+and my coachman had a coat of the same, and no lace on his hat.
+
+When all was ready I dressed myself in the dress I bought of her, and
+said, "Come, I'll be a Quaker to-day, and you and I'll go abroad;" which
+we did, and there was not a Quaker in the town looked less like a
+counterfeit than I did. But all this was my particular plot, to be the
+more completely concealed, and that I might depend upon being not known,
+and yet need not be confined like a prisoner and be always in fear; so
+that all the rest was grimace.
+
+We lived here very easy and quiet, and yet I cannot say I was so in my
+mind; I was like a fish out of water. I was as gay and as young in my
+disposition as I was at five-and-twenty; and as I had always been
+courted, flattered, and used to love it, so I missed it in my
+conversation; and this put me many times upon looking back upon things
+past.
+
+I had very few moments in my life which, in their reflection, afforded
+me anything but regret: but of all the foolish actions I had to look
+back upon in my life, none looked so preposterous and so like
+distraction, nor left so much melancholy on my mind, as my parting with
+my friend, the merchant of Paris, and the refusing him upon such
+honourable and just conditions as he had offered; and though on his just
+(which I called unkind) rejecting my invitation to come to him again, I
+had looked on him with some disgust, yet now my mind run upon him
+continually, and the ridiculous conduct of my refusing him, and I could
+never be satisfied about him. I flattered myself that if I could but see
+him I could yet master him, and that he would presently forget all that
+had passed that might be thought unkind; but as there was no room to
+imagine anything like that to be possible, I threw those thoughts off
+again as much as I could.
+
+However, they continually returned, and I had no rest night or day for
+thinking of him, who I had forgot above eleven years. I told Amy of it,
+and we talked it over sometimes in bed, almost whole nights together. At
+last Amy started a thing of her own head, which put it in a way of
+management, though a wild one too. "You are so uneasy, madam," says she,
+"about this Mr. ----, the merchant at Paris; come," says she, "if you'll
+give me leave, I'll go over and see what's become of him."
+
+"Not for ten thousand pounds," said I; "no, nor if you met him in the
+street, not to offer to speak to him on my account." "No," says Amy, "I
+would not speak to him at all; or if I did, I warrant you it shall not
+look to be upon your account. I'll only inquire after him, and if he is
+in being, you shall hear of him; if not, you shall hear of him still,
+and that may be enough."
+
+"Why," says I, "if you will promise me not to enter into anything
+relating to me with him, nor to begin any discourse at all unless he
+begins it with you, I could almost be persuaded to let you go and try."
+
+Amy promised me all that I desired; and, in a word, to cut the story
+short, I let her go, but tied her up to so many particulars that it was
+almost impossible her going could signify anything; and had she intended
+to observe them, she might as well have stayed at home as have gone, for
+I charged her, if she came to see him, she should not so much as take
+notice that she knew him again; and if he spoke to her, she should tell
+him she was come away from me a great many years ago, and knew nothing
+what was become of me; that she had been come over to France six years
+ago, and was married there, and lived at Calais; or to that purpose.
+
+Amy promised me nothing, indeed; for, as she said, it was impossible for
+her to resolve what would be fit to do, or not to do, till she was there
+upon the spot, and had found out the gentleman, or heard of him; but
+that then, if I would trust her, as I had always done, she would answer
+for it that she would do nothing but what should be for my interest,
+and what she would hope I should be very well pleased with.
+
+With this general commission, Amy, notwithstanding she had been so
+frighted at the sea, ventured her carcass once more by water, and away
+she goes to France. She had four articles of confidence in charge to
+inquire after for me, and, as I found by her, she had one for herself--I
+say, four for me, because, though her first and principal errand was to
+inform myself of my Dutch merchant, yet I gave her in charge to inquire,
+second, after my husband, who I left a trooper in the _gens d'armes_;
+third, after that rogue of a Jew, whose very name I hated, and of whose
+face I had such a frightful idea that Satan himself could not
+counterfeit a worse; and, lastly, after my foreign prince. And she
+discharged herself very well of them all, though not so successful as I
+wished.
+
+Amy had a very good passage over the sea, and I had a letter from her,
+from Calais, in three days after she went from London. When she came to
+Paris she wrote me an account, that as to her first and most important
+inquiry, which was after the Dutch merchant, her account was, that he
+had returned to Paris, lived three years there, and quitting that city,
+went to live at Rouen; so away goes Amy for Rouen.
+
+But as she was going to bespeak a place in the coach to Rouen, she meets
+very accidentally in the street with her gentleman, as I called
+him--that is to say, the Prince de ----'s gentleman, who had been her
+favourite, as above.
+
+You may be sure there were several other kind things happened between
+Amy and him, as you shall hear afterwards; but the two main things were,
+first, that Amy inquired about his lord, and had a full account of him,
+of which presently; and, in the next place, telling him whither she was
+going and for what, he bade her not go yet, for that he would have a
+particular account of it the next day from a merchant that knew him;
+and, accordingly, he brought her word the next day that he had been for
+six years before that gone for Holland, and that he lived there still.
+
+This, I say, was the first news from Amy for some time--I mean about my
+merchant. In the meantime Amy, as I have said, inquired about the other
+persons she had in her instructions. As for the prince, the gentleman
+told her he was gone into Germany, where his estate lay, and that he
+lived there; that he had made great inquiry after me; that he (his
+gentleman) had made all the search he had been able for me, but that he
+could not hear of me; that he believed, if his lord had known I had been
+in England, he would have gone over to me; but that, after long inquiry,
+he was obliged to give it over; but that he verily believed, if he could
+have found me, he would have married me; and that he was extremely
+concerned that he could hear nothing of me.
+
+I was not at all satisfied with Amy's account, but ordered her to go to
+Rouen herself, which she did, and there with much difficulty (the
+person she was directed to being dead)--I say, with much difficulty she
+came to be informed that my merchant had lived there two years, or
+something more, but that, having met with a very great misfortune, he
+had gone back to Holland, as the French merchant said, where he had
+stayed two years; but with this addition, viz., that he came back again
+to Rouen, and lived in good reputation there another year; and
+afterwards he was gone to England, and that he lived in London. But Amy
+could by no means learn how to write to him there, till, by great
+accident, an old Dutch skipper, who had formerly served him, coming to
+Rouen, Amy was told of it; and he told her that he lodged in St.
+Laurence Pountney's Lane, in London, but was to be seen every day upon
+the Exchange, in the French walk.
+
+This, Amy thought, it was time enough to tell me of when she came over;
+and, besides, she did not find this Dutch skipper till she had spent
+four or five months and been again in Paris, and then come back to Rouen
+for farther information. But in the meantime she wrote to me from Paris
+that he was not to be found by any means; that he had been gone from
+Paris seven or eight years; that she was told he had lived at Rouen, and
+she was agoing thither to inquire, but that she had heard afterwards
+that he was gone also from thence to Holland, so she did not go.
+
+This, I say, was Amy's first account; and I, not satisfied with it, had
+sent her an order to go to Rouen to inquire there also, as above.
+
+While this was negotiating, and I received these accounts from Amy at
+several times, a strange adventure happened to me which I must mention
+just here. I had been abroad to take the air as usual with my Quaker, as
+far as Epping Forest, and we were driving back towards London, when, on
+the road between Bow and Mile End, two gentlemen on horseback came
+riding by, having overtaken the coach and passed it, and went forwards
+towards London.
+
+They did not ride apace though they passed the coach, for we went very
+softly; nor did they look into the coach at all, but rode side by side,
+earnestly talking to one another and inclining their faces sideways a
+little towards one another, he that went nearest the coach with his face
+from it, and he that was farthest from the coach with his face towards
+it, and passing in the very next tract to the coach, I could hear them
+talk Dutch very distinctly. But it is impossible to describe the
+confusion I was in when I plainly saw that the farthest of the two, him
+whose face looked towards the coach, was my friend the Dutch merchant of
+Paris.
+
+If it had been possible to conceal my disorder from my friend the Quaker
+I would have done it, but I found she was too well acquainted with such
+things not to take the hint. "Dost thou understand Dutch?" said she.
+"Why?" said I. "Why," says she, "it is easy to suppose that thou art a
+little concerned at somewhat those men say; I suppose they are talking
+of thee." "Indeed, my good friend," said I, "thou art mistaken this
+time, for I know very well what they are talking of, but 'tis all about
+ships and trading affairs." "Well," says she, "then one of them is a man
+friend of thine, or somewhat is the case; for though thy tongue will not
+confess it, thy face does."
+
+I was going to have told a bold lie, and said I knew nothing of them;
+but I found it was impossible to conceal it, so I said, "Indeed, I think
+I know the farthest of them; but I have neither spoken to him or so much
+as seen him for about eleven years." "Well, then," says she, "thou hast
+seen him with more than common eyes when thou didst see him, or else
+seeing him now would not be such a surprise to thee." "Indeed," said I,
+"it is true I am a little surprised at seeing him just now, for I
+thought he had been in quite another part of the world; and I can assure
+you I never saw him in England in my life." "Well, then, it is the more
+likely he is come over now on purpose to seek thee." "No, no," said I,
+"knight-errantry is over; women are not so hard to come at that men
+should not be able to please themselves without running from one kingdom
+to another." "Well, well," says she, "I would have him see thee for all
+that, as plainly as thou hast seen him." "No, but he shan't," says I,
+"for I am sure he don't know me in this dress, and I'll take care he
+shan't see my face, if I can help it;" so I held up my fan before my
+face, and she saw me resolute in that, so she pressed me no farther.
+
+We had several discourses upon the subject, but still I let her know I
+was resolved he should not know me; but at last I confessed so much,
+that though I would not let him know who I was or where I lived, I did
+not care if I knew where he lived and how I might inquire about him. She
+took the hint immediately, and her servant being behind the coach, she
+called him to the coach-side and bade him keep his eye upon that
+gentleman, and as soon as the coach came to the end of Whitechapel he
+should get down and follow him closely, so as to see where he put up his
+horse, and then to go into the inn and inquire, if he could, who he was
+and where he lived.
+
+The fellow followed diligently to the gate of an inn in Bishopsgate
+Street, and seeing him go in, made no doubt but he had him fast; but was
+confounded when, upon inquiry, he found the inn was a thoroughfare into
+another street, and that the two gentlemen had only rode through the
+inn, as the way to the street where they were going; and so, in short,
+came back no wiser than he went.
+
+My kind Quaker was more vexed at the disappointment, at least apparently
+so, than I was; and asking the fellow if he was sure he knew the
+gentleman again if he saw him, the fellow said he had followed him so
+close and took so much notice of him, in order to do his errand as it
+ought to be done, that he was very sure he should know him again; and
+that, besides, he was sure he should know his horse.
+
+This part was, indeed, likely enough; and the kind Quaker, without
+telling me anything of the matter, caused her man to place himself just
+at the corner of Whitechapel Church wall every Saturday in the
+afternoon, that being the day when the citizens chiefly ride abroad to
+take the air, and there to watch all the afternoon and look for him.
+
+It was not till the fifth Saturday that her man came, with a great deal
+of joy, and gave her an account that he had found out the gentleman;
+that he was a Dutchman, but a French merchant; that he came from Rouen,
+and his name was ----, and that he lodged at Mr. ----'s, on Laurence
+Pountney's Hill. I was surprised, you may be sure, when she came and
+told me one evening all the particulars, except that of having set her
+man to watch. "I have found out thy Dutch friend," says she, "and can
+tell thee how to find him too." I coloured again as red as fire. "Then
+thou hast dealt with the evil one, friend," said I very gravely. "No,
+no," says she, "I have no familiar; but I tell thee I have found him for
+thee, and his name is So-and-so, and he lives as above recited."
+
+I was surprised again at this, not being able to imagine how she should
+come to know all this. However, to put me out of pain, she told me what
+she had done. "Well," said I, "thou art very kind, but this is not
+worth thy pains; for now I know it, 'tis only to satisfy my curiosity;
+for I shall not send to him upon any account." "Be that as thou wilt,"
+says she. "Besides," added she, "thou art in the right to say so to me,
+for why should I be trusted with it? Though, if I were, I assure thee I
+should not betray thee." "That's very kind," said I, "and I believe
+thee; and assure thyself, if I do send to him, thou shalt know it, and
+be trusted with it too."
+
+During this interval of five weeks I suffered a hundred thousand
+perplexities of mind. I was thoroughly convinced I was right as to the
+person, that it was the man. I knew him so well, and saw him so plain, I
+could not be deceived. I drove out again in the coach (on pretence of
+air) almost every day in hopes of seeing him again, but was never so
+lucky as to see him; and now I had made the discovery I was as far to
+seek what measures to take as I was before.
+
+To send to him, or speak to him first if I should see him, so as to be
+known to him, that I resolved not to do, if I died for it. To watch him
+about his lodging, that was as much below my spirit as the other. So
+that, in a word, I was at a perfect loss how to act or what to do.
+
+At length came Amy's letter, with the last account which she had at
+Rouen from the Dutch skipper, which, confirming the other, left me out
+of doubt that this was my man; but still no human invention could bring
+me to the speech of him in such a manner as would suit with my
+resolutions. For, after all, how did I know what his circumstances were?
+whether married or single? And if he had a wife, I knew he was so honest
+a man he would not so much as converse with me, or so much as know me if
+he met me in the street.
+
+In the next place, as he entirely neglected me, which, in short, is the
+worst way of slighting a woman, and had given no answer to my letters, I
+did not know but he might be the same man still; so I resolved that I
+could do nothing in it unless some fairer opportunity presented, which
+might make my way clearer to me; for I was determined he should have no
+room to put any more slights upon me.
+
+In these thoughts I passed away near three months; till at last, being
+impatient, I resolved to send for Amy to come over, and tell her how
+things stood, and that I would do nothing till she came. Amy, in answer,
+sent me word she would come away with all speed, but begged of me that I
+would enter into no engagement with him, or anybody, till she arrived;
+but still keeping me in the dark as to the thing itself which she had to
+say; at which I was heartily vexed, for many reasons.
+
+But while all these things were transacting, and letters and answers
+passed between Amy and I a little slower than usual, at which I was not
+so well pleased as I used to be with Amy's despatch--I say, in this time
+the following scene opened.
+
+It was one afternoon, about four o'clock, my friendly Quaker and I
+sitting in her chamber upstairs, and very cheerful, chatting together
+(for she was the best company in the world), when somebody ringing
+hastily at the door, and no servant just then in the way, she ran down
+herself to the door, when a gentleman appears, with a footman attending,
+and making some apologies, which she did not thoroughly understand, he
+speaking but broken English, he asked to speak with me, by the very same
+name that I went by in her house, which, by the way, was not the name
+that he had known me by.
+
+She, with very civil language, in her way, brought him into a very
+handsome parlour below stairs, and said she would go and see whether the
+person who lodged in her house owned that name, and he should hear
+farther.
+
+I was a little surprised, even before I knew anything of who it was, my
+mind foreboding the thing as it happened (whence that arises let the
+naturalists explain to us); but I was frighted and ready to die when my
+Quaker came up all gay and crowing. "There," says she, "is the Dutch
+French merchant come to see thee." I could not speak one word to her nor
+stir off of my chair, but sat as motionless as a statue. She talked a
+thousand pleasant things to me, but they made no impression on me. At
+last she pulled me and teased me. "Come, come," says she, "be thyself,
+and rouse up. I must go down again to him; what shall I say to him?"
+"Say," said I, "that you have no such body in the house." "That I
+cannot do," says she, "because it is not the truth. Besides, I have
+owned thou art above. Come, come, go down with me." "Not for a thousand
+guineas," said I. "Well," says she, "I'll go and tell him thou wilt come
+quickly." So, without giving me time to answer her, away she goes.
+
+A million of thoughts circulated in my head while she was gone, and what
+to do I could not tell; I saw no remedy but I must speak with him, but
+would have given £500 to have shunned it; yet had I shunned it, perhaps
+then I would have given £500 again that I had seen him. Thus fluctuating
+and unconcluding were my thoughts, what I so earnestly desired I
+declined when it offered itself; and what now I pretended to decline was
+nothing but what I had been at the expense of £40 or £50 to send Amy to
+France for, and even without any view, or, indeed, any rational
+expectation of bringing it to pass; and what for half a year before I
+was so uneasy about that I could not be quiet night or day till Amy
+proposed to go over to inquire after him. In short, my thoughts were all
+confused and in the utmost disorder. I had once refused and rejected
+him, and I repented it heartily; then I had taken ill his silence, and
+in my mind rejected him again, but had repented that too. Now I had
+stooped so low as to send after him into France, which if he had known,
+perhaps, he had never come after me; and should I reject him a third
+time! On the other hand, he had repented too, in his turn, perhaps, and
+not knowing how I had acted, either in stooping to send in search after
+him or in the wickeder part of my life, was come over hither to seek me
+again; and I might take him, perhaps, with the same advantages as I
+might have done before, and would I now be backward to see him! Well,
+while I was in this hurry my friend the Quaker comes up again, and
+perceiving the confusion I was in, she runs to her closet and fetched me
+a little pleasant cordial; but I would not taste it. "Oh," says she, "I
+understand thee. Be not uneasy; I'll give thee something shall take off
+all the smell of it; if he kisses thee a thousand times he shall be no
+wiser." I thought to myself, "Thou art perfectly acquainted with affairs
+of this nature; I think you must govern me now;" so I began to incline
+to go down with her. Upon that I took the cordial, and she gave me a
+kind of spicy preserve after it, whose flavour was so strong, and yet so
+deliciously pleasant, that it would cheat the nicest smelling, and it
+left not the least taint of the cordial on the breath.
+
+Well, after this, though with some hesitation still, I went down a pair
+of back-stairs with her, and into a dining-room, next to the parlour in
+which he was; but there I halted, and desired she would let me consider
+of it a little. "Well, do so," says she, and left me with more readiness
+than she did before. "Do consider, and I'll come to thee again."
+
+Though I hung back with an awkwardness that was really unfeigned, yet
+when she so readily left me I thought it was not so kind, and I began to
+think she should have pressed me still on to it; so foolishly backward
+are we to the thing which, of all the world, we most desire; mocking
+ourselves with a feigned reluctance, when the negative would be death to
+us. But she was too cunning for me; for while I, as it were, blamed her
+in my mind for not carrying me to him, though, at the same time, I
+appeared backward to see him, on a sudden she unlocks the folding-doors,
+which looked into the next parlour, and throwing them open. "There,"
+says she (ushering him in), "is the person who, I suppose, thou
+inquirest for;" and the same moment, with a kind decency, she retired,
+and that so swift that she would not give us leave hardly to know which
+way she went.
+
+I stood up, but was confounded with a sudden inquiry in my thoughts how
+I should receive him, and with a resolution as swift as lightning, in
+answer to it, said to myself, "It shall be coldly." So on a sudden I put
+on an air of stiffness and ceremony, and held it for about two minutes;
+but it was with great difficulty.
+
+He restrained himself too, on the other hand, came towards me gravely,
+and saluted me in form; but it was, it seems, upon his supposing the
+Quaker was behind him, whereas she, as I said, understood things too
+well, and had retired as if she had vanished, that we might have full
+freedom; for, as she said afterwards, she supposed we had seen one
+another before, though it might have been a great while ago.
+
+Whatever stiffness I had put on my behaviour to him, I was surprised in
+my mind, and angry at his, and began to wonder what kind of a
+ceremonious meeting it was to be. However, after he perceived the woman
+was gone he made a kind of a hesitation, looking a little round him.
+"Indeed," said he, "I thought the gentlewoman was not withdrawn;" and
+with that he took me in his arms and kissed me three or four times; but
+I, that was prejudiced to the last degree with the coldness of his first
+salutes, when I did not know the cause of it, could not be thoroughly
+cleared of the prejudice though I did know the cause, and thought that
+even his return, and taking me in his arms, did not seem to have the
+same ardour with which he used to receive me, and this made me behave to
+him awkwardly, and I know not how for a good while; but this by the way.
+
+He began with a kind of an ecstasy upon the subject of his finding me
+out; how it was possible that he should have been four years in England,
+and had used all the ways imaginable, and could never so much as have
+the least intimation of me, or of any one like me; and that it was now
+above two years that he had despaired of it, and had given over all
+inquiry; and that now he should chop upon me, as it were, unlooked and
+unsought for.
+
+I could easily have accounted for his not finding me if I had but set
+down the detail of my real retirement; but I gave it a new, and indeed a
+truly hypocritical turn. I told him that any one that knew the manner
+of life I led might account for his not finding me; that the retreat I
+had taken up would have rendered it a hundred thousand to one odds that
+he ever found me at all; that, as I had abandoned all conversation,
+taken up another name, lived remote from London, and had not preserved
+one acquaintance in it, it was no wonder he had not met with me; that
+even my dress would let him see that I did not desire to be known by
+anybody.
+
+Then he asked if I had not received some letters from him. I told him
+no, he had not thought fit to give me the civility of an answer to the
+last I wrote to him, and he could not suppose I should expect a return
+after a silence in a case where I had laid myself so low and exposed
+myself in a manner I had never been used to; that indeed I had never
+sent for any letters after that to the place where I had ordered his to
+be directed; and that, being so justly, as I thought, punished for my
+weakness, I had nothing to do but to repent of being a fool, after I had
+strictly adhered to a just principle before; that, however, as what I
+did was rather from motions of gratitude than from real weakness,
+however it might be construed by him, I had the satisfaction in myself
+of having fully discharged the debt. I added, that I had not wanted
+occasions of all the seeming advancements which the pretended felicity
+of a marriage life was usually set off with, and might have been what I
+desired not to name; but that, however low I had stooped to him, I had
+maintained the dignity of female liberty against all the attacks either
+of pride or avarice; and that I had been infinitely obliged to him for
+giving me an opportunity to discharge the only obligation that
+endangered me, without subjecting me to the consequence; and that I
+hoped he was satisfied I had paid the debt by offering myself to be
+chained, but was infinitely debtor to him another way for letting me
+remain free.
+
+He was so confounded at this discourse that he knew not what to say, and
+for a good while he stood mute indeed; but recovering himself a little,
+he said I run out into a discourse he hoped was over and forgotten, and
+he did not intend to revive it; that he knew I had not had his letters,
+for that, when he first came to England, he had been at the place to
+which they were directed, and found them all lying there but one, and
+that the people had not known how to deliver them; that he thought to
+have had a direction there how to find me, but had the mortification to
+be told that they did not so much as know who I was; that he was under a
+great disappointment; and that I ought to know, in answer to all my
+resentments, that he had done a long and, he hoped, a sufficient penance
+for the slight that I had supposed he had put upon me; that it was true
+(and I could not suppose any other) that upon the repulse I had given
+them in a case so circumstanced as his was, and after such earnest
+entreaties and such offers as he had made me, he went away with a mind
+heartily grieved and full of resentment; that he had looked back on the
+crime he had committed with some regret, but on the cruelty of my
+treatment of the poor infant I went with at that time with the utmost
+detestation, and that this made him unable to send an agreeable answer
+to me; for which reason he had sent none at all for some time; but that
+in about six or seven months, those resentments wearing off by the
+return of his affection to me and his concern in the poor child ----.
+There he stopped, and indeed tears stood in his eyes; while in a
+parenthesis he only added, and to this minute he did not know whether it
+was dead or alive. He then went on: Those resentments wearing off, he
+sent me several letters--I think he said seven or eight--but received no
+answer; that then his business obliging him to go to Holland, he came to
+England, as in his way, but found, as above, that his letters had not
+been called for, but that he left them at the house after paying the
+postage of them; and going then back to France, he was yet uneasy, and
+could not refrain the knight-errantry of coming to England again to seek
+me, though he knew neither where or of who to inquire for me, being
+disappointed in all his inquiries before; that he had yet taken up his
+residence here, firmly believing that one time or other he should meet
+me, or hear of me, and that some kind chance would at last throw him in
+my way; that he had lived thus above four years, and though his hopes
+were vanished, yet he had not any thoughts of removing any more in the
+world, unless it should be at last, as it is with other old men, he
+might have some inclination to go home to die in his own country, but
+that he had not thought of it yet; that if I would consider all these
+steps, I would find some reasons to forget his first resentments, and to
+think that penance, as he called it, which he had undergone in search of
+me an _amende honorable_, in reparation of the affront given to the
+kindness of my letter of invitation; and that we might at last make
+ourselves some satisfaction on both sides for the mortifications past.
+
+I confess I could not hear all this without being moved very much, and
+yet I continued a little stiff and formal too a good while. I told him
+that before I could give him any reply to the rest of his discourse I
+ought to give him the satisfaction of telling him that his son was
+alive, and that indeed, since I saw him so concerned about it, and
+mention it with such affection, I was sorry that I had not found out
+some way or other to let him know it sooner; but that I thought, after
+his slighting the mother, as above, he had summed up his affection to
+the child in the letter he had wrote to me about providing for it; and
+that he had, as other fathers often do, looked upon it as a birth which,
+being out of the way, was to be forgotten, as its beginning was to be
+repented of; that in providing sufficiently for it he had done more than
+all such fathers used to do, and might be well satisfied with it.
+
+He answered me that he should have been very glad if I had been so good
+but to have given him the satisfaction of knowing the poor unfortunate
+creature was yet alive, and he would have taken some care of it upon
+himself, and particularly by owning it for a legitimate child, which,
+where nobody had known to the contrary, would have taken off the infamy
+which would otherwise cleave to it, and so the child should not itself
+have known anything of its own disaster; but that he feared it was now
+too late.
+
+He added that I might see by all his conduct since that what unhappy
+mistake drew him into the thing at first, and that he would have been
+very far from doing the injury to me, or being instrumental to add _une
+miserable_ (that was his word) to the world, if he had not been drawn
+into it by the hopes he had of making me his own; but that, if it was
+possible to rescue the child from the consequences of its unhappy birth,
+he hoped I would give him leave to do it, and he would let me see that
+he had both means and affection still to do it; and that,
+notwithstanding all the misfortunes that had befallen him, nothing that
+belonged to him, especially by a mother he had such a concern for as he
+had for me, should ever want what he was in a condition to do for it.
+
+I could not hear this without being sensibly touched with it. I was
+ashamed that he should show that he had more real affection for the
+child, though he had never seen it in his life, than I that bore it, for
+indeed I did not love the child, nor love to see it; and though I had
+provided for it, yet I did it by Amy's hand, and had not seen it above
+twice in four years, being privately resolved that when it grew up it
+should not be able to call me mother.
+
+However, I told him the child was taken care of, and that he need not be
+anxious about it, unless he suspected that I had less affection for it
+than he that had never seen it in his life; that he knew what I had
+promised him to do for it, namely, to give it the thousand pistoles
+which I had offered him, and which he had declined; that I assured him I
+had made my will, and that I had left it £5000, and the interest of it
+till he should come of age, if I died before that time; that I would
+still be as good as that to it; but if he had a mind to take it from me
+into his government, I would not be against it; and to satisfy him that
+I would perform what I said, I would cause the child to be delivered to
+him, and the £5000 also for its support, depending upon it that he would
+show himself a father to it by what I saw of his affection to it now.
+
+I had observed that he had hinted two or three times in his discourse,
+his having had misfortunes in the world, and I was a little surprised at
+the expression, especially at the repeating it so often; but I took no
+notice of that part yet.
+
+He thanked me for my kindness to the child with a tenderness which
+showed the sincerity of all he had said before, and which increased the
+regret with which, as I said, I looked back on the little affection I
+had showed to the poor child. He told me he did not desire to take him
+from me, but so as to introduce him into the world as his own, which he
+could still do, having lived absent from his other children (for he had
+two sons and a daughter which were brought up at Nimeguen, in Holland,
+with a sister of his) so long that he might very well send another son
+of ten years old to be bred up with them, and suppose his mother to be
+dead or alive, as he found occasion; and that, as I had resolved to do
+so handsomely for the child, he would add to it something considerable,
+though, having had some great disappointments (repeating the words), he
+could not do for it as he would otherwise have done.
+
+I then thought myself obliged to take notice of his having so often
+mentioned his having met with disappointments. I told him I was very
+sorry to hear he had met with anything afflicting to him in the world;
+that I would not have anything belonging to me add to his loss, or
+weaken him in what he might do for his other children; and that I would
+not agree to his having the child away, though the proposal was
+infinitely to the child's advantage, unless he would promise me that the
+whole expense should be mine, and that, if he did not think £5000 enough
+for the child, I would give it more.
+
+We had so much discourse upon this and the old affairs that it took up
+all our time at his first visit. I was a little importunate with him to
+tell me how he came to find me out, but he put it off for that time,
+and only obtaining my leave to visit me again, he went away; and indeed
+my heart was so full with what he had said already that I was glad when
+he went away. Sometimes I was full of tenderness and affection for him,
+and especially when he expressed himself so earnestly and passionately
+about the child; other times I was crowded with doubts about his
+circumstances. Sometimes I was terrified with apprehensions lest, if I
+should come into a close correspondence with him, he should any way come
+to hear what kind of life I had led at Pall Mall and in other places,
+and it might make me miserable afterwards; from which last thought I
+concluded that I had better repulse him again than receive him. All
+these thoughts, and many more, crowded in so fast, I say, upon me that I
+wanted to give vent to them and get rid of him, and was very glad when
+he was gone away.
+
+We had several meetings after this, in which still we had so many
+preliminaries to go through that we scarce ever bordered upon the main
+subject. Once, indeed, he said something of it, and I put it off with a
+kind of a jest. "Alas!" says I, "those things are out of the question
+now; 'tis almost two ages since those things were talked between us,"
+says I. "You see I am grown an old woman since that." Another time he
+gave a little push at it again, and I laughed again. "Why, what dost
+thou talk of?" said I in a formal way. "Dost thou not see I am turned
+Quaker? I cannot speak of those things now." "Why," says he, "the
+Quakers marry as well as other people, and love one another as well.
+Besides," says he, "the Quakers' dress does not ill become you," and so
+jested with me again, and so it went off for a third time. However, I
+began to be kind to him in process of time, as they call it, and we grew
+very intimate; and if the following accident had not unluckily
+intervened, I had certainly married him, or consented to marry him, the
+very next time he had asked me.
+
+I had long waited for a letter from Amy, who, it seems, was just at that
+time gone to Rouen the second time, to make her inquiries about him; and
+I received a letter from her at this unhappy juncture, which gave me the
+following account of my business:--
+
+I. That for my gentleman, who I had now, as I may say, in my arms, she
+said he had been gone from Paris, as I have hinted, having met with some
+great losses and misfortunes; that he had been in Holland on that very
+account, whither he had also carried his children; that he was after
+that settled for some time at Rouen; that she had been at Rouen, and
+found there (by a mere accident), from a Dutch skipper, that he was at
+London, had been there above three years; that he was to be found upon
+the Exchange, on the French walk; and that he lodged at St. Laurence
+Pountney's Lane, and the like; so Amy said she supposed I might soon
+find him out, but that she doubted he was poor, and not worth looking
+after. This she did because of the next clause, which the jade had most
+mind to on many accounts.
+
+II. That as to the Prince ----; that, as above, he was gone into
+Germany, where his estate lay; that he had quitted the French service,
+and lived retired; that she had seen his gentleman, who remained at
+Paris to solicit his arrears, &c.; that he had given her an account how
+his lord had employed him to inquire for me and find me out, as above,
+and told her what pains he had taken to find me; that he had understood
+that I was gone to England; that he once had orders to go to England to
+find me; that his lord had resolved, if he could have found me, to have
+called me a countess, and so have married me, and have carried me into
+Germany with him; and that his commission was still to assure me that
+the prince would marry me if I would come to him, and that he would send
+him an account that he had found me, and did not doubt but he would have
+orders to come over to England to attend me in a figure suitable to my
+quality.
+
+Amy, an ambitious jade, who knew my weakest part--namely, that I loved
+great things, and that I loved to be flattered and courted--said
+abundance of kind things upon this occasion, which she knew were
+suitable to me and would prompt my vanity; and talked big of the
+prince's gentleman having orders to come over to me with a procuration
+to marry me by proxy (as princes usually do in like cases), and to
+furnish me with an equipage, and I know not how many fine things; but
+told me, withal, that she had not yet let him know that she belonged to
+me still, or that she knew where to find me, or to write to me; because
+she was willing to see the bottom of it, and whether it was a reality or
+a gasconade. She had indeed told him that, if he had any such
+commission, she would endeavour to find me out, but no more.
+
+III. For the Jew, she assured me that she had not been able to come at a
+certainty what was become of him, or in what part of the world he was;
+but that thus much she had learned from good hands, that he had
+committed a crime, in being concerned in a design to rob a rich banker
+at Paris; and that he was fled, and had not been heard of there for
+above six years.
+
+IV. For that of my husband, the brewer, she learned, that being
+commanded into the field upon an occasion of some action in Flanders, he
+was wounded at the battle of Mons, and died of his wounds in the
+Hospital of the Invalids; so there was an end of my four inquiries,
+which I sent her over to make.
+
+This account of the prince, and the return of his affection to me, with
+all the flattering great things which seemed to come along with it; and
+especially as they came gilded and set out by my maid Amy--I say this
+account of the prince came to me in a very unlucky hour, and in the very
+crisis of my affair.
+
+The merchant and I had entered into close conferences upon the grand
+affair. I had left off talking my platonics, and of my independency, and
+being a free woman, as before; and he having cleared up my doubts too,
+as to his circumstances and the misfortunes he had spoken of, I had gone
+so far that we had begun to consider where we should live, and in what
+figure, what equipage, what house, and the like.
+
+I had made some harangues upon the delightful retirement of a country
+life, and how we might enjoy ourselves so effectually without the
+encumbrances of business and the world; but all this was grimace, and
+purely because I was afraid to make any public appearance in the world,
+for fear some impertinent person of quality should chop upon me again
+and cry out, "Roxana, Roxana, by ----!" with an oath, as had been done
+before.
+
+My merchant, bred to business and used to converse among men of
+business, could hardly tell how to live without it; at least it appeared
+he should be like a fish out of water, uneasy and dying. But, however,
+he joined with me; only argued that we might live as near London as we
+could, that he might sometimes come to 'Change and hear how the world
+should go abroad, and how it fared with his friends and his children.
+
+I answered that if he chose still to embarrass himself with business, I
+supposed it would be more to his satisfaction to be in his own country,
+and where his family was so well known, and where his children also
+were.
+
+He smiled at the thoughts of that, and let me know that he should be
+very willing to embrace such an offer; but that he could not expect it
+of me, to whom England was, to be sure, so naturalised now as that it
+would be carrying me out of my native country, which he would not desire
+by any means, however agreeable it might be to him.
+
+I told him he was mistaken in me; that as I had told him so much of a
+married state being a captivity, and the family being a house of
+bondage, that when I married I expected to be but an upper servant; so,
+if I did notwithstanding submit to it, I hoped he should see I knew how
+to act the servant's part, and do everything to oblige my master; that
+if I did not resolve to go with him wherever he desired to go, he might
+depend I would never have him. "And did I not," said I, "offer myself to
+go with you to the East Indies?"
+
+All this while this was indeed but a copy of my countenance; for, as my
+circumstances would not admit of my stay in London, at least not so as
+to appear publicly, I resolved, if I took him, to live remote in the
+country, or go out of England with him.
+
+But in an evil hour, just now came Amy's letter, in the very middle of
+all these discourses; and the fine things she had said about the prince
+began to make strange work with me. The notion of being a princess, and
+going over to live where all that had happened here would have been
+quite sunk out of knowledge as well as out of memory (conscience
+excepted), was mighty taking. The thoughts of being surrounded with
+domestics, honoured with titles, be called her Highness, and live in all
+the splendour of a court, and, which was still more, in the arms of a
+man of such rank, and who, I knew, loved and valued me--all this, in a
+word, dazzled my eyes, turned my head, and I was as truly crazed and
+distracted for about a fortnight as most of the people in Bedlam, though
+perhaps not quite so far gone.
+
+When my gentleman came to me the next time I had no notion of him; I
+wished I had never received him at all. In short, I resolved to have no
+more to say to him, so I feigned myself indisposed; and though I did
+come down to him and speak to him a little, yet I let him see that I was
+so ill that I was (as we say) no company, and that it would be kind in
+him to give me leave to quit him for that time.
+
+The next morning he sent a footman to inquire how I did; and I let him
+know I had a violent cold, and was very ill with it. Two days after he
+came again, and I let him see me again, but feigned myself so hoarse
+that I could not speak to be heard, and that it was painful to me but to
+whisper; and, in a word, I held him in this suspense near three weeks.
+
+During this time I had a strange elevation upon my mind; and the prince,
+or the spirit of him, had such a possession of me that I spent most of
+this time in the realising all the great things of a life with the
+prince, to my mind pleasing my fancy with the grandeur I was supposing
+myself to enjoy, and with wickedly studying in what manner to put off
+this gentleman and be rid of him for ever.
+
+I cannot but say that sometimes the baseness of the action stuck hard
+with me; the honour and sincerity with which he had always treated me,
+and, above all, the fidelity he had showed me at Paris, and that I owed
+my life to him--I say, all these stared in my face, and I frequently
+argued with myself upon the obligation I was under to him, and how base
+would it be now too, after so many obligations and engagements, to cast
+him off.
+
+But the title of highness, and of a princess, and all those fine things,
+as they came in, weighed down all this; and the sense of gratitude
+vanished as if it had been a shadow.
+
+At other times I considered the wealth I was mistress of; that I was
+able to live like a princess, though not a princess; and that my
+merchant (for he had told me all the affair of his misfortunes) was far
+from being poor, or even mean; that together we were able to make up an
+estate of between three and four thousand pounds a year, which was in
+itself equal to some princes abroad. But though this was true, yet the
+name of princess, and the flutter of it--in a word, the pride--weighed
+them down; and all these arguings generally ended to the disadvantage of
+my merchant; so that, in short, I resolved to drop him, and give him a
+final answer at his next coming; namely, that something had happened in
+my affairs which had caused me to alter my measures unexpectedly, and,
+in a word, to desire him to trouble himself no farther.
+
+I think, verily, this rude treatment of him was for some time the effect
+of a violent fermentation in my blood; for the very motion which the
+steady contemplation of my fancied greatness had put my spirits into had
+thrown me into a kind of fever, and I scarce knew what I did.
+
+I have wondered since that it did not make me mad; nor do I now think it
+strange to hear of those who have been quite lunatic with their pride,
+that fancied themselves queens and empresses, and have made their
+attendants serve them upon the knee, given visitors their hand to kiss,
+and the like; for certainly, if pride will not turn the brain, nothing
+can.
+
+However, the next time my gentleman came, I had not courage enough, or
+not ill nature enough, to treat him in the rude manner I had resolved to
+do, and it was very well I did not; for soon after, I had another letter
+from Amy, in which was the mortifying news, and indeed surprising to me,
+that my prince (as I, with a secret pleasure, had called him) was very
+much hurt by a bruise he had received in hunting and engaging with a
+wild boar, a cruel and desperate sport which the noblemen of Germany, it
+seems, much delight in.
+
+This alarmed me indeed, and the more because Amy wrote me word that his
+gentleman was gone away express to him, not without apprehensions that
+he should find his master was dead before his coming home; but that he
+(the gentleman) had promised her that as soon as he arrived he would
+send back the same courier to her with an account of his master's
+health, and of the main affair; and that he had obliged Amy to stay at
+Paris fourteen days for his return; she having promised him before to
+make it her business to go to England and to find me out for his lord if
+he sent her such orders; and he was to send her a bill for fifty
+pistoles for her journey. So Amy told me she waited for the answer.
+
+This was a blow to me several ways; for, first, I was in a state of
+uncertainty as to his person, whether he was alive or dead; and I was
+not unconcerned in that part, I assure you; for I had an inexpressible
+affection remaining for his person, besides the degree to which it was
+revived by the view of a firmer interest in him. But this was not all,
+for in losing him I forever lost the prospect of all the gaiety and
+glory that had made such an impression upon my imagination.
+
+In this state of uncertainty, I say, by Amy's letter, I was like still
+to remain another fortnight; and had I now continued the resolution of
+using my merchant in the rude manner I once intended, I had made perhaps
+a sorry piece of work of it indeed, and it was very well my heart failed
+me as it did.
+
+However, I treated him with a great many shuffles, and feigned stories
+to keep him off from any closer conferences than we had already had,
+that I might act afterwards as occasion might offer, one way or other.
+But that which mortified me most was, that Amy did not write, though the
+fourteen days were expired. At last, to my great surprise, when I was,
+with the utmost impatience, looking out at the window, expecting the
+postman that usually brought the foreign letters--I say I was agreeably
+surprised to see a coach come to the yard-gate where we lived, and my
+woman Amy alight out of it and come towards the door, having the
+coachman bringing several bundles after her.
+
+I flew like lightning downstairs to speak to her, but was soon damped
+with her news. "Is the prince alive or dead, Amy?" says I. She spoke
+coldly and slightly. "He is alive, madam," said she. "But it is not much
+matter; I had as lieu he had been dead." So we went upstairs again to my
+chamber, and there we began a serious discourse of the whole matter.
+
+First, she told me a long story of his being hurt by a wild boar, and of
+the condition he was reduced to, so that every one expected he should
+die, the anguish of the wound having thrown him into a fever, with
+abundance of circumstances too long to relate here; how he recovered of
+that extreme danger, but continued very weak; how the gentleman had been
+_homme de parole_, and had sent back the courier as punctually as if it
+had been to the king; that he had given a long account of his lord, and
+of his illness and recovery; but the sum of the matter, as to me, was,
+that as to the lady, his lord was turned penitent, was under some vows
+for his recovery, and could not think any more on that affair; and
+especially, the lady being gone, and that it had not been offered to
+her, so there was no breach of honour; but that his lord was sensible of
+the good offices of Mrs. Amy, and had sent her the fifty pistoles for
+her trouble, as if she had really gone the journey.
+
+I was, I confess, hardly able to bear the first surprise of this
+disappointment. Amy saw it, and gapes out (as was her way), "Lawd,
+madam! never be concerned at it; you see he is gotten among the priests,
+and I suppose they have saucily imposed some penance upon him, and, it
+may be, sent him of an errand barefoot to some Madonna or Nôtredame, or
+other; and he is off of his amours for the present. I'll warrant you
+he'll be as wicked again as ever he was when he is got thorough well,
+and gets but out of their hands again. I hate this out-o'-season
+repentance. What occasion had he, in his repentance, to be off of taking
+a good wife? I should have been glad to see you have been a princess,
+and all that; but if it can't be, never afflict yourself; you are rich
+enough to be a princess to yourself; you don't want him, that's the best
+of it."
+
+Well, I cried for all that, and was heartily vexed, and that a great
+while; but as Amy was always at my elbow, and always jogging it out of
+my head with her mirth and her wit, it wore off again.
+
+Then I told Amy all the story of my merchant, and how he had found me
+out when I was in such a concern to find him; how it was true that he
+lodged in St. Laurence Pountney's Lane; and how I had had all the story
+of his misfortune, which she had heard of, in which he had lost above
+£8000 sterling; and that he had told me frankly of it before she had
+sent me any account of it, or at least before I had taken any notice
+that I had heard of it.
+
+Amy was very joyful at that part. "Well, madam, then," says Amy, "what
+need you value the story of the prince, and going I know not whither
+into Germany to lay your bones in another world, and learn the devil's
+language, called High Dutch? You are better here by half," says Amy.
+"Lawd, madam!" says she; "why, are you not as rich as Croesus?"
+
+Well, it was a great while still before I could bring myself off of this
+fancied sovereignty; and I, that was so willing once to be mistress to a
+king, was now ten thousand times more fond of being wife to a prince.
+
+So fast a hold has pride and ambition upon our minds, that when once it
+gets admission, nothing is so chimerical but, under this possession, we
+can form ideas of in our fancy and realise to our imagination. Nothing
+can be so ridiculous as the simple steps we take in such cases; a man or
+a woman becomes a mere _malade imaginaire_, and, I believe, may as
+easily die with grief or run mad with joy (as the affair in his fancy
+appears right or wrong) as if all was real, and actually under the
+management of the person.
+
+I had indeed two assistants to deliver me from this snare, and these
+were, first, Amy, who knew my disease, but was able to do nothing as to
+the remedy; the second, the merchant, who really brought the remedy, but
+knew nothing of the distemper.
+
+I remember, when all these disorders were upon my thoughts, in one of
+the visits my friend the merchant made me, he took notice that he
+perceived I was under some unusual disorder; he believed, he said, that
+my distemper, whatever it was, lay much in my head, and it being summer
+weather and very hot, proposed to me to go a little way into the air.
+
+I started at his expression. "What!" says I; "do you think, then, that I
+am crazed? You should, then, propose a madhouse for my cure." "No, no,"
+says he, "I do not mean anything like that; I hope the head may be
+distempered and not the brain." Well, I was too sensible that he was
+right, for I knew I had acted a strange, wild kind of part with him; but
+he insisted upon it, and pressed me to go into the country. I took him
+short again. "What need you," says I, "send me out of your way? It is in
+your power to be less troubled with me, and with less inconvenience to
+us both."
+
+He took that ill, and told me I used to have a better opinion of his
+sincerity, and desired to know what he had done to forfeit my charity.
+I mention this only to let you see how far I had gone in my measures of
+quitting him--that is to say, how near I was of showing him how base,
+ungrateful, and how vilely I could act; but I found I had carried the
+jest far enough, and that a little matter might have made him sick of me
+again, as he was before; so I began by little and little to change my
+way of talking to him, and to come to discourse to the purpose again as
+we had done before.
+
+A while after this, when we were very merry and talking familiarly
+together, he called me, with an air of particular satisfaction, his
+princess. I coloured at the word, for it indeed touched me to the quick;
+but he knew nothing of the reason of my being touched with it. "What
+d'ye mean by that?" said I. "Nay," says he, "I mean nothing but that you
+are a princess to me." "Well," says I, "as to that I am content, and yet
+I could tell you I might have been a princess if I would have quitted
+you, and believe I could be so still." "It is not in my power to make
+you a princess," says he, "but I can easily make you a lady here in
+England, and a countess too if you will go out of it."
+
+I heard both with a great deal of satisfaction, for my pride remained
+though it had been balked, and I thought with myself that this proposal
+would make me some amends for the loss of the title that had so tickled
+my imagination another way, and I was impatient to understand what he
+meant, but I would not ask him by any means; so it passed off for that
+time.
+
+When he was gone I told Amy what he had said, and Amy was as impatient
+to know the manner how it could be as I was; but the next time
+(perfectly unexpected to me) he told me that he had accidentally
+mentioned a thing to me last time he was with me, having not the least
+thought of the thing itself; but not knowing but such a thing might be
+of some weight to me, and that it might bring me respect among people
+where I might appear, he had thought since of it, and was resolved to
+ask me about it.
+
+I made light of it, and told him that, as he knew I had chosen a retired
+life, it was of no value to me to be called lady or countess either; but
+that if he intended to drag me, as I might call it, into the world
+again, perhaps it might be agreeable to him; but, besides that, I could
+not judge of the thing, because I did not understand how either of them
+was to be done.
+
+He told me that money purchased titles of honour in almost all parts of
+the world, though money could not give principles of honour, they must
+come by birth and blood; that, however, titles sometimes assist to
+elevate the soul and to infuse generous principles into the mind, and
+especially where there was a good foundation laid in the persons; that
+he hoped we should neither of us misbehave if we came to it; and that as
+we knew how to wear a title without undue elevations, so it might sit as
+well upon us as on another; that as to England, he had nothing to do
+but to get an act of naturalisation in his favour, and he knew where to
+purchase a patent for baronet--that is say, to have the honour and title
+transferred to him; but if I intended to go abroad with him, he had a
+nephew, the son of his eldest brother, who had the title of count, with
+the estate annexed, which was but small, and that he had frequently
+offered to make it over to him for a thousand pistoles, which was not a
+great deal of money, and considering it was in the family already, he
+would, upon my being willing, purchase it immediately.
+
+I told him I liked the last best, but then I would not let him buy it
+unless he would let me pay the thousand pistoles. "No, no," says he, "I
+refused a thousand pistoles that I had more right to have accepted than
+that, and you shall not be at so much expense now." "Yes," says I, "you
+did refuse it, and perhaps repented it afterwards." "I never
+complained," said he. "But I did," says I, "and often repented it for
+you." "I do not understand you," says he. "Why," said I, "I repented
+that I suffered you to refuse it." "Well, well," said he, "we may talk
+of that hereafter, when you shall resolve which part of the world you
+will make your settled residence in." Here he talked very handsomely to
+me, and for a good while together; how it had been his lot to live all
+his days out of his native country, and to be often shifting and
+changing the situation of his affairs; and that I myself had not always
+had a fixed abode, but that now, as neither of us was very young, he
+fancied I would be for taking up our abode where, if possible, we might
+remove no more; that as to his part, he was of that opinion entirely,
+only with this exception, that the choice of the place should be mine,
+for that all places in the world were alike to him, only with this
+single addition, namely, that I was with him.
+
+I heard him with a great deal of pleasure, as well for his being willing
+to give me the choice as for that I resolved to live abroad, for the
+reason I have mentioned already, namely, lest I should at any time be
+known in England, and all that story of Roxana and the balls should come
+out; as also I was not a little tickled with the satisfaction of being
+still a countess, though I could not be a princess.
+
+I told Amy all this story, for she was still my privy councillor; but
+when I asked her opinion, she made me laugh heartily. "Now, which of the
+two shall I take, Amy?" said I. "Shall I be a lady--that is, a baronet's
+lady in England, or a countess in Holland?" The ready-witted jade, that
+knew the pride of my temper too, almost as well as I did myself,
+answered (without the least hesitation), "Both, madam. Which of them?"
+says she (repeating the words). "Why not both of them? and then you will
+be really a princess; for, sure, to be a lady in English and a countess
+in Dutch may make a princess in High Dutch." Upon the whole, though Amy
+was in jest, she put the thought into my head, and I resolved that, in
+short, I would be both of them, which I managed as you shall hear.
+
+First, I seemed to resolve that I would live and settle in England, only
+with this condition, namely, that I would not live in London. I
+pretended that it would choke me up; that I wanted breath when I was in
+London, but that anywhere else I would be satisfied; and then I asked
+him whether any seaport town in England would not suit him; because I
+knew, though he seemed to leave off, he would always love to be among
+business, and conversing with men of business; and I named several
+places, either nearest for business with France or with Holland; as
+Dover or Southampton, for the first; and Ipswich, or Yarmouth, or Hull
+for the last; but I took care that we would resolve upon nothing; only
+by this it seemed to be certain that we should live in England.
+
+It was time now to bring things to a conclusion, and so in about six
+weeks' time more we settled all our preliminaries; and, among the rest,
+he let me know that he should have the bill for his naturalisation
+passed time enough, so that he would be (as he called it) an Englishman
+before we married. That was soon perfected, the Parliament being then
+sitting, and several other foreigners joining in the said bill to save
+the expense.
+
+It was not above three or four days after, but that, without giving me
+the least notice that he had so much as been about the patent for
+baronet, he brought it me in a fine embroidered bag, and saluting me by
+the name of my Lady ---- (joining his own surname to it), presented it
+to me with his picture set with diamonds, and at the same time gave me a
+breast-jewel worth a thousand pistoles, and the next morning we were
+married. Thus I put an end to all the intriguing part of my life--a life
+full of prosperous wickedness; the reflections upon which were so much
+the more afflicting as the time had been spent in the grossest crimes,
+which, the more I looked back upon, the more black and horrid they
+appeared, effectually drinking up all the comfort and satisfaction which
+I might otherwise have taken in that part of life which was still before
+me.
+
+The first satisfaction, however, that I took in the new condition I was
+in was in reflecting that at length the life of crime was over, and that
+I was like a passenger coming back from the Indies, who, having, after
+many years' fatigues and hurry in business, gotten a good estate, with
+innumerable difficulties and hazards, is arrived safe at London with all
+his effects, and has the pleasure of saying he shall never venture upon
+the seas any more.
+
+When we were married we came back immediately to my lodgings (for the
+church was but just by), and we were so privately married that none but
+Amy and my friend the Quaker was acquainted with it. As soon as we came
+into the house he took me in his arms, and kissing me, "Now you are my
+own," says he. "Oh that you had been so good to have done this eleven
+years ago!" "Then," said I, "you, perhaps, would have been tired of me
+long ago; it is much better now, for now all our happy days are to come.
+Besides," said I, "I should not have been half so rich;" but that I said
+to myself, for there was no letting him into the reason of it. "Oh!"
+says he, "I should not have been tired of you; but, besides having the
+satisfaction of your company, it had saved me that unlucky blow at
+Paris, which was a dead loss to me of above eight thousand pistoles, and
+all the fatigues of so many years' hurry and business;" and then he
+added, "But I'll make you pay for it all, now I have you." I started a
+little at the words. "Ay," said I, "do you threaten already? Pray what
+d'ye mean by that?" and began to look a little grave.
+
+"I'll tell you," says he, "very plainly what I mean;" and still he held
+me fast in his arms. "I intend from this time never to trouble myself
+with any more business, so I shall never get one shilling for you more
+than I have already; all that you will lose one way. Next, I intend not
+to trouble myself with any of the care or trouble of managing what
+either you have for me or what I have to add to it; but you shall e'en
+take it all upon yourself, as the wives do in Holland; so you will pay
+for it that way too, for all the drudgery shall be yours. Thirdly, I
+intend to condemn you to the constant bondage of my impertinent company,
+for I shall tie you like a pedlar's pack at my back. I shall scarce
+ever be from you; for I am sure I can take delight in nothing else in
+this world." "Very well," says I; "but I am pretty heavy. I hope you'll
+set me down sometimes when you are aweary." "As for that," says he,
+"tire me if you can."
+
+This was all jest and allegory; but it was all true, in the moral of the
+fable, as you shall hear in its place. We were very merry the rest of
+the day, but without any noise or clutter; for he brought not one of his
+acquaintance or friends, either English or foreigner. The honest Quaker
+provided us a very noble dinner indeed, considering how few we were to
+eat it; and every day that week she did the like, and would at last have
+it be all at her own charge, which I was utterly averse to; first,
+because I knew her circumstances not to be very great, though not very
+low; and next, because she had been so true a friend, and so cheerful a
+comforter to me, ay, and counsellor too, in all this affair, that I had
+resolved to make her a present that should be some help to her when all
+was over.
+
+But to return to the circumstances of our wedding. After being very
+merry, as I have told you, Amy and the Quaker put us to bed, the honest
+Quaker little thinking we had been abed together eleven years before.
+Nay, that was a secret which, as it happened, Amy herself did not know.
+Amy grinned and made faces, as if she had been pleased; but it came out
+in so many words, when he was not by, the sum of her mumbling and
+muttering was, that this should have been done ten or a dozen years
+before; that it would signify little now; that was to say, in short,
+that her mistress was pretty near fifty, and too old to have any
+children. I chid her; the Quaker laughed, complimented me upon my not
+being so old as Amy pretended, that I could not be above forty, and
+might have a house full of children yet. But Amy and I too knew better
+than she how it was, for, in short, I was old enough to have done
+breeding, however I looked; but I made her hold her tongue.
+
+In the morning my Quaker landlady came and visited us before we were up,
+and made us eat cakes and drink chocolate in bed; and then left us
+again, and bid us take a nap upon it, which I believe we did. In short,
+she treated us so handsomely, and with such an agreeable cheerfulness,
+as well as plenty, as made it appear to me that Quakers may, and that
+this Quaker did, understand good manners as well as any other people.
+
+I resisted her offer, however, of treating us for the whole week; and I
+opposed it so long that I saw evidently that she took it ill, and would
+have thought herself slighted if we had not accepted it. So I said no
+more, but let her go on, only told her I would be even with her; and so
+I was. However, for that week she treated us as she said she would, and
+did it so very fine, and with such a profusion of all sorts of good
+things, that the greatest burthen to her was how to dispose of things
+that were left; for she never let anything, how dainty or however large,
+be so much as seen twice among us.
+
+I had some servants indeed, which helped her off a little; that is to
+say, two maids, for Amy was now a woman of business, not a servant, and
+ate always with us. I had also a coachman and a boy. My Quaker had a
+man-servant too, but had but one maid; but she borrowed two more of some
+of her friends for the occasion, and had a man-cook for dressing the
+victuals.
+
+She was only at a loss for plate, which she gave me a whisper of; and I
+made Amy fetch a large strong-box, which I had lodged in a safe hand, in
+which was all the fine plate which I had provided on a worse occasion,
+as is mentioned before; and I put it into the Quaker's hand, obliging
+her not to use it as mine, but as her own, for a reason I shall mention
+presently.
+
+I was now my Lady ----, and I must own I was exceedingly pleased with
+it; 'twas so big and so great to hear myself called "her ladyship," and
+"your ladyship," and the like, that I was like the Indian king at
+Virginia, who, having a house built for him by the English, and a lock
+put upon the door, would sit whole days together with the key in his
+hand, locking and unlocking, and double-locking, the door, with an
+unaccountable pleasure at the novelty; so I could have sat a whole day
+together to hear Amy talk to me, and call me "your ladyship" at every
+word; but after a while the novelty wore off and the pride of it abated,
+till at last truly I wanted the other title as much as I did that of
+ladyship before.
+
+We lived this week in all the innocent mirth imaginable, and our
+good-humoured Quaker was so pleasant in her way that it was particularly
+entertaining to us. We had no music at all, or dancing; only I now and
+then sung a French song to divert my spouse, who desired it, and the
+privacy of our mirth greatly added to the pleasure of it. I did not make
+many clothes for my wedding, having always a great many rich clothes by
+me, which, with a little altering for the fashion, were perfectly new.
+The next day he pressed me to dress, though we had no company. At last,
+jesting with him, I told him I believed I was able to dress me so, in
+one kind of dress that I had by me, that he would not know his wife when
+he saw her, especially if anybody else was by. No, he said, that was
+impossible, and he longed to see that dress. I told him I would dress me
+in it, if he would promise me never to desire me to appear in it before
+company. He promised he would not, but wanted to know why too; as
+husbands, you know, are inquisitive creatures, and love to inquire after
+anything they think is kept from them; but I had an answer ready for
+him. "Because," said I, "it is not a decent dress in this country, and
+would not look modest." Neither, indeed, would it, for it was but one
+degree off from appearing in one's shift, but was the usual wear in the
+country where they were used. He was satisfied with my answer, and gave
+me his promise never to ask me to be seen in it before company. I then
+withdrew, taking only Amy and the Quaker with me; and Amy dressed me in
+my old Turkish habit which I danced in formerly, &c., as before. The
+Quaker was charmed with the dress, and merrily said, that if such a
+dress should come to be worn here, she should not know what to do; she
+should be tempted not to dress in the Quaker's way any more.
+
+When all the dress was put on, I loaded it with jewels, and in
+particular I placed the large breast-jewel which he had given me of a
+thousand pistoles upon the front of the _tyhaia_, or head-dress, where
+it made a most glorious show indeed. I had my own diamond necklace on,
+and my hair was _tout brilliant_, all glittering with jewels.
+
+His picture set with diamonds I had placed stitched to my vest, just, as
+might be supposed, upon my heart (which is the compliment in such cases
+among the Eastern people); and all being open at the breast, there was
+no room for anything of a jewel there.
+
+In this figure, Amy holding the train of my robe, I came down to him. He
+was surprised, and perfectly astonished. He knew me, to be sure, because
+I had prepared him, and because there was nobody else there but the
+Quaker and Amy; but he by no means knew Amy, for she had dressed herself
+in the habit of a Turkish slave, being the garb of my little Turk which
+I had at Naples, as I have said; she had her neck and arms bare, was
+bareheaded, and her hair braided in a long tassel hanging down her back;
+but the jade could neither hold her countenance or her chattering
+tongue, so as to be concealed long.
+
+Well, he was so charmed with this dress that he would have me sit and
+dine in it; but it was so thin, and so open before, and the weather
+being also sharp, that I was afraid of taking cold; however, the fire
+being enlarged and the doors kept shut, I sat to oblige him, and he
+professed he never saw so fine a dress in his life. I afterwards told
+him that my husband (so he called the jeweller that was killed) bought
+it for me at Leghorn, with a young Turkish slave which I parted with at
+Paris; and that it was by the help of that slave that I learned how to
+dress in it, and how everything was to be worn, and many of the Turkish
+customs also, with some of their language. This story agreeing with the
+fact, only changing the person, was very natural, and so it went off
+with him; but there was good reason why I should not receive any company
+in this dress--that is to say, not in England. I need not repeat it; you
+will hear more of it.
+
+But when I came abroad I frequently put it on, and upon two or three
+occasions danced in it, but always at his request.
+
+We continued at the Quaker's lodgings for above a year; for now, making
+as though it was difficult to determine where to settle in England to
+his satisfaction, unless in London, which was not to mine, I pretended
+to make him an offer, that, to oblige him, I began to incline to go and
+live abroad with him; that I knew nothing could be more agreeable to
+him, and that as to me, every place was alike; that, as I had lived
+abroad without a husband so many years, it could be no burthen to me to
+live abroad again, especially with him. Then we fell to straining our
+courtesies upon one another. He told me he was perfectly easy at living
+in England, and had squared all his affairs accordingly; for that, as he
+had told me he intended to give over all business in the world, as well
+the care of managing it as the concern about it, seeing we were both in
+condition neither to want it or to have it be worth our while, so I
+might see it was his intention, by his getting himself naturalised, and
+getting the patent of baronet, &c. Well, for all that, I told him I
+accepted his compliment, but I could not but know that his native
+country, where his children were breeding up, must be most agreeable to
+him, and that, if I was of such value to him, I would be there then, to
+enhance the rate of his satisfaction; that wherever he was would be a
+home to me, and any place in the world would be England to me if he was
+with me; and thus, in short, I brought him to give me leave to oblige
+him with going to live abroad, when, in truth, I could not have been
+perfectly easy at living in England, unless I had kept constantly within
+doors, lest some time or other the dissolute life I had lived here
+should have come to be known, and all those wicked things have been
+known too, which I now began to be very much ashamed of.
+
+When we closed up our wedding week, in which our Quaker had been so very
+handsome to us, I told him how much I thought we were obliged to her for
+her generous carriage to us; how she had acted the kindest part through
+the whole, and how faithful a friend she had been to me upon all
+occasions; and then letting him know a little of her family unhappiness,
+I proposed that I thought I not only ought to be grateful to her, but
+really to do something extraordinary for her, towards making her easy in
+her affairs. And I added, that I had no hangers-on that should trouble
+him; that there was nobody belonged to me but what was thoroughly
+provided for, and that, if I did something for this honest woman that
+was considerable, it should be the last gift I would give to anybody in
+the world but Amy; and as for her, we were not agoing to turn her
+adrift, but whenever anything offered for her, we would do as we saw
+cause; that, in the meantime, Amy was not poor, that she had saved
+together between seven and eight hundred pounds. By the way, I did not
+tell him how, and by what wicked ways she got it, but that she had it;
+and that was enough to let him know she would never be in want of us.
+
+My spouse was exceedingly pleased with my discourse about the Quaker,
+made a kind of a speech to me upon the subject of gratitude, told me it
+was one of the brightest parts of a gentlewoman, that it was so twisted
+with honesty, nay, and even with religion too, that he questioned
+whether either of them could be found where gratitude was not to be
+found; that in this act there was not only gratitude, but charity; and
+that to make the charity still more Christian-like, the object too had
+real merit to attract it; he therefore agreed to the thing with all his
+heart, only would have had me let him pay it out of his effects.
+
+I told him, as for that, I did not design, whatever I had said formerly,
+that we should have two pockets; and that though I had talked to him of
+being a free woman, and an independent, and the like, and he had offered
+and promised that I should keep all my own estate in my own hands; yet,
+that since I had taken him, I would e'en do as other honest wives
+did--where I thought fit to give myself, I should give what I had too;
+that if I reserved anything, it should be only in case of mortality, and
+that I might give it to his children afterwards, as my own gift; and
+that, in short, if he thought fit to join stocks, we would see to-morrow
+morning what strength we could both make up in the world, and bringing
+it all together, consider, before we resolved upon the place of
+removing, how we should dispose of what we had, as well as of ourselves.
+This discourse was too obliging, and he too much of a man of sense not
+to receive it as it was meant. He only answered, we would do in that as
+we should both agree; but the thing under our present care was to show
+not gratitude only, but charity and affection too, to our kind friend
+the Quaker; and the first word he spoke of was to settle a thousand
+pounds upon her for her life--that is to say, sixty pounds a year--but
+in such a manner as not to be in the power of any person to reach but
+herself. This was a great thing, and indeed showed the generous
+principles of my husband, and for that reason I mention it; but I
+thought that a little too much too, and particularly because I had
+another thing in view for her about the plate; so I told him I thought,
+if he gave her a purse with a hundred guineas as a present first, and
+then made her a compliment of £40 per annum for her life, secured any
+such way as she should desire, it would be very handsome.
+
+He agreed to that; and the same day, in the evening, when we were just
+going to bed, he took my Quaker by the hand, and, with a kiss, told her
+that we had been very kindly treated by her from the beginning of this
+affair, and his wife before, as she (meaning me) had informed him; and
+that he thought himself bound to let her see that she had obliged
+friends who knew how to be grateful; that for his part of the obligation
+he desired she would accept of that, for an acknowledgment in part only
+(putting the gold into her hand), and that his wife would talk with her
+about what farther he had to say to her; and upon that, not giving her
+time hardly to say "Thank ye," away he went upstairs into our
+bedchamber, leaving her confused and not knowing what to say.
+
+When he was gone she began to make very handsome and obliging
+representations of her goodwill to us both, but that it was without
+expectation of reward; that I had given her several valuable presents
+before--and so, indeed, I had; for, besides the piece of linen which I
+had given her at first, I had given her a suit of damask table-linen, of
+the linen I bought for my balls, viz., three table-cloths and three
+dozen of napkins; and at another time I gave her a little necklace of
+gold beads, and the like; but that is by the way. But she mentioned
+them, I say, and how she was obliged by me on many other occasions; that
+she was not in condition to show her gratitude any other way, not being
+able to make a suitable return; and that now we took from her all
+opportunity, to balance my former friendship, and left her more in debt
+than she was before. She spoke this in a very good kind of manner, in
+her own way, but which was very agreeable indeed, and had as much
+apparent sincerity, and I verily believe as real as was possible to be
+expressed; but I put a stop to it, and bade her say no more, but accept
+of what my spouse had given her, which was but in part, as she had heard
+him say. "And put it up," says I, "and come and sit down here, and give
+me leave to say something else to you on the same head, which my spouse
+and I have settled between ourselves in your behalf." "What dost thee
+mean?" says she, and blushed, and looked surprised, but did not stir.
+She was going to speak again, but I interrupted her, and told her she
+should make no more apologies of any kind whatever, for I had better
+things than all this to talk to her of; so I went on, and told her, that
+as she had been so friendly and kind to us on every occasion, and that
+her house was the lucky place where we came together, and that she knew
+I was from her own mouth acquainted in part with her circumstances, we
+were resolved she should be the better for us as long as she lived. Then
+I told what we had resolved to do for her, and that she had nothing more
+to do but to consult with me how it should be effectually secured for
+her, distinct from any of the effects which were her husband's; and that
+if her husband did so supply her that she could live comfortably, and
+not want it for bread or other necessaries, she should not make use of
+it, but lay up the income of it, and add it every year to the principal,
+so to increase the annual payment, which in time, and perhaps before she
+might come to want it, might double itself; that we were very willing
+whatever she should so lay up should be to herself, and whoever she
+thought fit after her; but that the forty pounds a year must return to
+our family after her life, which we both wished might be long and happy.
+
+Let no reader wonder at my extraordinary concern for this poor woman, or
+at my giving my bounty to her a place in this account. It is not, I
+assure you, to make a pageantry of my charity, or to value myself upon
+the greatness of my soul, that should give in so profuse a manner as
+this, which was above my figure, if my wealth had been twice as much as
+it was; but there was another spring from whence all flowed, and 'tis on
+that account I speak of it. Was it possible I could think of a poor
+desolate woman with four children, and her husband gone from her, and
+perhaps good for little if he had stayed--I say, was I, that had tasted
+so deep of the sorrows of such a kind of widowhood, able to look on her,
+and think of her circumstances, and not be touched in an uncommon
+manner? No, no; I never looked on her and her family, though she was not
+left so helpless and friendless as I had been, without remembering my
+own condition, when Amy was sent out to pawn or sell my pair of stays to
+buy a breast of mutton and a bunch of turnips; nor could I look on her
+poor children, though not poor and perishing, like mine, without tears;
+reflecting on the dreadful condition that mine were reduced to, when
+poor Amy sent them all into their aunt's in Spitalfields, and run away
+from them. These were the original springs, or fountain-head, from
+whence my affectionate thoughts were moved to assist this poor woman.
+
+When a poor debtor, having lain long in the Compter, or Ludgate, or the
+King's Bench for debt, afterwards gets out, rises again in the world,
+and grows rich, such a one is a certain benefactor to the prisoners
+there, and perhaps to every prison he passes by as long as he lives, for
+he remembers the dark days of his own sorrow; and even those who never
+had the experience of such sorrows to stir up their minds to acts of
+charity would have the same charitable, good disposition did they as
+sensibly remember what it is that distinguishes them from others by a
+more favourable and merciful Providence.
+
+This, I say, was, however, the spring of my concern for this honest,
+friendly, and grateful Quaker; and as I had so plentiful a fortune in
+the world, I resolved she should taste the fruit of her kind usage to me
+in a manner that she could not expect.
+
+All the while I talked to her I saw the disorder of her mind; the sudden
+joy was too much for her, and she coloured, trembled, changed, and at
+last grew pale, and was indeed near fainting, when she hastily rung a
+little bell for her maid, who coming in immediately, she beckoned to
+her--for speak she could not--to fill her a glass of wine; but she had
+no breath to take it in, and was almost choked with that which she took
+in her mouth. I saw she was ill, and assisted her what I could, and with
+spirits and things to smell to just kept her from fainting, when she
+beckoned to her maid to withdraw, and immediately burst out in crying,
+and that relieved her. When she recovered herself a little she flew to
+me, and throwing her arms about my neck, "Oh!" says she, "thou hast
+almost killed me;" and there she hung, laying her head in my neck for
+half a quarter of an hour, not able to speak, but sobbing like a child
+that had been whipped.
+
+I was very sorry that I did not stop a little in the middle of my
+discourse and make her drink a glass of wine before it had put her
+spirits into such a violent motion; but it was too late, and it was ten
+to one odds but that it had killed her.
+
+But she came to herself at last, and began to say some very good things
+in return for my kindness. I would not let her go on, but told her I had
+more to say to her still than all this, but that I would let it alone
+till another time. My meaning was about the box of plate, good part of
+which I gave her, and some I gave to Amy; for I had so much plate, and
+some so large, that I thought if I let my husband see it he might be apt
+to wonder what occasion I could ever have for so much, and for plate of
+such a kind too; as particularly a great cistern for bottles, which cost
+a hundred and twenty pounds, and some large candlesticks too big for any
+ordinary use. These I caused Amy to sell; in short, Amy sold above three
+hundred pounds' worth of plate; what I gave the Quaker was worth above
+sixty pounds, and I gave Amy above thirty pounds' worth, and yet I had a
+great deal left for my husband.
+
+Nor did our kindness to the Quaker end with the forty pounds a year, for
+we were always, while we stayed with her, which was above ten months,
+giving her one good thing or another; and, in a word, instead of lodging
+with her, she boarded with us, for I kept the house, and she and all
+her family ate and drank with us, and yet we paid her the rent of the
+house too; in short, I remembered my widowhood, and I made this widow's
+heart glad many a day the more upon that account.
+
+And now my spouse and I began to think of going over to Holland, where I
+had proposed to him to live, and in order to settle all the
+preliminaries of our future manner of living, I began to draw in my
+effects, so as to have them all at command upon whatever occasion we
+thought fit; after which, one morning I called my spouse up to me: "Hark
+ye, sir," said I to him, "I have two very weighty questions to ask of
+you. I don't know what answer you will give to the first, but I doubt
+you will be able to give but a sorry answer to the other, and yet, I
+assure you, it is of the last importance to yourself, and towards the
+future part of your life, wherever it is to be."
+
+He did not seem to be much alarmed, because he could see I was speaking
+in a kind of merry way. "Let's hear your questions, my dear," says he,
+"and I'll give the best answer I can to them." "Why, first," says I:
+
+"I. You have married a wife here, made her a lady, and put her in
+expectation of being something else still when she comes abroad. Pray
+have you examined whether you are able to supply all her extravagant
+demands when she comes abroad, and maintain an expensive Englishwoman in
+all her pride and vanity? In short, have you inquired whether you are
+able to keep her?
+
+"II. You have married a wife here, and given her a great many fine
+things, and you maintain her like a princess, and sometimes call her so.
+Pray what portion have you had with her? what fortune has she been to
+you? and where does her estate lie, that you keep her so fine? I am
+afraid that you keep her in a figure a great deal above her estate, at
+least above all that you have seen of it yet. Are you sure you han't got
+a bite, and that you have not made a beggar a lady?"
+
+"Well," says he, "have you any more questions to ask? Let's have them
+all together; perhaps they may be all answered in a few words, as well
+as these two." "No," says I, "these are the two grand questions--at
+least for the present." "Why, then," says he, "I'll answer you in a few
+words; that I am fully master of my own circumstances, and, without
+farther inquiry, can let my wife you speak of know, that as I have made
+her a lady I can maintain her as a lady, wherever she goes with me; and
+this whether I have one pistole of her portion, or whether she has any
+portion or no; and as I have not inquired whether she has any portion or
+not, so she shall not have the less respect showed her from me, or be
+obliged to live meaner, or be anyways straitened on that account; on the
+contrary, if she goes abroad to live with me in my own country, I will
+make her more than a lady, and support the expense of it too, without
+meddling with anything she has; and this, I suppose," says he, "contains
+an answer to both your questions together."
+
+He spoke this with a great deal more earnestness in his countenance than
+I had when I proposed my questions, and said a great many kind things
+upon it, as the consequence of former discourses, so that I was obliged
+to be in earnest too. "My dear," says I, "I was but in jest in my
+questions; but they were proposed to introduce what I am going to say to
+you in earnest; namely, that if I am to go abroad, 'tis time I should
+let you know how things stand, and what I have to bring you with your
+wife; how it is to be disposed and secured, and the like; and therefore
+come," says I, "sit down, and let me show you your bargain here; I hope
+you will find that you have not got a wife without a fortune."
+
+He told me then, that since he found I was in earnest, he desired that I
+would adjourn it till to-morrow, and then we would do as the poor people
+do after they marry, feel in their pockets, and see how much money they
+can bring together in the world. "Well," says I, "with all my heart;"
+and so we ended our talk for that time.
+
+As this was in the morning, my spouse went out after dinner to his
+goldsmith's, as he said, and about three hours after returns with a
+porter and two large boxes with him; and his servant brought another
+box, which I observed was almost as heavy as the two that the porter
+brought, and made the poor fellow sweat heartily; he dismissed the
+porter, and in a little while after went out again with his man, and
+returning at night, brought another porter with more boxes and bundles,
+and all was carried up, and put into a chamber, next to our bedchamber;
+and in the morning he called for a pretty large round table, and began
+to unpack.
+
+When the boxes were opened, I found they were chiefly full of books, and
+papers, and parchments, I mean books of accounts, and writings, and such
+things as were in themselves of no moment to me, because I understood
+them not; but I perceived he took them all out, and spread them about
+him upon the table and chairs, and began to be very busy with them; so I
+withdrew and left him; and he was indeed so busy among them, that he
+never missed me till I had been gone a good while; but when he had gone
+through all his papers, and come to open a little box, he called for me
+again. "Now," says he, and called me his countess, "I am ready to answer
+your first question; if you will sit down till I have opened this box,
+we will see how it stands."
+
+So we opened the box; there was in it indeed what I did not expect, for
+I thought he had sunk his estate rather than raised it; but he produced
+me in goldsmiths' bills, and stock in the English East India Company,
+about sixteen thousand pounds sterling; then he gave into my hands nine
+assignments upon the Bank of Lyons in France, and two upon the rents of
+the town-house in Paris, amounting in the whole to 5800 crowns per
+annum, or annual rent, as it is called there; and lastly, the sum of
+30,000 rixdollars in the Bank of Amsterdam; besides some jewels and gold
+in the box to the value of about £1500 or £1600, among which was a very
+good necklace of pearl of about £200 value; and that he pulled out and
+tied about my neck, telling me that should not be reckoned into the
+account.
+
+I was equally pleased and surprised, and it was with an inexpressible
+joy that I saw him so rich.
+
+"You might well tell me," said I, "that you were able to make me
+countess, and maintain me as such." In short, he was immensely rich; for
+besides all this, he showed me, which was the reason of his being so
+busy among the books, I say, he showed me several adventures he had
+abroad in the business of his merchandise; as particularly an eighth
+share in an East India ship then abroad; an account-courant with a
+merchant at Cadiz in Spain; about £3000 lent upon bottomry, upon ships
+gone to the Indies; and a large cargo of goods in a merchant's hands,
+for sale at Lisbon in Portugal; so that in his books there was about
+£12,000 more; all which put together, made about £27,000 sterling, and
+£1320 a year.
+
+I stood amazed at this account, as well I might, and said nothing to him
+for a good while, and the rather because I saw him still busy looking
+over his books. After a while, as I was going to express my wonder,
+"Hold, my dear," says he, "this is not all neither;" then he pulled me
+out some old seals, and small parchment rolls, which I did not
+understand; but he told me they were a right of reversion which he had
+to a paternal estate in his family, and a mortgage of 14,000 rixdollars,
+which he had upon it, in the hands of the present possessor; so that was
+about £3000 more.
+
+"But now hold again," says he, "for I must pay my debts out of all this,
+and they are very great, I assure you;" and the first he said was a
+black article of 8000 pistoles, which he had a lawsuit about at Paris,
+but had it awarded against him, which was the loss he had told me of,
+and which made him leave Paris in disgust; that in other accounts he
+owed about £5300 sterling; but after all this, upon the whole, he had
+still £17,000 clear stock in money, and £1320 a year in rent.
+
+After some pause, it came to my turn to speak. "Well," says I, "'tis
+very hard a gentleman with such a fortune as this should come over to
+England, and marry a wife with nothing; it shall never," says I, "be
+said, but what I have, I'll bring into the public stock;" so I began to
+produce.
+
+First, I pulled out the mortgage which good Sir Robert had procured for
+me, the annual rent £700 per annum; the principal money £14,000.
+
+Secondly, I pulled out another mortgage upon land, procured by the same
+faithful friend, which at three times had advanced £12,000.
+
+Thirdly, I pulled him out a parcel of little securities, procured by
+several hands, by fee-farm rents, and such petty mortgages as those
+times afforded, amounting to £10,800 principal money, and paying six
+hundred and thirty-six pounds a-year. So that in the whole there was two
+thousand and fifty-six pounds a year ready money constantly coming in.
+
+When I had shown him all these, I laid them upon the table, and bade him
+take them, that he might be able to give me an answer to the second
+question. What fortune he had with his wife? And laughed a little at it.
+
+He looked at them awhile, and then handed them all back again to me: "I
+will not touch them," says he, "nor one of them, till they are all
+settled in trustees' hands for your own use, and the management wholly
+your own."
+
+I cannot omit what happened to me while all this was acting; though it
+was cheerful work in the main, yet I trembled every joint of me, worse
+for aught I know than ever Belshazzar did at the handwriting on the
+wall, and the occasion was every way as just. "Unhappy wretch," said I
+to myself, "shall my ill-got wealth, the product of prosperous lust, and
+of a vile and vicious life of whoredom and adultery, be intermingled
+with the honest well-gotten estate of this innocent gentleman, to be a
+moth and a caterpillar among it, and bring the judgments of heaven upon
+him, and upon what he has, for my sake? Shall my wickedness blast his
+comforts? Shall I be fire in his flax? and be a means to provoke heaven
+to curse his blessings? God forbid! I'll keep them asunder if it be
+possible."
+
+This is the true reason why I have been so particular in the account of
+my vast acquired stock; and how his estate, which was perhaps the
+product of many years' fortunate industry, and which was equal if not
+superior to mine at best, was, at my request, kept apart from mine, as
+is mentioned above.
+
+I have told you how he gave back all my writings into my own hands
+again. "Well," says I, "seeing you will have it be kept apart, it shall
+be so, upon one condition, which I have to propose, and no other." "And
+what is the condition?" says he. "Why," says I, "all the pretence I can
+have for the making over my own estate to me is, that in case of your
+mortality, I may have it reserved for me, if I outlive you." "Well,"
+says he, "that is true" "But then," said I, "the annual income is always
+received by the husband, during his life, as 'tis supposed, for the
+mutual subsistence of the family; now," says I, "here is £2000 a year,
+which I believe is as much as we shall spend, and I desire none of it
+may be saved; and all the income of your own estate, the interest of the
+£17,000 and the £1320 a year, may be constantly laid by for the increase
+of your estate; and so," added I, "by joining the interest every year to
+the capital you will perhaps grow as rich as you would do if you were to
+trade with it all, if you were obliged to keep house out of it too."
+
+He liked the proposal very well, and said it should be so; and this way
+I, in some measure, satisfied myself that I should not bring my husband
+under the blast of a just Providence, for mingling my cursed ill-gotten
+wealth with his honest estate. This was occasioned by the reflections
+which, at some certain intervals of time, came into my thoughts of the
+justice of heaven, which I had reason to expect would some time or other
+still fall upon me or my effects, for the dreadful life I had lived.
+
+And let nobody conclude from the strange success I met with in all my
+wicked doings, and the vast estate which I had raised by it, that
+therefore I either was happy or easy. No, no, there was a dart struck
+into the liver; there was a secret hell within, even all the while, when
+our joy was at the highest; but more especially now, after it was all
+over, and when, according to all appearance, I was one of the happiest
+women upon earth; all this while, I say, I had such constant terror upon
+my mind, as gave me every now and then very terrible shocks, and which
+made me expect something very frightful upon every accident of life.
+
+In a word, it never lightened or thundered, but I expected the next
+flash would penetrate my vitals, and melt the sword (soul) in this
+scabbard of flesh; it never blew a storm of wind, but I expected the
+fall of some stack of chimneys, or some part of the house, would bury me
+in its ruins; and so of other things.
+
+But I shall perhaps have occasion to speak of all these things again
+by-and-by; the case before us was in a manner settled; we had full four
+thousand pounds per annum for our future subsistence, besides a vast sum
+in jewels and plate; and besides this, I had about eight thousand pounds
+reserved in money which I kept back from him, to provide for my two
+daughters, of whom I have much yet to say.
+
+With this estate, settled as you have heard, and with the best husband
+in the world, I left England again; I had not only, in human prudence,
+and by the nature of the thing, being now married and settled in so
+glorious a manner,--I say, I had not only abandoned all the gay and
+wicked course which I had gone through before, but I began to look back
+upon it with that horror and that detestation which is the certain
+companion, if not the forerunner, of repentance.
+
+Sometimes the wonders of my present circumstances would work upon me,
+and I should have some raptures upon my soul, upon the subject of my
+coming so smoothly out of the arms of hell, that I was not ingulfed in
+ruin, as most who lead such lives are, first or last; but this was a
+flight too high for me; I was not come to that repentance that is raised
+from a sense of Heaven's goodness; I repented of the crime, but it was
+of another and lower kind of repentance, and rather moved by my fears of
+vengeance, than from a sense of being spared from being punished, and
+landed safe after a storm.
+
+The first thing which happened after our coming to the Hague (where we
+lodged for a while) was, that my spouse saluted me one morning with the
+title of countess, as he said he intended to do, by having the
+inheritance to which the honour was annexed made over to him. It is
+true, it was a reversion, but it soon fell, and in the meantime, as all
+the brothers of a count are called counts, so I had the title by
+courtesy, about three years before I had it in reality.
+
+I was agreeably surprised at this coming so soon, and would have had my
+spouse have taken the money which it cost him out of my stock, but he
+laughed at me, and went on.
+
+I was now in the height of my glory and prosperity, and I was called the
+Countess de ----; for I had obtained that unlooked for, which I secretly
+aimed at, and was really the main reason of my coming abroad. I took now
+more servants, lived in a kind of magnificence that I had not been
+acquainted with, was called "your honour" at every word, and had a
+coronet behind my coach; though at the same time I knew little or
+nothing of my new pedigree.
+
+The first thing that my spouse took upon him to manage, was to declare
+ourselves married eleven years before our arriving in Holland; and
+consequently to acknowledge our little son, who was yet in England, to
+be legitimate; order him to be brought over, and added to his family,
+and acknowledge him to be our own.
+
+This was done by giving notice to his people at Nimeguen, where his
+children (which were two sons and a daughter) were brought up, that he
+was come over from England, and that he was arrived at the Hague with
+his wife, and should reside there some time, and that he would have his
+two sons brought down to see him; which accordingly was done, and where
+I entertained them with all the kindness and tenderness that they could
+expect from their mother-in-law; and who pretended to be so ever since
+they were two or three years old.
+
+This supposing us to have been so long married was not difficult at all,
+in a country where we had been seen together about that time, viz.,
+eleven years and a half before, and where we had never been seen
+afterwards till we now returned together: this being seen together was
+also openly owned and acknowledged, of course, by our friend the
+merchant at Rotterdam, and also by the people in the house where we both
+lodged in the same city, and where our first intimacies began, and who,
+as it happened, were all alive; and therefore, to make it the more
+public, we made a tour to Rotterdam again, lodged in the same house, and
+was visited there by our friend the merchant, and afterwards invited
+frequently to his house, where he treated us very handsomely.
+
+This conduct of my spouse, and which he managed very cleverly, was
+indeed a testimony of a wonderful degree of honesty and affection to our
+little son; for it was done purely for the sake of the child.
+
+I call it an honest affection, because it was from a principle of
+honesty that he so earnestly concerned himself to prevent the scandal
+which would otherwise have fallen upon the child, who was itself
+innocent; and as it was from this principle of justice that he so
+earnestly solicited me, and conjured me by the natural affections of a
+mother, to marry him when it was yet young within me and unborn, that
+the child might not suffer for the sin of its father and mother; so,
+though at the same time he really loved me very well, yet I had reason
+to believe that it was from this principle of justice to the child that
+he came to England again to seek me with design to marry me, and, as he
+called it, save the innocent lamb from infamy worse than death.
+
+It was with a just reproach to myself that I must repeat it again, that
+I had not the same concern for it, though it was the child of my own
+body; nor had I ever the hearty affectionate love to the child that he
+had. What the reason of it was I cannot tell; and, indeed, I had shown a
+general neglect of the child through all the gay years of my London
+revels, except that I sent Amy to look upon it now and then, and to pay
+for its nursing; as for me, I scarce saw it four times in the first four
+years of its life, and often wished it would go quietly out of the
+world; whereas a son which I had by the jeweller, I took a different
+care of, and showed a different concern for, though I did not let him
+know me; for I provided very well for him, had him put out very well to
+school, and when he came to years fit for it, let him go over with a
+person of honesty and good business, to the Indies; and after he had
+lived there some time, and began to act for himself, sent him over the
+value of £2000, at several times, with which he traded and grew rich;
+and, as 'tis to be hoped, may at last come over again with forty or
+fifty thousand pounds in his pocket, as many do who have not such
+encouragement at their beginning.
+
+I also sent him over a wife, a beautiful young lady, well-bred, an
+exceeding good-natured pleasant creature; but the nice young fellow did
+not like her, and had the impudence to write to me, that is, to the
+person I employed to correspond with him, to send him another, and
+promised that he would marry her I had sent him, to a friend of his, who
+liked her better than he did; but I took it so ill, that I would not
+send him another, and withal, stopped another article of £1000 which I
+had appointed to send him. He considered of it afterwards, and offered
+to take her; but then truly she took so ill the first affront he put
+upon her, that she would not have him, and I sent him word I thought she
+was very much in the right. However, after courting her two years, and
+some friends interposing, she took him, and made him an excellent wife,
+as I knew she would, but I never sent him the thousand pounds cargo, so
+that he lost that money for misusing me, and took the lady at last
+without it.
+
+My new spouse and I lived a very regular, contemplative life; and, in
+itself, certainly a life filled with all human felicity. But if I looked
+upon my present situation with satisfaction, as I certainly did, so, in
+proportion, I on all occasions looked back on former things with
+detestation, and with the utmost affliction; and now, indeed, and not
+till now, those reflections began to prey upon my comforts, and lessen
+the sweets of my other enjoyments. They might be said to have gnawed a
+hole in my heart before; but now they made a hole quite through it: now
+they ate into all my pleasant things, made bitter every sweet, and mixed
+my sighs with every smile.
+
+Not all the affluence of a plentiful fortune; not a hundred thousand
+pounds estate (for, between us, we had little less); not honour and
+titles, attendants and equipages; in a word, not all the things we call
+pleasure, could give me any relish, or sweeten the taste of things to
+me; at least, not so much but I grew sad, heavy, pensive, and
+melancholy; slept little, and ate little; dreamed continually of the
+most frightful and terrible things imaginable: nothing but apparitions
+of devils and monsters, falling into gulfs, and off from steep and high
+precipices, and the like; so that in the morning, when I should rise,
+and be refreshed with the blessing of rest, I was hag-ridden with
+frights and terrible things formed merely in the imagination, and was
+either tired and wanted sleep, or overrun with vapours, and not fit for
+conversing with my family, or any one else.
+
+My husband, the tenderest creature in the world, and particularly so to
+me, was in great concern for me, and did everything that lay in his
+power to comfort and restore me; strove to reason me out of it; then
+tried all the ways possible to divert me: but it was all to no purpose,
+or to but very little.
+
+My only relief was sometimes to unbosom myself to poor Amy, when she and
+I was alone; and she did all she could to comfort me. But all was to
+little effect there; for, though Amy was the better penitent before,
+when we had been in the storm, Amy was just where she used to be now, a
+wild, gay, loose wretch, and not much the graver for her age; for Amy
+was between forty and fifty by this time too.
+
+But to go on with my own story. As I had no comforter, so I had no
+counsellor; it was well, as I often thought, that I was not a Roman
+Catholic; for what a piece of work should I have made, to have gone to a
+priest with such a history as I had to tell him; and what penance would
+any father confessor have obliged me to perform, especially if he had
+been honest, and true to his office!
+
+However, as I had none of the recourse, so I had none of the absolution,
+by which the criminal confessing goes away comforted; but I went about
+with a heart loaded with crime, and altogether in the dark as to what I
+was to do; and in this condition I languished near two years. I may well
+call it languishing, for if Providence had not relieved me, I should
+have died in little time. But of that hereafter.
+
+I must now go back to another scene, and join it to this end of my
+story, which will complete all my concern with England, at least all
+that I shall bring into this account.
+
+I have hinted at large what I had done for my two sons, one at Messina,
+and the other in the Indies; but I have not gone through the story of my
+two daughters. I was so in danger of being known by one of them, that I
+durst not see her, so as to let her know who I was; and for the other, I
+could not well know how to see her, and own her, and let her see me,
+because she must then know that I would not let her sister know me,
+which would look strange; so that, upon the whole, I resolved to see
+neither of them at all. But Amy managed all that for me; and when she
+had made gentlewomen of them both, by giving them a good, though late
+education, she had like to have blown up the whole case, and herself and
+me too, by an unhappy discovery of herself to the last of them, that is,
+to her who was our cook-maid, and who, as I said before, Amy had been
+obliged to turn away, for fear of the very discovery which now happened.
+I have observed already in what manner Amy managed her by a third
+person; and how the girl, when she was set up for a lady, as above, came
+and visited Amy at my lodgings; after which, Amy going, as was her
+custom, to see the girl's brother (my son) at the honest man's house in
+Spitalfields, both the girls were there, merely by accident, at the same
+time; and the other girl unawares discovered the secret, namely, that
+this was the lady that had done all this for them.
+
+Amy was greatly surprised at it; but as she saw there was no remedy, she
+made a jest of it, and so after that conversed openly, being still
+satisfied that neither of them could make much of it, as long as they
+knew nothing of me. So she took them together one time, and told them
+the history, as she called it, of their mother, beginning at the
+miserable carrying them to their aunt's; she owned she was not their
+mother herself, but described her to them. However, when she said she
+was not their mother, one of them expressed herself very much surprised,
+for the girl had taken up a strong fancy that Amy was really her mother,
+and that she had, for some particular reasons, concealed it from her;
+and therefore, when she told her frankly that she was not her mother,
+the girl fell a-crying, and Amy had much ado to keep life in her. This
+was the girl who was at first my cook-maid in the Pall Mall. When Amy
+had brought her to again a little, and she had recovered her first
+disorder, Amy asked what ailed her? The poor girl hung about her, and
+kissed her, and was in such a passion still, though she was a great
+wench of nineteen or twenty years old, that she could not be brought to
+speak a great while. At last, having recovered her speech, she said
+still, "But oh! Do not say you a'n't my mother! I'm sure you are my
+mother;" and then the girl cried again like to kill herself. Amy could
+not tell what to do with her a good while; she was loth to say again she
+was not her mother, because she would not throw her into a fit of
+crying again; but she went round about a little with her. "Why, child,"
+says she, "why would you have me be your mother? If it be because I am
+so kind to you, be easy, my dear," says Amy; "I'll be as kind to you
+still, as if I was your mother."
+
+"Ay, but," says the girl, "I am sure you are my mother too; and what
+have I done that you won't own me, and that you will not be called my
+mother? Though I am poor, you have made me a gentlewoman," says she,
+"and I won't do anything to disgrace you; besides," added she, "I can
+keep a secret, too, especially for my own mother, sure;" then she calls
+Amy her dear mother, and hung about her neck again, crying still
+vehemently.
+
+This last part of the girl's words alarmed Amy, and, as she told me,
+frighted her terribly; nay, she was so confounded with it, that she was
+not able to govern herself, or to conceal her disorder from the girl
+herself, as you shall hear. Amy was at a full stop, and confused to the
+last degree; and the girl, a sharp jade, turned it upon her. "My dear
+mother," says she, "do not be uneasy about it; I know it all; but do not
+be uneasy, I won't let my sister know a word of it, or my brother
+either, without you giving me leave; but don't disown me now you have
+found me; don't hide yourself from me any longer; I can't bear that,"
+says she, "it will break my heart."
+
+"I think the girl's mad," says Amy; "why, child, I tell thee, if I was
+thy mother I would not disown thee; don't you see I am as kind to you
+as if I was your mother?" Amy might as well have sung a song to a
+kettledrum, as talk to her. "Yes," says the girl, "you are very good to
+me indeed;" and that was enough to make anybody believe she was her
+mother too; but, however, that was not the case, she had other reasons
+to believe, and to know, that she was her mother; and it was a sad thing
+she would not let her call her mother, who was her own child.
+
+Amy was so heart-full with the disturbance of it, that she did not enter
+farther with her into the inquiry, as she would otherwise have done; I
+mean, as to what made the girl so positive; but comes away, and tells me
+the whole story.
+
+I was thunderstruck with the story at first, and much more afterwards,
+as you shall hear; but, I say, I was thunderstruck at first, and amazed,
+and said to Amy, "There must be something or other in it more than we
+know of." But, having examined farther into it, I found the girl had no
+notion of anybody but of Amy; and glad I was that I was not concerned in
+the pretence, and that the girl had no notion of me in it. But even this
+easiness did not continue long; for the next time Amy went to see her,
+she was the same thing, and rather more violent with Amy than she was
+before. Amy endeavoured to pacify her by all the ways imaginable: first,
+she told her she took it ill that she would not believe her; and told
+her, if she would not give over such a foolish whimsey, she would leave
+her to the wide world as she found her.
+
+This put the girl into fits, and she cried ready to kill herself, and
+hung about Amy again like a child. "Why," says Amy, "why can you not be
+easy with me, then, and compose yourself, and let me go on to do you
+good, and show you kindness, as I would do, and as I intend to do? Can
+you think that if I was your mother, I would not tell you so? What
+whimsey is this that possesses your mind?" says Amy. Well, the girl told
+her in a few words (but those few such as frighted Amy out of her wits,
+and me too) that she knew well enough how it was. "I know," says she,
+"when you left ----," naming the village, "where I lived when my father
+went away from us all, that you went over to France; I know that too,
+and who you went with," says the girl; "did not my Lady Roxana come back
+again with you? I know it all well enough; though I was but a child, I
+have heard it all." And thus she run on with such discourse as put Amy
+out of all temper again; and she raved at her like a bedlam, and told
+her she would never come near her any more; she might go a-begging again
+if she would; she'd have nothing to do with her. The girl, a passionate
+wench, told her she knew the worst of it, she could go to service again,
+and if she would not own her own child, she must do as she pleased; then
+she fell into a passion of crying again, as if she would kill herself.
+
+In short, this girl's conduct terrified Amy to the last degree, and me
+too; and was it not that we knew the girl was quite wrong in some
+things, she was yet so right in some other, that it gave me a great deal
+of perplexity; but that which put Amy the most to it, was that the girl
+(my daughter) told her that she (meaning me, her mother) had gone away
+with the jeweller, and into France too; she did not call him the
+jeweller, but with the landlord of the house; who, after her mother fell
+into distress, and that Amy had taken all the children from her, made
+much of her, and afterwards married her.
+
+In short, it was plain the girl had but a broken account of things, but
+yet that she had received some accounts that had a reality in the bottom
+of them, so that, it seems, our first measures, and the amour with the
+jeweller, were not so concealed as I thought they had been; and, it
+seems, came in a broken manner to my sister-in-law, who Amy carried the
+children to, and she made some bustle, it seems, about it. But, as good
+luck was, it was too late, and I was removed and gone, none knew
+whither, or else she would have sent all the children home to me again,
+to be sure.
+
+This we picked out of the girl's discourse, that is to say, Amy did, at
+several times; but it all consisted of broken fragments of stories, such
+as the girl herself had heard so long ago, that she herself could make
+very little of it; only that in the main, that her mother had played the
+whore; had gone away with the gentleman that was landlord of the house;
+that he married her; that she went into France. And, as she had learned
+in my family, where she was a servant, that Mrs. Amy and her Lady Roxana
+had been in France together, so she put all these things together, and
+joining them with the great kindness that Amy now showed her, possessed
+the creature that Amy was really her mother, nor was it possible for Amy
+to conquer it for a long time.
+
+But this, after I had searched into it, as far as by Amy's relation I
+could get an account of it, did not disquiet me half so much as that the
+young slut had got the name of Roxana by the end, and that she knew who
+her Lady Roxana was, and the like; though this, neither, did not hang
+together, for then she would not have fixed upon Amy for her mother. But
+some time after, when Amy had almost persuaded her out of it, and that
+the girl began to be so confounded in her discourses of it, that she
+made neither head nor tail, at last the passionate creature flew out in
+a kind of rage, and said to Amy, that if she was not her mother, Madam
+Roxana was her mother then, for one of them, she was sure, was her
+mother; and then all this that Amy had done for her was by Madam
+Roxana's order. "And I am sure," says she, "it was my Lady Roxana's
+coach that brought the gentlewoman, whoever it was, to my uncle's in
+Spitalfields, for the coachman told me so." Amy fell a-laughing at her
+aloud, as was her usual way; but, as Amy told me, it was but on one
+side of her mouth, for she was so confounded at her discourse, that she
+was ready to sink into the ground; and so was I too when she told it me.
+
+However, Amy brazened her out of it all; told her, "Well, since you
+think you are so high-born as to be my Lady Roxana's daughter, you may
+go to her and claim your kindred, can't you? I suppose," says Amy, "you
+know where to find her?" She said she did not question to find her, for
+she knew where she was gone to live privately; but, though, she might be
+removed again. "For I know how it is," says she, with a kind of a smile
+or a grin; "I know how it all is, well enough."
+
+Amy was so provoked, that she told me, in short, she began to think it
+would be absolutely necessary to murder her. That expression filled me
+with horror, all my blood ran chill in my veins, and a fit of trembling
+seized me, that I could not speak a good while; at last. "What, is the
+devil in you, Amy?" said I. "Nay, nay," says she, "let it be the devil
+or not the devil, if I thought she knew one tittle of your history, I
+would despatch her if she were my own daughter a thousand times." "And
+I," says I in a rage, "as well as I love you, would be the first that
+should put the halter about your neck, and see you hanged with more
+satisfaction than ever I saw you in my life; nay," says I, "you would
+not live to be hanged, I believe I should cut your throat with my own
+hand; I am almost ready to do it," said I, "as 'tis, for your but
+naming the thing." With that, I called her cursed devil, and bade her
+get out of the room.
+
+I think it was the first time that ever I was angry with Amy in all my
+life; and when all was done, though she was a devilish jade in having
+such a thought, yet it was all of it the effect of her excess of
+affection and fidelity to me.
+
+But this thing gave me a terrible shock, for it happened just after I
+was married, and served to hasten my going over to Holland; for I would
+not have been seen, so as to be known by the name of Roxana, no, not for
+ten thousand pounds; it would have been enough to have ruined me to all
+intents and purposes with my husband, and everybody else too; I might as
+well have been the "German princess."
+
+Well, I set Amy to work; and give Amy her due, she set all her wits to
+work to find out which way this girl had her knowledge, but, more
+particularly, how much knowledge she had--that is to say, what she
+really knew, and what she did not know, for this was the main thing with
+me; how she could say she knew who Madam Roxana was, and what notions
+she had of that affair, was very mysterious to me, for it was certain
+she could not have a right notion of me, because she would have it be
+that Amy was her mother.
+
+I scolded heartily at Amy for letting the girl ever know her, that is to
+say, know her in this affair; for that she knew her could not be hid,
+because she, as I might say, served Amy, or rather under Amy, in my
+family, as is said before; but she (Amy) talked with her at first by
+another person, and not by herself; and that secret came out by an
+accident, as I have said above.
+
+Amy was concerned at it as well as I, but could not help it; and though
+it gave us great uneasiness, yet, as there was no remedy, we were bound
+to make as little noise of it as we could, that it might go no farther.
+I bade Amy punish the girl for it, and she did so, for she parted with
+her in a huff, and told her she should see she was not her mother, for
+that she could leave her just where she found her; and seeing she could
+not be content to be served by the kindness of a friend, but that she
+would needs make a mother of her, she would, for the future, be neither
+mother or friend, and so bid her go to service again, and be a drudge as
+she was before.
+
+The poor girl cried most lamentably, but would not be beaten out of it
+still; but that which dumbfoundered Amy more than all the rest was that
+when she had berated the poor girl a long time, and could not beat her out
+of it, and had, as I have observed, threatened to leave her, the girl
+kept to what she said before, and put this turn to it again, that she
+was sure, if Amy wa'n't, my Lady Roxana was her mother, and that she
+would go find her out; adding, that she made no doubt but she could do
+it, for she knew where to inquire the name of her new husband.
+
+Amy came home with this piece of news in her mouth to me. I could easily
+perceive when she came in that she was mad in her mind, and in a rage at
+something or other, and was in great pain to get it out; for when she
+came first in, my husband was in the room. However, Amy going up to
+undress her, I soon made an excuse to follow her, and coming into the
+room, "What the d--l is the matter, Amy?" says I; "I am sure you have
+some bad news." "News," says Amy aloud; "ay, so I have; I think the d--l
+is in that young wench. She'll ruin us all and herself too; there's no
+quieting her." So she went on and told me all the particulars; but sure
+nothing was so astonished as I was when she told me that the girl knew I
+was married, that she knew my husband's name, and would endeavour to
+find me out. I thought I should have sunk down at the very words. In the
+middle of all my amazement, Amy starts up and runs about the room like a
+distracted body. "I must put an end to it, that I will; I can't bear
+it--I must murder her, I'll kill the b----;" and swears by her Maker, in
+the most serious tone in the world, and then repeated it over three or
+four times, walking to and again in the room. "I will, in short, I will
+kill her, if there was not another wench in the world."
+
+"Prithee hold thy tongue, Amy," says I; "why, thou art mad." "Ay, so I
+am," says she, "stark mad; but I'll be the death of her for all that,
+and then I shall be sober again." "But you sha'n't," says I, "you
+sha'n't hurt a hair of her head; why, you ought to be hanged for what
+you have done already, for having resolved on it is doing it; as to the
+guilt of the fact you are a murderer already, as much as if you had done
+it already."
+
+"I know that," says Amy, "and it can be no worse; I'll put you out of
+your pain, and her too; she shall never challenge you for her mother in
+this world, whatever she may in the next." "Well, well," says I, "be
+quiet, and do not talk thus, I can't bear it." So she grew a little
+soberer after a while.
+
+I must acknowledge, the notion of being discovered carried with it so
+many frightful ideas, and hurried my thoughts so much, that I was scarce
+myself any more than Amy, so dreadful a thing is a load of guilt upon
+the mind.
+
+And yet when Amy began the second time to talk thus abominably of
+killing the poor child, of murdering her, and swore by her Maker that
+she would, so that I began to see that she was in earnest, I was farther
+terrified a great deal, and it helped to bring me to myself again in
+other cases.
+
+We laid our heads together then to see if it was possible to discover by
+what means she had learned to talk so, and how she (I mean my girl) came
+to know that her mother had married a husband; but it would not do, the
+girl would acknowledge nothing, and gave but a very imperfect account of
+things still, being disgusted to the last degree with Amy's leaving her
+so abruptly as she did.
+
+Well, Amy went to the house where the boy was; but it was all one, there
+they had only heard a confused story of the lady somebody, they knew not
+who, which the same wench had told them, but they gave no heed to it at
+all. Amy told them how foolishly the girl had acted, and how she had
+carried on the whimsey so far, in spite of all they could say to her;
+that she had taken it so ill, she would see her no more, and so she
+might e'en go to service again if she would, for she (Amy) would have
+nothing to do with her unless she humbled herself and changed her note,
+and that quickly too.
+
+The good old gentleman, who had been the benefactor to them all, was
+greatly concerned at it, and the good woman his wife was grieved beyond
+all expressing, and begged her ladyship (meaning Amy), not to resent it;
+they promised, too, they would talk with her about it, and the old
+gentlewoman added, with some astonishment, "Sure she cannot be such a
+fool but she will be prevailed with to hold her tongue, when she has it
+from your own mouth that you are not her mother, and sees that it
+disobliges your ladyship to have her insist upon it." And so Amy came
+away with some expectation that it would be stopped here.
+
+But the girl was such a fool for all that, and persisted in it
+obstinately, notwithstanding all they could say to her; nay, her sister
+begged and entreated her not to play the fool, for that it would ruin
+her too, and that the lady (meaning Amy) would abandon them both.
+
+Well, notwithstanding this, she insisted, I say, upon it, and which was
+worse, the longer it lasted the more she began to drop Amy's ladyship,
+and would have it that the Lady Roxana was her mother, and that she had
+made some inquiries about it, and did not doubt but she should find her
+out.
+
+When it was come to this, and we found there was nothing to be done with
+the girl, but that she was so obstinately bent upon the search after me,
+that she ventured to forfeit all she had in view; I say, when I found it
+was come to this, I began to be more serious in my preparations of my
+going beyond sea, and particularly, it gave me some reason to fear that
+there was something in it. But the following accident put me beside all
+my measures, and struck me into the greatest confusion that ever I was
+in my life.
+
+I was so near going abroad that my spouse and I had taken measures for
+our going off; and because I would be sure not to go too public, but so
+as to take away all possibility of being seen, I had made some exception
+to my spouse against going in the ordinary public passage boats. My
+pretence to him was the promiscuous crowds in those vessels, want of
+convenience, and the like. So he took the hint, and found me out an
+English merchant-ship, which was bound for Rotterdam, and getting soon
+acquainted with the master, he hired his whole ship, that is to say, his
+great cabin, for I do not mean his ship for freight, that so we had all
+the conveniences possible for our passage; and all things being near
+ready, he brought home the captain one day to dinner with him, that I
+might see him, and be acquainted a little with him. So we came after
+dinner to talk of the ship and the conveniences on board, and the
+captain pressed me earnestly to come on board and see the ship,
+intimating that he would treat us as well as he could; and in discourse
+I happened to say I hoped he had no other passengers. He said no, he had
+not; but, he said, his wife had courted him a good while to let her go
+over to Holland with him, for he always used that trade, but he never
+could think of venturing all he had in one bottom; but if I went with
+him he thought to take her and her kinswoman along with him this voyage,
+that they might both wait upon me; and so added, that if we would do him
+the honour to dine on board the next day, he would bring his wife on
+board, the better to make us welcome.
+
+Who now could have believed the devil had any snare at the bottom of all
+this? or that I was in any danger on such an occasion, so remote and out
+of the way as this was? But the event was the oddest that could be
+thought of. As it happened, Amy was not at home when we accepted this
+invitation, and so she was left out of the company; but instead of Amy,
+we took our honest, good-humoured, never-to-be-omitted friend the
+Quaker, one of the best creatures that ever lived, sure; and who,
+besides a thousand good qualities unmixed with one bad one, was
+particularly excellent for being the best company in the world; though
+I think I had carried Amy too, if she had not been engaged in this
+unhappy girl's affair. For on a sudden the girl was lost, and no news
+was to be heard of her; and Amy had haunted her to every place she could
+think of, that it was likely to find her in; but all the news she could
+hear of her was, that she was gone to an old comrade's house of hers,
+which she called sister, and who was married to a master of a ship, who
+lived at Redriff; and even this the jade never told me. It seems, when
+this girl was directed by Amy to get her some breeding, go to the
+boarding-school, and the like, she was recommended to a boarding-school
+at Camberwell, and there she contracted an acquaintance with a young
+lady (so they are all called), her bedfellow, that they called sisters,
+and promised never to break off their acquaintance.
+
+But judge you what an unaccountable surprise I must be in when I came on
+board the ship and was brought into the captain's cabin, or what they
+call it, the great cabin of the ship, to see his lady or wife, and
+another young person with her, who, when I came to see her near hand,
+was my old cook-maid in the Pall Mall, and, as appeared by the sequel of
+the story, was neither more or less than my own daughter. That I knew
+her was out of doubt; for though she had not had opportunity to see me
+very often, yet I had often seen her, as I must needs, being in my own
+family so long.
+
+If ever I had need of courage, and a full presence of mind, it was now;
+it was the only valuable secret in the world to me, all depended upon
+this occasion; if the girl knew me, I was undone; and to discover any
+surprise or disorder had been to make her know me, or guess it, and
+discover herself.
+
+I was once going to feign a swooning and fainting away, and so falling
+on the ground, or floor, put them all into a hurry and fright, and by
+that means to get an opportunity to be continually holding something to
+my nose to smell to, and so hold my hand or my handkerchief, or both,
+before my mouth; then pretend I could not bear the smell of the ship, or
+the closeness of the cabin. But that would have been only to remove into
+a clearer air upon the quarter-deck, where we should, with it, have had
+a clearer light too; and if I had pretended the smell of the ship, it
+would have served only to have carried us all on shore to the captain's
+house, which was hard by; for the ship lay so close to the shore, that
+we only walked over a plank to go on board, and over another ship which
+lay within her; so this not appearing feasible, and the thought not
+being two minutes old, there was no time, for the two ladies rose up,
+and we saluted, so that I was bound to come so near my girl as to kiss
+her, which I would not have done had it been possible to have avoided
+it, but there was no room to escape.
+
+I cannot but take notice here, that notwithstanding there was a secret
+horror upon my mind, and I was ready to sink when I came close to her to
+salute her, yet it was a secret inconceivable pleasure to me when I
+kissed her, to know that I kissed my own child, my own flesh and blood,
+born of my body, and who I had never kissed since I took the fatal
+farewell of them all, with a million of tears, and a heart almost dead
+with grief, when Amy and the good woman took them all away, and went
+with them to Spitalfields. No pen can describe, no words can express, I
+say, the strange impression which this thing made upon my spirits. I
+felt something shoot through my blood, my heart fluttered, my head
+flashed, and was dizzy, and all within me, as I thought, turned about,
+and much ado I had not to abandon myself to an excess of passion at the
+first sight of her, much more when my lips touched her face. I thought I
+must have taken her in my arms and kissed her again a thousand times,
+whether I would or no.
+
+But I roused up my judgment, and shook it off, and with infinite
+uneasiness in my mind, I sat down. You will not wonder if upon this
+surprise I was not conversable for some minutes, and that the disorder
+had almost discovered itself. I had a complication of severe things upon
+me, I could not conceal my disorder without the utmost difficulty, and
+yet upon my concealing it depended the whole of my prosperity; so I used
+all manner of violence with myself to prevent the mischief which was at
+the door.
+
+Well, I saluted her, but as I went first forward to the captain's lady,
+who was at the farther end of the cabin, towards the light, I had the
+occasion offered to stand with my back to the light, when I turned
+about to her, who stood more on my left hand, so that she had not a fair
+sight of me, though I was so near her. I trembled, and knew neither what
+I did or said, I was in the utmost extremity, between so many particular
+circumstances as lay upon me, for I was to conceal my disorder from
+everybody at the utmost peril, and at the same time expected everybody
+would discern it. I was to expect she would discover that she knew me,
+and yet was, by all means possible, to prevent it. I was to conceal
+myself, if possible, and yet had not the least room to do anything
+towards it. In short, there was no retreat, no shifting anything off, no
+avoiding or preventing her having a full sight of me, nor was there any
+counterfeiting my voice, for then my husband would have perceived it. In
+short, there was not the least circumstance that offered me any
+assistance, or any favourable thing to help me in this exigence.
+
+After I had been upon the rack for near half-an-hour, during which I
+appeared stiff and reserved, and a little too formal, my spouse and the
+captain fell into discourses about the ship and the sea, and business
+remote from us women; and by-and-by the captain carried him out upon the
+quarter-deck, and left us all by ourselves in the great cabin. Then we
+began to be a little freer one with another, and I began to be a little
+revived by a sudden fancy of my own--namely, I thought I perceived that
+the girl did not know me, and the chief reason of my having such a
+notion was because I did not perceive the least disorder in her
+countenance, or the least change in her carriage, no confusion, no
+hesitation in her discourse; nor, which I had my eye particularly upon,
+did I observe that she fixed her eyes much upon me, that is to say, not
+singling me out to look steadily at me, as I thought would have been the
+case, but that she rather singled out my friend the Quaker, and chatted
+with her on several things; but I observed, too, that it was all about
+indifferent matters.
+
+This greatly encouraged me, and I began to be a little cheerful; but I
+was knocked down again as with a thunderclap, when turning to the
+captain's wife, and discoursing of me, she said to her, "Sister, I
+cannot but think my lady to be very much like such a person." Then she
+named the person, and the captain's wife said she thought so too. The
+girl replied again, she was sure she had seen me before, but she could
+not recollect where; I answered (though her speech was not directed to
+me) that I fancied she had not seen me before in England, but asked if
+she had lived in Holland. She said, No, no, she had never been out of
+England, and I added, that she could not then have known me in England,
+unless it was very lately, for I had lived at Rotterdam a great while.
+This carried me out of that part of the broil pretty well, and to make
+it go off better, when a little Dutch boy came into the cabin, who
+belonged to the captain, and who I easily perceived to be Dutch, I
+jested and talked Dutch to him, and was merry about the boy, that is to
+say, as merry as the consternation I was still in would let me be.
+
+However, I began to be thoroughly convinced by this time that the girl
+did not know me, which was an infinite satisfaction to me, or, at least,
+that though she had some notion of me, yet that she did not think
+anything about my being who I was, and which, perhaps, she would have
+been as glad to have known as I would have been surprised if she had;
+indeed, it was evident that, had she suspected anything of the truth,
+she would not have been able to have concealed it.
+
+Thus this meeting went off, and, you may be sure, I was resolved, if
+once I got off of it, she should never see me again to revive her fancy;
+but I was mistaken there too, as you shall hear. After we had been on
+board, the captain's lady carried us home to her house, which was but
+just on shore, and treated us there again very handsomely, and made us
+promise that we would come again and see her before we went to concert
+our affairs for the voyage and the like, for she assured us that both
+she and her sister went the voyage at that time for our company, and I
+thought to myself, "Then you'll never go the voyage at all;" for I saw
+from that moment that it would be no way convenient for my ladyship to
+go with them, for that frequent conversation might bring me to her mind,
+and she would certainly claim her kindred to me in a few days, as indeed
+would have been the case.
+
+It is hardly possible for me to conceive what would have been our part
+in this affair had my woman Amy gone with me on board this ship; it had
+certainly blown up the whole affair, and I must for ever after have been
+this girl's vassal, that is to say, have let her into the secret, and
+trusted to her keeping it too, or have been exposed and undone. The very
+thought filled me with horror.
+
+But I was not so unhappy neither, as it fell out, for Amy was not with
+us, and that was my deliverance indeed; yet we had another chance to get
+over still. As I resolved to put off the voyage, so I resolved to put
+off the visit, you may be sure, going upon this principle, namely, that
+I was fixed in it that the girl had seen her last of me, and should
+never see me more.
+
+However, to bring myself well off, and, withal, to see, if I could, a
+little farther into the matter, I sent my friend the Quaker to the
+captain's lady to make the visit promised, and to make my excuse that I
+could not possibly wait on her, for that I was very much out of order;
+and in the end of the discourse I bade her insinuate to them that she
+was afraid I should not be able to get ready to go the voyage as soon as
+the captain would be obliged to go, and that perhaps we might put it off
+to his next voyage. I did not let the Quaker into any other reason for
+it than that I was indisposed; and not knowing what other face to put
+upon that part, I made her believe that I thought I was a-breeding.
+
+It was easy to put that into her head, and she of course hinted to the
+captain's lady that she found me so very ill that she was afraid I would
+miscarry, and then, to be sure, I could not think of going.
+
+She went, and she managed that part very dexterously, as I knew she
+would, though she knew not a word of the grand reason of my
+indisposition; but I was all sunk and dead-hearted again when she told
+me she could not understand the meaning of one thing in her visit,
+namely, that the young woman, as she called her, that was with the
+captain's lady, and who she called sister, was most impertinently
+inquisitive into things; as who I was? how long I had been in England?
+where I had lived? and the like; and that, above all the rest, she
+inquired if I did not live once at the other end of the town.
+
+"I thought her inquiries so out of the way," says the honest Quaker,
+"that I gave her not the least satisfaction; but as I saw by thy answers
+on board the ship, when she talked of thee, that thou didst not incline
+to let her be acquainted with thee, so I was resolved that she should
+not be much the wiser for me; and when she asked me if thou ever
+lived'st here or there, I always said, No, but that thou wast a Dutch
+lady, and was going home again to thy family, and lived abroad."
+
+I thanked her very heartily for that part, and indeed she served me in
+it more than I let her know she did: in a word, she thwarted the girl so
+cleverly, that if she had known the whole affair she could not have
+done it better.
+
+But, I must acknowledge, all this put me upon the rack again, and I was
+quite discouraged, not at all doubting but that the jade had a right
+scent of things, and that she knew and remembered my face, but had
+artfully concealed her knowledge of me till she might perhaps do it more
+to my disadvantage. I told all this to Amy, for she was all the relief I
+had. The poor soul (Amy) was ready to hang herself, that, as she said,
+she had been the occasion of it all; and that if I was ruined (which was
+the word I always used to her), she had ruined me; and she tormented
+herself about it so much, that I was sometimes fain to comfort her and
+myself too.
+
+What Amy vexed herself at was, chiefly, that she should be surprised so
+by the girl, as she called her; I mean surprised into a discovery of
+herself to the girl; which indeed was a false step of Amy's, and so I
+had often told her. But it was to no purpose to talk of that now, the
+business was, how to get clear of the girl's suspicions, and of the girl
+too, for it looked more threatening every day than other; and if I was
+uneasy at what Amy had told me of her rambling and rattling to her
+(Amy), I had a thousand times as much reason to be uneasy now, when she
+had chopped upon me so unhappily as this; and not only had seen my face,
+but knew too where I lived, what name I went by, and the like.
+
+And I am not come to the worst of it yet neither, for a few days after
+my friend the Quaker had made her visit, and excused me on the account
+of indisposition, as if they had done it in over and above kindness,
+because they had been told I was not well, they come both directly to my
+lodgings to visit me: the captain's wife and my daughter (who she called
+sister), and the captain, to show them the place; the captain only
+brought them to the door, put them in, and went away upon some business.
+
+Had not the kind Quaker, in a lucky moment, come running in before them,
+they had not only clapped in upon me, in the parlour, as it had been a
+surprise, but which would have been a thousand times worse, had seen Amy
+with me; I think if that had happened, I had had no remedy but to take
+the girl by herself, and have made myself known to her, which would have
+been all distraction.
+
+But the Quaker, a lucky creature to me, happened to see them come to the
+door, before they rung the bell, and instead of going to let them in,
+came running in with some confusion in her countenance, and told me who
+was a-coming; at which Amy run first and I after her, and bid the Quaker
+come up as soon as she had let them in.
+
+I was going to bid her deny me, but it came into my thoughts, that
+having been represented so much out of order, it would have looked very
+odd; besides, I knew the honest Quaker, though she would do anything
+else for me, would not lie for me, and it would have been hard to have
+desired it of her.
+
+After she had let them in, and brought them into the parlour, she came
+up to Amy and I, who were hardly out of the fright, and yet were
+congratulating one another that Amy was not surprised again.
+
+They paid their visit in form, and I received them as formally, but took
+occasion two or three times to hint that I was so ill that I was afraid
+I should not be able to go to Holland, at least not so soon as the
+captain must go off; and made my compliment how sorry I was to be
+disappointed of the advantage of their company and assistance in the
+voyage; and sometimes I talked as if I thought I might stay till the
+captain returned, and would be ready to go again; then the Quaker put
+in, that then I might be too far gone, meaning with child, that I should
+not venture at all; and then (as if she should be pleased with it)
+added, she hoped I would stay and lie in at her house; so as this
+carried its own face with it, 'twas well enough.
+
+But it was now high time to talk of this to my husband, which, however,
+was not the greatest difficulty before me; for after this and other chat
+had taken up some time, the young fool began her tattle again; and two
+or three times she brought it in, that I was so like a lady that she had
+the honour to know at the other end of the town, that she could not put
+that lady out of her mind when I was by, and once or twice I fancied the
+girl was ready to cry; by and by she was at it again, and at last I
+plainly saw tears in her eyes; upon which I asked her if the lady was
+dead, because she seemed to be in some concern for her. She made me much
+easier by her answer than ever she did before; she said she did not
+really know, but she believed she was dead.
+
+This, I say, a little relieved my thoughts, but I was soon down again;
+for, after some time, the jade began to grow talkative; and as it was
+plain that she had told all that her head could retain of Roxana, and
+the days of joy which I had spent at that part of the town, another
+accident had like to have blown us all up again.
+
+I was in a kind of dishabille when they came, having on a loose robe,
+like a morning-gown, but much after the Italian way; and I had not
+altered it when I went up, only dressed my head a little; and as I had
+been represented as having been lately very ill, so the dress was
+becoming enough for a chamber.
+
+This morning vest, or robe, call it as you please, was more shaped to
+the body than we wear them since, showing the body in its true shape,
+and perhaps a little too plainly if it had been to be worn where any men
+were to come; but among ourselves it was well enough, especially for hot
+weather; the colour was green, figured, and the stuff a French damask,
+very rich.
+
+This gown or vest put the girl's tongue a running again, and her sister,
+as she called her, prompted it; for as they both admired my vest, and
+were taken up much about the beauty of the dress, the charming damask,
+the noble trimming, and the like, my girl puts in a word to the sister
+(captain's wife), "This is just such a thing as I told you," says she,
+"the lady danced in." "What," says the captain's wife, "the Lady Roxana
+that you told me of? Oh! that's a charming story," says she, "tell it my
+lady." I could not avoid saying so too, though from my soul I wished her
+in heaven for but naming it; nay, I won't say but if she had been
+carried t'other way it had been much as one to me, if I could but have
+been rid of her, and her story too, for when she came to describe the
+Turkish dress, it was impossible but the Quaker, who was a sharp,
+penetrating creature, should receive the impression in a more dangerous
+manner than the girl, only that indeed she was not so dangerous a
+person; for if she had known it all, I could more freely have trusted
+her than I could the girl, by a great deal, nay, I should have been
+perfectly easy in her.
+
+However, as I have said, her talk made me dreadfully uneasy, and the
+more when the captain's wife mentioned but the name of Roxana. What my
+face might do towards betraying me I knew not, because I could not see
+myself, but my heart beat as if it would have jumped out at my mouth,
+and my passion was so great, that, for want of vent, I thought I should
+have burst. In a word, I was in a kind of a silent rage, for the force I
+was under of restraining my passion was such as I never felt the like
+of. I had no vent, nobody to open myself to, or to make a complaint to,
+for my relief; I durst not leave the room by any means, for then she
+would have told all the story in my absence, and I should have been
+perpetually uneasy to know what she had said, or had not said; so that,
+in a word, I was obliged to sit and hear her tell all the story of
+Roxana, that is to say, of myself, and not know at the same time whether
+she was in earnest or in jest, whether she knew me or no; or, in short,
+whether I was to be exposed, or not exposed.
+
+She began only in general with telling where she lived, what a place she
+had of it, how gallant a company her lady had always had in the house;
+how they used to sit up all night in the house gaming and dancing; what
+a fine lady her mistress was, and what a vast deal of money the upper
+servants got; as for her, she said, her whole business was in the next
+house, so that she got but little, except one night that there was
+twenty guineas given to be divided among the servants, when, she said,
+she got two guineas and a half for her share.
+
+She went on, and told them how many servants there was, and how they
+were ordered; but, she said, there was one Mrs. Amy who was over them
+all; and that she, being the lady's favourite, got a great deal. She did
+not know, she said, whether Amy was her Christian name or her surname,
+but she supposed it was her surname; that they were told she got
+threescore pieces of gold at one time, being the same night that the
+rest of the servants had the twenty guineas divided among them.
+
+I put in at that word, and said it was a vast deal to give away. "Why,"
+says I, "it was a portion for a servant." "O madam!" says she, "it was
+nothing to what she got afterwards; we that were servants hated her
+heartily for it; that is to say, we wished it had been our lot in her
+stead." Then I said again, "Why, it was enough to get her a good
+husband, and settle her for the world, if she had sense to manage it."
+"So it might, to be sure, madam," says she, "for we were told she laid
+up above £500; but, I suppose, Mrs. Amy was too sensible that her
+character would require a good portion to put her off."
+
+"Oh," said I, "if that was the case it was another thing."
+
+"Nay," says she, "I don't know, but they talked very much of a young
+lord that was very great with her."
+
+"And pray what came of her at last?" said I, for I was willing to hear a
+little (seeing she would talk of it) what she had to say, as well of Amy
+as of myself.
+
+"I don't know, madam," said she, "I never heard of her for several
+years, till t'other day I happened to see her."
+
+"Did you indeed?" says I (and made mighty strange of it); "what! and in
+rags, it may be," said I; "that's often the end of such creatures."
+
+"Just the contrary, madam," says she. "She came to visit an acquaintance
+of mine, little thinking, I suppose, to see me, and, I assure you, she
+came in her coach."
+
+"In her coach!" said I; "upon my word, she had made her market then; I
+suppose she made hay while the sun shone. Was she married, pray?"
+
+"I believe she had been married, madam," says she, "but it seems she had
+been at the East Indies; and if she was married, it was there, to be
+sure. I think she said she had good luck in the Indies."
+
+"That is, I suppose," said I, "had buried her husband there."
+
+"I understood it so, madam," says she, "and that she had got his
+estate."
+
+"Was that her good luck?" said I; "it might be good to her, as to the
+money indeed, but it was but the part of a jade to call it good luck."
+
+Thus far our discourse of Mrs. Amy went, and no farther, for she knew no
+more of her; but then the Quaker unhappily, though undesignedly, put in
+a question, which the honest good-humoured creature would have been far
+from doing if she had known that I had carried on the discourse of Amy
+on purpose to drop Roxana out of the conversation.
+
+But I was not to be made easy too soon. The Quaker put in, "But I think
+thou saidst something was behind of thy mistress; what didst thou call
+her? Roxana, was it not? Pray, what became of her?"
+
+"Ay, ay, Roxana," says the captain's wife; "pray, sister, let's hear the
+story of Roxana; it will divert my lady, I'm sure."
+
+"That's a damned lie," said I to myself; "if you knew how little 't
+would divert me, you would have too much advantage over me." Well, I saw
+no remedy, but the story must come on, so I prepared to hear the worst
+of it.
+
+"Roxana!" says she, "I know not what to say of her; she was so much
+above us, and so seldom seen, that we could know little of her but by
+report; but we did sometimes see her too; she was a charming woman
+indeed, and the footmen used to say that she was to be sent for to
+court."
+
+"To court!" said I; "why, she was at court, wasn't she? the Pall Mall is
+not far from Whitehall."
+
+"Yes, madam," says she, "but I mean another way."
+
+"I understand thee," says the Quaker; "thou meanest, I suppose, to be
+mistress to the king."
+
+"Yes, madam," said she.
+
+I cannot help confessing what a reserve of pride still was left in me;
+and though I dreaded the sequel of the story, yet when she talked how
+handsome and how fine a lady this Roxana was, I could not help being
+pleased and tickled with it, and put in questions two or three times of
+how handsome she was; and was she really so fine a woman as they talked
+of; and the like, on purpose to hear her repeat what the people's
+opinion of me was, and how I had behaved.
+
+"Indeed," says she, at last, "she was a most beautiful creature as ever
+I saw in my life." "But then," said I, "you never had the opportunity to
+see her but when she was set out to the best advantage."
+
+"Yes, yes, madam," says she, "I have seen her several times in her
+_déshabille_. And I can assure you, she was a very fine woman; and that
+which was more still, everybody said she did not paint."
+
+This was still agreeable to me one way; but there was a devilish sting
+in the tail of it all, and this last article was one; wherein she said
+she had seen me several times in my _déshabille_. This put me in mind
+that then she must certainly know me, and it would come out at last;
+which was death to me but to think of.
+
+"Well, but, sister," says the captain's wife, "tell my lady about the
+ball; that's the best of all the story; and of Roxana's dancing in a
+fine outlandish dress."
+
+"That's one of the brightest parts of her story indeed," says the girl.
+"The case was this: we had balls and meetings in her ladyship's
+apartments every week almost; but one time my lady invited all the
+nobles to come such a time, and she would give them a ball; and there
+was a vast crowd indeed," says she.
+
+"I think you said the king was there, sister, didn't you?"
+
+"No, madam," says she, "that was the second time, when they said the
+king had heard how finely the Turkish lady danced, and that he was
+there to see her; but the king, if his Majesty was there, came
+disguised."
+
+"That is, what they call incog.," says my friend the Quaker; "thou canst
+not think the king would disguise himself." "Yes," says the girl, "it
+was so; he did not come in public with his guards, but we all knew which
+was the king well enough, that is to say, which they said was the king."
+
+"Well," says the captain's wife, "about the Turkish dress; pray let us
+hear that." "Why," says she, "my lady sat in a fine little drawing-room,
+which opened into the great room, and where she received the compliments
+of the company; and when the dancing began, a great lord," says she, "I
+forget who they called him (but he was a very great lord or duke, I
+don't know which), took her out, and danced with her; but after a while,
+my lady on a sudden shut the drawing-room, and ran upstairs with her
+woman, Mrs. Amy; and though she did not stay long (for I suppose she had
+contrived it all beforehand), she came down dressed in the strangest
+figure that ever I saw in my life; but it was exceeding fine."
+
+Here she went on to describe the dress, as I have done already; but did
+it so exactly, that I was surprised at the manner of her telling it;
+there was not a circumstance of it left out.
+
+I was now under a new perplexity, for this young slut gave so complete
+an account of everything in the dress, that my friend the Quaker
+coloured at it, and looked two or three times at me, to see if I did not
+do so too; for (as she told me afterwards) she immediately perceived it
+was the same dress that she had seen me have on, as I have said before.
+However, as she saw I took no notice of it, she kept her thought private
+to herself; and I did so too, as well as I could.
+
+I put in two or three times, that she had a good memory, that could be
+so particular in every part of such a thing.
+
+"Oh, madam!" says she, "we that were servants, stood by ourselves in a
+corner, but so as we could see more than some strangers; besides," says
+she, "it was all our conversation for several days in the family, and
+what one did not observe another did." "Why," says I to her, "this was
+no Persian dress; only, I suppose your lady was some French comedian,
+that is to say, a stage Amazon, that put on a counterfeit dress to
+please the company, such as they used in the play of Tamerlane at Paris,
+or some such."
+
+"No, indeed, madam," says she, "I assure you my lady was no actress; she
+was a fine modest lady, fit to be a princess; everybody said if she was
+a mistress, she was fit to be a mistress to none but the king; and they
+talked her up for the king as if it had really been so. Besides, madam,"
+says she, "my lady danced a Turkish dance; all the lords and gentry said
+it was so; and one of them swore he had seen it danced in Turkey
+himself, so that it could not come from the theatre at Paris; and then
+the name Roxana," says she, "was a Turkish name."
+
+"Well," said I, "but that was not your lady's name, I suppose?"
+
+"No, no, madam," said she, "I know that. I know my lady's name and
+family very well; Roxana was not her name, that's true, indeed."
+
+Here she run me aground again, for I durst not ask her what was Roxana's
+real name, lest she had really dealt with the devil, and had boldly
+given my own name in for answer; so that I was still more and more
+afraid that the girl had really gotten the secret somewhere or other;
+though I could not imagine neither how that could be.
+
+In a word, I was sick of the discourse, and endeavoured many ways to put
+an end to it, but it was impossible; for the captain's wife, who called
+her sister, prompted her, and pressed her to tell it, most ignorantly
+thinking that it would be a pleasant tale to all of us.
+
+Two or three times the Quaker put in, that this Lady Roxana had a good
+stock of assurance; and that it was likely, if she had been in Turkey,
+she had lived with, or been kept by, some great bashaw there. But still
+she would break in upon all such discourse, and fly out into the most
+extravagant praises of her mistress, the famed Roxana. I run her down as
+some scandalous woman; that it was not possible to be otherwise; but she
+would not hear of it; her lady was a person of such and such
+qualifications that nothing but an angel was like her, to be sure; and
+yet, after all she could say, her own account brought her down to this,
+that, in short, her lady kept little less than a gaming ordinary; or, as
+it would be called in the times since that, an assembly for gallantry
+and play.
+
+All this while I was very uneasy, as I said before, and yet the whole
+story went off again without any discovery, only that I seemed a little
+concerned that she should liken me to this gay lady, whose character I
+pretended to run down very much, even upon the foot of her own relation.
+
+But I was not at the end of my mortifications yet, neither, for now my
+innocent Quaker threw out an unhappy expression, which put me upon the
+tenters again. Says she to me, "This lady's habit, I fancy, is just such
+a one as thine, by the description of it;" and then turning to the
+captain's wife, says she, "I fancy my friend has a finer Turkish or
+Persian dress, a great deal." "Oh," says the girl, "'tis impossible to
+be finer; my lady's," says she, "was all covered with gold and diamonds;
+her hair and head-dress, I forget the name they gave it," said she,
+"shone like the stars, there were so many jewels in it."
+
+I never wished my good friend the Quaker out of my company before now;
+but, indeed, I would have given some guineas to have been rid of her
+just now; for beginning to be curious in the comparing the two dresses,
+she innocently began a description of mine; and nothing terrified me so
+much as the apprehension lest she should importune me to show it, which
+I was resolved I would never agree to. But before it came to this, she
+pressed my girl to describe the tyhaia, or head-dress, which she did so
+cleverly that the Quaker could not help saying mine was just such a one;
+and after several other similitudes, all very vexatious to me, out comes
+the kind motion to me to let the ladies see my dress; and they joined
+their eager desires of it, even to importunity.
+
+I desired to be excused, though I had little to say at first why I
+declined it; but at last it came into my head to say it was packed up
+with my other clothes that I had least occasion for, in order to be sent
+on board the captain's ship; but that if we lived to come to Holland
+together (which, by the way, I resolved should never happen), then, I
+told them, at unpacking my clothes, they should see me dressed in it;
+but they must not expect I should dance in it, like the Lady Roxana in
+all her fine things.
+
+This carried it off pretty well; and getting over this, got over most of
+the rest, and I began to be easy again; and, in a word, that I may
+dismiss the story too, as soon as may be, I got rid at last of my
+visitors, who I had wished gone two hours sooner than they intended it.
+
+As soon as they were gone, I ran up to Amy, and gave vent to my passions
+by telling her the whole story, and letting her see what mischiefs one
+false step of hers had like, unluckily, to have involved us all in;
+more, perhaps, than we could ever have lived to get through. Amy was
+sensible of it enough, and was just giving her wrath a vent another way,
+viz., by calling the poor girl all the damned jades and fools (and
+sometimes worse names) that she could think of, in the middle of which
+up comes my honest, good Quaker, and put an end to our discourse. The
+Quaker came in smiling (for she was always soberly cheerful). "Well,"
+says she, "thou art delivered at last; I come to joy thee of it; I
+perceived thou wert tired grievously of thy visitors."
+
+"Indeed," says I, "so I was; that foolish young girl held us all in a
+Canterbury story; I thought she would never have done with it." "Why,
+truly, I thought she was very careful to let thee know she was but a
+cook-maid." "Ay," says I, "and at a gaming-house, or gaming-ordinary,
+and at t'other end of the town too; all which (by the way) she might
+know would add very little to her good name among us citizens."
+
+"I can't think," says the Quaker, "but she had some other drift in that
+long discourse; there's something else in her head," says she, "I am
+satisfied of that." Thought I, "Are you satisfied of it? I am sure I am
+the less satisfied for that; at least 'tis but small satisfaction to me
+to hear you say so. What can this be?" says I; "and when will my
+uneasiness have an end?" But this was silent, and to myself, you may be
+sure. But in answer to my friend the Quaker, I returned by asking her a
+question or two about it; as what she thought was in it, and why she
+thought there was anything in it. "For," says I, "she can have nothing
+in it relating to me."
+
+"Nay," says the kind Quaker, "if she had any view towards thee, that's
+no business of mine; and I should be far from desiring thee to inform
+me."
+
+This alarmed me again; not that I feared trusting the good-humoured
+creature with it, if there had been anything of just suspicion in her;
+but this affair was a secret I cared not to communicate to anybody.
+However, I say, this alarmed me a little; for as I had concealed
+everything from her, I was willing to do so still; but as she could not
+but gather up abundance of things from the girl's discourse, which
+looked towards me, so she was too penetrating to be put off with such
+answers as might stop another's mouth. Only there was this double
+felicity in it, first, that she was not inquisitive to know or find
+anything out, and not dangerous if she had known the whole story. But,
+as I say, she could not but gather up several circumstances from the
+girl's discourse, as particularly the name of Amy, and the several
+descriptions of the Turkish dress which my friend the Quaker had seen,
+and taken so much notice of, as I have said above.
+
+As for that, I might have turned it off by jesting with Amy, and asking
+her who she lived with before she came to live with me. But that would
+not do, for we had unhappily anticipated that way of talking, by having
+often talked how long Amy had lived with me; and, which was still worse,
+by having owned formerly that I had had lodgings in the Pall Mall; so
+that all those things corresponded too well. There was only one thing
+that helped me out with the Quaker, and that was the girl's having
+reported how rich Mrs. Amy was grown, and that she kept her coach. Now,
+as there might be many more Mrs. Amys besides mine, so it was not likely
+to be my Amy, because she was far from such a figure as keeping her
+coach; and this carried it off from the suspicions which the good
+friendly Quaker might have in her head.
+
+But as to what she imagined the girl had in her head, there lay more
+real difficulty in that part a great deal, and I was alarmed at it very
+much, for my friend the Quaker told me that she observed the girl was in
+a great passion when she talked of the habit, and more when I had been
+importuned to show her mine, but declined it. She said she several times
+perceived her to be in disorder, and to restrain herself with great
+difficulty; and once or twice she muttered to herself that she had found
+it out, or that she would find it out, she could not tell whether; and
+that she often saw tears in her eyes; that when I said my suit of
+Turkish clothes was put up, but that she should see it when we arrived
+in Holland, she heard her say softly she would go over on purpose then.
+
+After she had ended her observations, I added: "I observed, too, that
+the girl talked and looked oddly, and that she was mighty inquisitive,
+but I could not imagine what it was she aimed at." "Aimed at," says the
+Quaker, "'tis plain to me what she aims at. She believes thou art the
+same Lady Roxana that danced in the Turkish vest, but she is not
+certain." "Does she believe so?" says I; "if I had thought that, I would
+have put her out of her pain." "Believe so!" says the Quaker; "yes, and
+I began to think so too, and should have believed so still, if thou
+had'st not satisfied me to the contrary by thy taking no notice of it,
+and by what thou hast said since." "Should you have believed so?" said I
+warmly; "I am very sorry for that. Why, would you have taken me for an
+actress, or a French stage-player?" "No," says the good kind creature,
+"thou carriest it too far; as soon as thou madest thy reflections upon
+her, I knew it could not be; but who could think any other when she
+described the Turkish dress which thou hast here, with the head-tire and
+jewels, and when she named thy maid Amy too, and several other
+circumstances concurring? I should certainly have believed it," said
+she, "if thou hadst not contradicted it; but as soon as I heard thee
+speak, I concluded it was otherwise." "That was very kind," said I, "and
+I am obliged to you for doing me so much justice; it is more, it seems,
+than that young talking creature does." "Nay," says the Quaker, "indeed
+she does not do thee justice; for she as certainly believes it still as
+ever she did." "Does she?" said I. "Ay," says the Quaker; "and I warrant
+thee she'll make thee another visit about it." "Will she?" said I;
+"then I believe I shall downright affront her." "No, thou shalt not
+affront her," says she (full of her good-humour and temper), "I'll take
+that part off thy hands, for I'll affront her for thee, and not let her
+see thee." I thought that was a very kind offer, but was at a loss how
+she would be able to do it; and the thought of seeing her there again
+half distracted me, not knowing what temper she would come in, much less
+what manner to receive her in; but my fast friend and constant
+comforter, the Quaker, said she perceived the girl was impertinent, and
+that I had no inclination to converse with her, and she was resolved I
+should not be troubled with her. But I shall have occasion to say more
+of this presently, for this girl went farther yet than I thought she
+had.
+
+It was now time, as I said before, to take measures with my husband, in
+order to put off my voyage; so I fell into talk with him one morning as
+he was dressing, and while I was in bed. I pretended I was very ill; and
+as I had but too easy a way to impose upon him, because he so absolutely
+believed everything I said, so I managed my discourse as that he should
+understand by it I was a-breeding, though I did not tell him so.
+
+However, I brought it about so handsomely that, before he went out of
+the room, he came and sat down by my bedside, and began to talk very
+seriously to me upon the subject of my being so every day ill, and
+that, as he hoped I was with child, he would have me consider well of
+it, whether I had not best alter my thoughts of the voyage to Holland;
+for that being sea-sick, and which was worse, if a storm should happen,
+might be very dangerous to me. And after saying abundance of the kindest
+things that the kindest of husbands in the world could say, he concluded
+that it was his request to me, that I would not think any more of going
+till after all should be over; but that I would, on the contrary,
+prepare to lie-in where I was, and where I knew, as well as he, I could
+be very well provided, and very well assisted.
+
+This was just what I wanted, for I had, as you have heard, a thousand
+good reasons why I should put off the voyage, especially with that
+creature in company; but I had a mind the putting it off should be at
+his motion, not my own; and he came into it of himself, just as I would
+have had it. This gave me an opportunity to hang back a little, and to
+seem as if I was unwilling. I told him I could not abide to put him to
+difficulties and perplexities in his business; that now he had hired the
+great cabin in the ship, and, perhaps, paid some of the money, and, it
+may be, taken freight for goods; and to make him break it all off again
+would be a needless charge to him, or, perhaps, a damage to the captain.
+
+As to that, he said, it was not to be named, and he would not allow it
+to be any consideration at all; that he could easily pacify the captain
+of the ship by telling him the reason of it, and that if he did make
+him some satisfaction for the disappointment, it should not be much.
+
+"But, my dear," says I, "you ha'n't heard me say I am with child,
+neither can I say so; and if it should not be so at last, then I shall
+have made a fine piece of work of it indeed; besides," says I, "the two
+ladies, the captain's wife and her sister, they depend upon our going
+over, and have made great preparations, and all in compliment to me;
+what must I say to them?"
+
+"Well, my dear," says he, "if you should not be with child, though I
+hope you are, yet there is no harm done; the staying three or four
+months longer in England will be no damage to me, and we can go when we
+please, when we are sure you are not with child, or, when it appearing
+that you are with child, you shall be down and up again; and as for the
+captain's wife and sister, leave that part to me; I'll answer for it
+there shall be no quarrel raised upon that subject. I'll make your
+excuse to them by the captain himself, so all will be well enough there,
+I'll warrant you."
+
+This was as much as I could desire, and thus it rested for awhile. I had
+indeed some anxious thoughts about this impertinent girl, but believed
+that putting off the voyage would have put an end to it all, so I began
+to be pretty easy; but I found myself mistaken, for I was brought to the
+point of destruction by her again, and that in the most unaccountable
+manner imaginable.
+
+My husband, as he and I had agreed, meeting the captain of the ship,
+took the freedom to tell him that he was afraid he must disappoint him,
+for that something had fallen out which had obliged him to alter his
+measures, and that his family could not be ready to go time enough for
+him.
+
+"I know the occasion, sir," says the captain; "I hear your lady has got
+a daughter more than she expected; I give you joy of it." "What do you
+mean by that?" says my spouse. "Nay, nothing," says the captain, "but
+what I hear the women tattle over the tea-table. I know nothing, but
+that you don't go the voyage upon it, which I am sorry for; but you know
+your own affairs," added the captain, "that's no business of mine."
+
+"Well, but," says my husband, "I must make you some satisfaction for the
+disappointment," and so pulls out his money. "No, no," says the captain;
+and so they fell to straining their compliments one upon another; but,
+in short, my spouse gave him three or four guineas, and made him take
+it. And so the first discourse went off again, and they had no more of
+it.
+
+But it did not go off so easily with me, for now, in a word, the clouds
+began to thicken about me, and I had alarms on every side. My husband
+told me what the captain had said, but very happily took it that the
+captain had brought a tale by halves, and having heard it one way, had
+told it another; and that neither could he understand the captain,
+neither did the captain understand himself, so he contented himself to
+tell me, he said, word for word, as the captain delivered it.
+
+How I kept my husband from discovering my disorder you shall hear
+presently; but let it suffice to say just now, that if my husband did
+not understand the captain, nor the captain understand himself, yet I
+understood them both very well; and, to tell the truth, it was a worse
+shock than ever I had yet. Invention supplied me, indeed, with a sudden
+motion to avoid showing my surprise; for as my spouse and I was sitting
+by a little table near the fire, I reached out my hand, as if I had
+intended to take a spoon which lay on the other side, and threw one of
+the candles off of the table; and then snatching it up, started up upon
+my feet, and stooped to the lap of my gown and took it in my hand. "Oh!"
+says I, "my gown's spoiled; the candle has greased it prodigiously."
+This furnished me with an excuse to my spouse to break off the discourse
+for the present, and call Amy down; and Amy not coming presently, I said
+to him, "My dear, I must run upstairs and put it off, and let Amy clean
+it a little." So my husband rose up too, and went into a closet where he
+kept his papers and books, and fetched a book out, and sat down by
+himself to read.
+
+Glad I was that I had got away, and up I run to Amy, who, as it
+happened, was alone. "Oh, Amy!" says I, "we are all utterly undone." And
+with that I burst out a-crying, and could not speak a word for a great
+while.
+
+I cannot help saying that some very good reflections offered themselves
+upon this head. It presently occurred, what a glorious testimony it is
+to the justice of Providence, and to the concern Providence has in
+guiding all the affairs of men (even the least as well as the greatest),
+that the most secret crimes are, by the most unforeseen accidents,
+brought to light and discovered.
+
+Another reflection was, how just it is that sin and shame follow one
+another so constantly at the heels; that they are not like attendants
+only, but, like cause and consequence, necessarily connected one with
+another; that the crime going before, the scandal is certain to follow;
+and that 'tis not in the power of human nature to conceal the first, or
+avoid the last.
+
+"What shall I do, Amy?" said I, as soon as I could speak, "and what will
+become of me?" And then I cried again so vehemently that I could say no
+more a great while. Amy was frighted almost out of her wits, but knew
+nothing what the matter was; but she begged to know, and persuaded me to
+compose myself, and not cry so. "Why, madam, if my master should come up
+now," says she, "he will see what a disorder you are in; he will know
+you have been crying, and then he will want to know the cause of it."
+With that I broke out again. "Oh, he knows it already, Amy," says I, "he
+knows all! 'Tis all discovered, and we are undone!" Amy was
+thunderstruck now indeed. "Nay," says Amy, "if that be true, we are
+undone indeed; but that can never be; that's impossible, I'm sure."
+
+"No, no," says I, "'tis far from impossible, for I tell you 'tis so."
+And by this time, being a little recovered, I told her what discourse my
+husband and the captain had had together, and what the captain had said.
+This put Amy into such a hurry that she cried, she raved, she swore and
+cursed like a mad thing; then she upbraided me that I would not let her
+kill the girl when she would have done it, and that it was all my own
+doing, and the like. Well, however, I was not for killing the girl yet.
+I could not bear the thoughts of that neither.
+
+We spent half-an-hour in these extravagances, and brought nothing out of
+them neither; for indeed we could do nothing or say nothing that was to
+the purpose; for if anything was to come out-of-the-way, there was no
+hindering it, or help for it; so after thus giving a vent to myself by
+crying, I began to reflect how I had left my spouse below, and what I
+had pretended to come up for; so I changed my gown that I pretended the
+candle fell upon, and put on another, and went down.
+
+When I had been down a good while, and found my spouse did not fall into
+the story again, as I expected, I took heart, and called for it. "My
+dear," said I, "the fall of the candle put you out of your history,
+won't you go on with it?" "What history?" says he. "Why," says I, "about
+the captain." "Oh," says he, "I had done with it. I know no more than
+that the captain told a broken piece of news that he had heard by
+halves, and told more by halves than he heard it,--namely, of your being
+with child, and that you could not go the voyage."
+
+I perceived my husband entered not into the thing at all, but took it
+for a story, which, being told two or three times over, was puzzled, and
+come to nothing, and that all that was meant by it was what he knew, or
+thought he knew already--viz., that I was with child, which he wished
+might be true.
+
+His ignorance was a cordial to my soul, and I cursed them in my thoughts
+that should ever undeceive him; and as I saw him willing to have the
+story end there, as not worth being farther mentioned, I closed it too,
+and said I supposed the captain had it from his wife; she might have
+found somebody else to make her remarks upon; and so it passed off with
+my husband well enough, and I was still safe there, where I thought
+myself in most danger. But I had two uneasinesses still; the first was
+lest the captain and my spouse should meet again, and enter into farther
+discourse about it; and the second was lest the busy impertinent girl
+should come again, and when she came, how to prevent her seeing Amy,
+which was an article as material as any of the rest; for seeing Amy
+would have been as fatal to me as her knowing all the rest.
+
+As to the first of these, I knew the captain could not stay in town
+above a week, but that his ship being already full of goods, and fallen
+down the river, he must soon follow, so I contrived to carry my husband
+somewhere out of town for a few days, that they might be sure not to
+meet.
+
+My greatest concern was where we should go. At last I fixed upon North
+Hall; not, I said, that I would drink the waters, but that I thought the
+air was good, and might be for my advantage. He, who did everything upon
+the foundation of obliging me, readily came into it, and the coach was
+appointed to be ready the next morning; but as we were settling matters,
+he put in an ugly word that thwarted all my design, and that was, that
+he had rather I would stay till afternoon, for that he should speak to
+the captain the next morning if he could, to give him some letters,
+which he could do, and be back again about twelve o'clock.
+
+I said, "Ay, by all means." But it was but a cheat on him, and my voice
+and my heart differed; for I resolved, if possible, he should not come
+near the captain, nor see him, whatever came of it.
+
+In the evening, therefore, a little before we went to bed, I pretended
+to have altered my mind, and that I would not go to North Hall, but I
+had a mind to go another way, but I told him I was afraid his business
+would not permit him. He wanted to know where it was. I told him,
+smiling, I would not tell him, lest it should oblige him to hinder his
+business. He answered with the same temper, but with infinitely more
+sincerity, that he had no business of so much consequence as to hinder
+him going with me anywhere that I had a mind to go. "Yes," says I, "you
+want to speak with the captain before he goes away." "Why, that's true,"
+says he, "so I do," and paused awhile; and then added, "but I'll write a
+note to a man that does business for me to go to him; 'tis only to get
+some bills of loading signed, and he can do it." When I saw I had gained
+my point, I seemed to hang back a little. "My dear," says I, "don't
+hinder an hour's business for me; I can put it off for a week or two
+rather than you shall do yourself any prejudice." "No, no," says he,
+"you shall not put it off an hour for me, for I can do my business by
+proxy with anybody but my wife." And then he took me in his arms and
+kissed me. How did my blood flush up into my face when I reflected how
+sincerely, how affectionately, this good-humoured gentleman embraced the
+most cursed piece of hypocrisy that ever came into the arms of an honest
+man! His was all tenderness, all kindness, and the utmost sincerity;
+mine all grimace and deceit;--a piece of mere manage and framed conduct
+to conceal a past life of wickedness, and prevent his discovering that
+he had in his arms a she-devil, whose whole conversation for twenty-five
+years had been black as hell, a complication of crime, and for which,
+had he been let into it, he must have abhorred me and the very mention
+of my name. But there was no help for me in it; all I had to satisfy
+myself was that it was my business to be what I was, and conceal what I
+had been; that all the satisfaction I could make him was to live
+virtuously for the time to come, not being able to retrieve what had
+been in time past; and this I resolved upon, though, had the great
+temptation offered, as it did afterwards, I had reason to question my
+stability. But of that hereafter.
+
+After my husband had kindly thus given up his measures to mine, we
+resolved to set out in the morning early. I told him that my project, if
+he liked it, was to go to Tunbridge, and he, being entirely passive in
+the thing, agreed to it with the greatest willingness; but said if I had
+not named Tunbridge, he would have named Newmarket, there being a great
+court there, and abundance of fine things to be seen. I offered him
+another piece of hypocrisy here, for I pretended to be willing to go
+thither, as the place of his choice, but indeed I would not have gone
+for a thousand pounds; for the court being there at that time, I durst
+not run the hazard of being known at a place where there were so many
+eyes that had seen me before. So that, after some time, I told my
+husband that I thought Newmarket was so full of people at that time,
+that we should get no accommodation; that seeing the court and the crowd
+was no entertainment at all to me, unless as it might be so to him, that
+if he thought fit, we would rather put it off to another time; and that
+if, when we went to Holland, we should go by Harwich, we might take a
+round by Newmarket and Bury, and so come down to Ipswich, and go from
+thence to the seaside. He was easily put off from this, as he was from
+anything else that I did not approve; and so, with all imaginable
+facility, he appointed to be ready early in the morning to go with me
+for Tunbridge.
+
+I had a double design in this, viz., first, to get away my spouse from
+seeing the captain any more; and secondly, to be out of the way myself,
+in case this impertinent girl, who was now my plague, should offer to
+come again, as my friend the Quaker believed she would, and as indeed
+happened within two or three days afterwards.
+
+Having thus secured my going away the next day, I had nothing to do but
+to furnish my faithful agent the Quaker with some instructions what to
+say to this tormentor (for such she proved afterwards), and how to
+manage her, if she made any more visits than ordinary.
+
+I had a great mind to leave Amy behind too, as an assistant, because she
+understood so perfectly well what to advise upon any emergence; and Amy
+importuned me to do so. But I know not what secret impulse prevailed
+over my thoughts against it; I could not do it for fear the wicked jade
+should make her away, which my very soul abhorred the thoughts of;
+which, however, Amy found means to bring to pass afterwards, as I may in
+time relate more particularly.
+
+It is true I wanted as much to be delivered from her as ever a sick man
+did from a third-day ague; and had she dropped into the grave by any
+fair way, as I may call it, I mean, had she died by any ordinary
+distemper, I should have shed but very few tears for her. But I was not
+arrived to such a pitch of obstinate wickedness as to commit murder,
+especially such as to murder my own child, or so much as to harbour a
+thought so barbarous in my mind. But, as I said, Amy effected all
+afterwards without my knowledge, for which I gave her my hearty curse,
+though I could do little more; for to have fallen upon Amy had been to
+have murdered myself. But this tragedy requires a longer story than I
+have room for here. I return to my journey.
+
+My dear friend the Quaker was kind, and yet honest, and would do
+anything that was just and upright to serve me, but nothing wicked or
+dishonourable. That she might be able to say boldly to the creature, if
+she came, she did not know where I was gone, she desired I would not let
+her know; and to make her ignorance the more absolutely safe to herself,
+and likewise to me, I allowed her to say that she heard us talk of going
+to Newmarket, &c. She liked that part, and I left all the rest to her,
+to act as she thought fit; only charged her, that if the girl entered
+into the story of the Pall Mall, she should not entertain much talk
+about it, but let her understand that we all thought she spoke of it a
+little too particularly; and that the lady (meaning me) took it a
+little ill to be so likened to a public mistress, or a stage-player, and
+the like; and so to bring her, if possible, to say no more of it.
+However, though I did not tell my friend the Quaker how to write to me,
+or where I was, yet I left a sealed paper with her maid to give her, in
+which I gave her a direction how to write to Amy, and so, in effect, to
+myself.
+
+It was but a few days after I was gone, but the impatient girl came to
+my lodgings on pretence to see how I did, and to hear if I intended to
+go the voyage, and the like. My trusty agent was at home, and received
+her coldly at the door; but told her that the lady, which she supposed
+she meant, was gone from her house.
+
+This was a full stop to all she could say for a good while; but as she
+stood musing some time at the door, considering what to begin a talk
+upon, she perceived my friend the Quaker looked a little uneasy, as if
+she wanted to go in and shut the door, which stung her to the quick; and
+the wary Quaker had not so much as asked her to come in; for seeing her
+alone she expected she would be very impertinent, and concluded that I
+did not care how coldly she received her.
+
+But she was not to be put off so. She said if the Lady ---- was not to
+be spoken with, she desired to speak two or three words with her,
+meaning my friend the Quaker. Upon that the Quaker civilly but coldly
+asked her to walk in, which was what she wanted. Note.--She did not
+carry her into her best parlour, as formerly, but into a little outer
+room, where the servants usually waited.
+
+By the first of her discourse she did not stick to insinuate as if she
+believed I was in the house, but was unwilling to be seen; and pressed
+earnestly that she might speak but two words with me; to which she added
+earnest entreaties, and at last tears.
+
+"I am sorry," says my good creature the Quaker, "thou hast so ill an
+opinion of me as to think I would tell thee an untruth, and say that the
+Lady ---- was gone from my house if she was not! I assure thee I do not
+use any such method; nor does the Lady ---- desire any such kind of
+service from me, as I know of. If she had been in the house, I should
+have told thee so."
+
+She said little to that, but said it was business of the utmost
+importance that she desired to speak with me about, and then cried again
+very much.
+
+"Thou seem'st to be sorely afflicted," says the Quaker, "I wish I could
+give thee any relief; but if nothing will comfort thee but seeing the
+Lady ----, it is not in my power."
+
+"I hope it is," says she again; "to be sure it is of great consequence
+to me, so much that I am undone without it."
+
+"Thou troublest me very much to hear thee say so," says the Quaker; "but
+why, then, didst thou not speak to her apart when thou wast here
+before?"
+
+"I had no opportunity," says she, "to speak to her alone, and I could
+not do it in company; if I could have spoken but two words to her alone,
+I would have thrown myself at her foot, and asked her blessing."
+
+"I am surprised at thee; I do not understand thee," says the Quaker.
+
+"Oh!" says she, "stand my friend if you have any charity, or if you have
+any compassion for the miserable; for I am utterly undone!"
+
+"Thou terrifiest me," says the Quaker, "with such passionate
+expressions, for verily I cannot comprehend thee!"
+
+"Oh!" says she, "she is my mother! she is my mother! and she does not
+own me!"
+
+"Thy mother!" says the Quaker, and began to be greatly moved indeed. "I
+am astonished at thee: what dost thou mean?"
+
+"I mean nothing but what I say," says she. "I say again, she is my
+mother, and will not own me;" and with that she stopped with a flood of
+tears.
+
+"Not own thee!" says the Quaker; and the tender good creature wept too.
+"Why," says she, "she does not know thee, and never saw thee before."
+
+"No," says the girl, "I believe she does not know me, but I know her;
+and I know that she is my mother."
+
+"It's impossible, thou talk'st mystery!" says the Quaker; "wilt thou
+explain thyself a little to me?"
+
+"Yes, yes," says she, "I can explain it well enough. I am sure she is my
+mother, and I have broke my heart to search for her; and now to lose her
+again, when I was so sure I had found her, will break my heart more
+effectually."
+
+"Well, but if she be thy mother," says the Quaker, "how can it be that
+she should not know thee?"
+
+"Alas!" says she, "I have been lost to her ever since I was a child; she
+has never seen me."
+
+"And hast thou never seen her?" says the Quaker.
+
+"Yes," says she, "I have seen her; often enough I saw her; for when she
+was the Lady Roxana I was her housemaid, being a servant, but I did not
+know her then, nor she me; but it has all come out since. Has she not a
+maid named Amy?" Note.--The honest Quaker was--nonplussed, and greatly
+surprised at that question.
+
+"Truly," says she, "the Lady ---- has several women servants, but I do
+not know all their names."
+
+"But her woman, her favourite," adds the girl; "is not her name Amy?"
+
+"Why, truly," says the Quaker, with a very happy turn of wit, "I do not
+like to be examined; but lest thou shouldest take up any mistakes by
+reason of my backwardness to speak, I will answer thee for once, that
+what her woman's name is I know not, but they call her Cherry."
+
+_N.B._--My husband gave her that name in jest on our wedding-day, and we
+had called her by it ever after; so that she spoke literally true at
+that time.
+
+The girl replied very modestly that she was sorry if she gave her any
+offence in asking; that she did not design to be rude to her, or pretend
+to examine her; but that she was in such an agony at this disaster that
+she knew not what she did or said; and that she should be very sorry to
+disoblige her, but begged of her again, as she was a Christian and a
+woman, and had been a mother of children, that she would take pity on
+her, and, if possible, assist her, so that she might but come to me and
+speak a few words to me.
+
+The tender-hearted Quaker told me the girl spoke this with such moving
+eloquence that it forced tears from her; but she was obliged to say that
+she neither knew where I was gone or how to write to me; but that if she
+did ever see me again she would not fail to give me an account of all
+she had said to her, or that she should yet think fit to say, and to
+take my answer to it, if I thought fit to give any.
+
+Then the Quaker took the freedom to ask a few particulars about this
+wonderful story, as she called it; at which the girl, beginning at the
+first distresses of my life, and indeed of her own, went through all the
+history of her miserable education, her service under the Lady Roxana,
+as she called me, and her relief by Mrs. Amy, with the reasons she had
+to believe that as Amy owned herself to be the same that lived with her
+mother, and especially that Amy was the Lady Roxana's maid too, and came
+out of France with her, she was by those circumstances, and several
+others in her conversation, as fully convinced that the Lady Roxana was
+her mother, as she was that the Lady ---- at her house (the Quaker's)
+was the very same Roxana that she had been servant to.
+
+My good friend the Quaker, though terribly shocked at the story, and not
+well knowing what to say, yet was too much my friend to seem convinced
+in a thing which she did not know to be true, and which, if it was true,
+she could see plainly I had a mind should not be known; so she turned
+her discourse to argue the girl out of it. She insisted upon the slender
+evidence she had of the fact itself, and the rudeness of claiming so
+near a relation of one so much above her, and of whose concern in it she
+had no knowledge, at least no sufficient proof; that as the lady at her
+house was a person above any disguises, so she could not believe that
+she would deny her being her daughter, if she was really her mother;
+that she was able sufficiently to have provided for her if she had not a
+mind to have her known; and, therefore, seeing she had heard all she had
+said of the Lady Roxana, and was so far from owning herself to be the
+person, so she had censured that sham lady as a cheat and a common
+woman; and that 'twas certain she could never be brought to own a name
+and character she had so justly exposed.
+
+Besides, she told her that her lodger, meaning me, was not a sham lady,
+but the real wife of a knight-baronet; and that she knew her to be
+honestly such, and far above such a person as she had described. She
+then added that she had another reason why it was not very possible to
+be true. "And that is," says she, "thy age is in the way; for thou
+acknowledgest that thou art four-and twenty years old, and that thou
+wast the youngest of three of thy mother's children; so that, by thy
+account, thy mother must be extremely young, or this lady cannot be thy
+mother; for thou seest," says she, "and any one may see, she is but a
+young woman now, and cannot be supposed to be above forty years old, if
+she is so much; and is now big with child at her going into the country;
+so that I cannot give any credit to thy notion of her being thy mother;
+and if I might counsel thee, it should be to give over that thought, as
+an improbable story that does but serve to disorder thee, and disturb
+thy head; for," added she, "I perceive thou art much disturbed indeed."
+
+But this was all nothing; she could be satisfied with nothing but seeing
+me; but the Quaker defended herself very well, and insisted on it that
+she could not give her any account of me; and finding her still
+importunate, she affected at last being a little disgusted that she
+should not believe her, and added, that indeed, if she had known where I
+was gone, she would not have given any one an account of it, unless I
+had given her orders to do so. "But seeing she has not acquainted me,"
+says she, "where she has gone, 'tis an intimation to me she was not
+desirous it should be publicly known;" and with this she rose up, which
+was as plain a desiring her to rise up too and begone as could be
+expressed, except the downright showing her the door.
+
+Well, the girl rejected all this, and told her she could not indeed
+expect that she (the Quaker) should be affected with the story she had
+told her, however moving, or that she should take any pity on her. That
+it was her misfortune, that when she was at the house before, and in the
+room with me, she did not beg to speak a word with me in private, or
+throw herself upon the floor at my feet, and claim what the affection of
+a mother would have done for her; but since she had slipped her
+opportunity, she would wait for another; that she found by her (the
+Quaker's) talk, that she had not quite left her lodgings, but was gone
+into the country, she supposed for the air; and she was resolved she
+would take so much knight-errantry upon her, that she would visit all
+the airing-places in the nation, and even all the kingdom over, ay, and
+Holland too, but she would find me; for she was satisfied she could so
+convince me that she was my own child, that I would not deny it; and she
+was sure I was so tender and compassionate, I would not let her perish
+after I was convinced that she was my own flesh and blood; and in saying
+she would visit all the airing-places in England, she reckoned them all
+up by name, and began with Tunbridge, the very place I was gone to; then
+reckoning up Epsom, North Hall, Barnet, Newmarket, Bury, and at last,
+the Bath; and with this she took her leave.
+
+My faithful agent the Quaker failed not to write to me immediately; but
+as she was a cunning as well as an honest woman, it presently occurred
+to her that this was a story which, whether true or false, was not very
+fit to come to my husband's knowledge; that as she did not know what I
+might have been, or might have been called in former times, and how far
+there might have been something or nothing in it, so she thought if it
+was a secret I ought to have the telling it myself; and if it was not,
+it might as well be public afterwards as now; and that, at least, she
+ought to leave it where she found it, and not hand it forwards to
+anybody without my consent. These prudent measures were inexpressibly
+kind, as well as seasonable; for it had been likely enough that her
+letter might have come publicly to me, and though my husband would not
+have opened it, yet it would have looked a little odd that I should
+conceal its contents from him, when I had pretended so much to
+communicate all my affairs.
+
+In consequence of this wise caution, my good friend only wrote me in few
+words, that the impertinent young woman had been with her, as she
+expected she would; and that she thought it would be very convenient
+that, if I could spare Cherry, I would send her up (meaning Amy),
+because she found there might be some occasion for her.
+
+As it happened, this letter was enclosed to Amy herself, and not sent
+by the way I had at first ordered; but it came safe to my hands; and
+though I was alarmed a little at it, yet I was not acquainted with the
+danger I was in of an immediate visit from this teasing creature till
+afterwards; and I ran a greater risk, indeed, than ordinary, in that I
+did not send Amy up under thirteen or fourteen days, believing myself as
+much concealed at Tunbridge as if I had been at Vienna.
+
+But the concern of my faithful spy (for such my Quaker was now, upon the
+mere foot of her own sagacity), I say, her concern for me, was my safety
+in this exigence, when I was, as it were, keeping no guard for myself;
+for, finding Amy not come up, and that she did not know how soon this
+wild thing might put her designed ramble in practice, she sent a
+messenger to the captain's wife's house, where she lodged, to tell her
+that she wanted to speak with her. She was at the heels of the
+messenger, and came eager for some news; and hoped, she said, the lady
+(meaning me) had been come to town.
+
+The Quaker, with as much caution as she was mistress of, not to tell a
+downright lie, made her believe she expected to hear of me very quickly;
+and frequently, by the by, speaking of being abroad to take the air,
+talked of the country about Bury, how pleasant it was, how wholesome,
+and how fine an air; how the downs about Newmarket were exceeding fine,
+and what a vast deal of company there was, now the court was there; till
+at last, the girl began to conclude that my ladyship was gone thither;
+for, she said, she knew I loved to see a great deal of company.
+
+"Nay," says my friend, "thou takest me wrong; I did not suggest," says
+she, "that the person thou inquirest after is gone thither, neither do I
+believe she is, I assure thee." Well, the girl smiled, and let her know
+that she believed it for all that; so, to clench it fast, "Verily," says
+she, with great seriousness, "thou dost not do well, for thou suspectest
+everything and believest nothing. I speak solemnly to thee that I do not
+believe they are gone that way; so if thou givest thyself the trouble to
+go that way, and art disappointed, do not say that I have deceived
+thee." She knew well enough that if this did abate her suspicion it
+would not remove it, and that it would do little more than amuse her;
+but by this she kept her in suspense till Amy came up, and that was
+enough.
+
+When Amy came up, she was quite confounded to hear the relation which
+the Quaker gave her, and found means to acquaint me of it; only letting
+me know, to my great satisfaction, that she would not come to Tunbridge
+first, but that she would certainly go to Newmarket or Bury first.
+
+However, it gave me very great uneasiness; for as she resolved to ramble
+in search after me over the whole country, I was safe nowhere, no, not
+in Holland itself. So indeed I did not know what to do with her; and
+thus I had a bitter in all my sweet, for I was continually perplexed
+with this hussy, and thought she haunted me like an evil spirit.
+
+In the meantime Amy was next door to stark-mad about her; she durst not
+see her at my lodgings for her life; and she went days without number to
+Spitalfields, where she used to come, and to her former lodging, and
+could never meet with her. At length she took up a mad resolution that
+she would go directly to the captain's house in Redriff and speak with
+her. It was a mad step, that's true; but as Amy said she was mad, so
+nothing she could do could be otherwise. For if Amy had found her at
+Redriff, she (the girl) would have concluded presently that the Quaker
+had given her notice, and so that we were all of a knot; and that, in
+short, all she had said was right. But as it happened, things came to
+hit better than we expected; for that Amy going out of a coach to take
+water at Tower Wharf, meets the girl just come on shore, having crossed
+the water from Redriff. Amy made as if she would have passed by her,
+though they met so full that she did not pretend she did not see her,
+for she looked fairly upon her first, but then turning her head away
+with a slight, offered to go from her; but the girl stopped, and spoke
+first, and made some manners to her.
+
+Amy spoke coldly to her, and a little angry; and after some words,
+standing in the street or passage, the girl saying she seemed to be
+angry, and would not have spoken to her, "Why," says Amy, "how can you
+expect I should have any more to say to you after I had done so much
+for you, and you have behaved so to me?" The girl seemed to take no
+notice of that now, but answered, "I was going to wait on you now."
+"Wait on me!" says Amy; "what do you mean by that?" "Why," says she
+again, with a kind of familiarity, "I was going to your lodgings."
+
+Amy was provoked to the last degree at her, and yet she thought it was
+not her time to resent, because she had a more fatal and wicked design
+in her head against her; which, indeed, I never knew till after it was
+executed, nor durst Amy ever communicate it to me; for as I had always
+expressed myself vehemently against hurting a hair of her head, so she
+was resolved to take her own measures without consulting me any more.
+
+In order to this, Amy gave her good words, and concealed her resentment
+as much as she could; and when she talked of going to her lodging, Amy
+smiled and said nothing, but called for a pair of oars to go to
+Greenwich; and asked her, seeing she said she was going to her lodging,
+to go along with her, for she was going home, and was all alone.
+
+Amy did this with such a stock of assurance that the girl was
+confounded, and knew not what to say; but the more she hesitated, the
+more Amy pressed her to go; and talking very kindly to her, told her if
+she did not go to see her lodgings she might go to keep her company, and
+she would pay a boat to bring her back again; so, in a word, Amy
+prevailed on her to go into the boat with her, and carried her down to
+Greenwich.
+
+'Tis certain that Amy had no more business at Greenwich than I had, nor
+was she going thither; but we were all hampered to the last degree with
+the impertinence of this creature; and, in particular, I was horribly
+perplexed with it.
+
+As they were in the boat, Amy began to reproach her with ingratitude in
+treating her so rudely who had done so much for her, and been so kind to
+her; and to ask her what she had got by it, or what she expected to get.
+Then came in my share, the Lady Roxana. Amy jested with that, and
+bantered her a little, and asked her if she had found her yet.
+
+But Amy was both surprised and enraged when the girl told her roundly
+that she thanked her for what she had done for her, but that she would
+not have her think she was so ignorant as not to know that what she
+(Amy) had done was by her mother's order, and who she was beholden to
+for it. That she could never make instruments pass for principals, and
+pay the debt to the agent when the obligation was all to the original.
+That she knew well enough who she was, and who she was employed by. That
+she knew the Lady ---- very well (naming the name that I now went by),
+which was my husband's true name, and by which she might know whether
+she had found out her mother or no.
+
+Amy wished her at the bottom of the Thames; and had there been no
+watermen in the boat, and nobody in sight, she swore to me she would
+have thrown her into the river. I was horribly disturbed when she told
+me this story, and began to think this would, at last, all end in my
+ruin; but when Amy spoke of throwing her into the river and drowning
+her, I was so provoked at her that all my rage turned against Amy, and I
+fell thoroughly out with her. I had now kept Amy almost thirty years,
+and found her on all occasions the faithfullest creature to me that ever
+woman had--I say, faithful to me; for, however wicked she was, still she
+was true to me; and even this rage of hers was all upon my account, and
+for fear any mischief should befall me.
+
+But be that how it would, I could not bear the mention of her murdering
+the poor girl, and it put me so beside myself, that I rose up in a rage,
+and bade her get out of my sight, and out of my house; told her I had
+kept her too long, and that I would never see her face more. I had
+before told her that she was a murderer, and a bloody-minded creature;
+that she could not but know that I could not bear the thought of it,
+much less the mention of it; and that it was the impudentest thing that
+ever was known to make such a proposal to me, when she knew that I was
+really the mother of this girl, and that she was my own child; that it
+was wicked enough in her, but that she must conclude I was ten times
+wickeder than herself if I could come into it; that the girl was in the
+right, and I had nothing to blame her for; but that it was owing to the
+wickedness of my life that made it necessary for me to keep her from a
+discovery; but that I would not murder my child, though I was otherwise
+to be ruined by it. Amy replied, somewhat rough and short, Would I not?
+but she would, she said, if she had an opportunity; and upon these words
+it was that I bade her get out of my sight and out of my house; and it
+went so far that Amy packed up her alls, and marched off; and was gone
+for almost good and all. But of that in its order; I must go back to her
+relation of the voyage which they made to Greenwich together.
+
+They held on the wrangle all the way by water; the girl insisted upon
+her knowing that I was her mother, and told her all the history of my
+life in the Pall Mall, as well after her being turned away as before,
+and of my marriage since; and which was worse, not only who my present
+husband was, but where he had lived, viz., at Rouen in France. She knew
+nothing of Paris or of where we was going to live, namely, at Nimeguen;
+but told her in so many words that if she could not find me here, she
+would go to Holland after me.
+
+They landed at Greenwich, and Amy carried her into the park with her,
+and they walked above two hours there in the farthest and remotest
+walks; which Amy did because, as they talked with great heat, it was
+apparent they were quarrelling, and the people took notice of it.
+
+They walked till they came almost to the wilderness at the south side
+of the park; but the girl, perceiving Amy offered to go in there among
+the woods and trees, stopped short there, and would go no further; but
+said she would not go in there.
+
+Amy smiled, and asked her what was the matter? She replied short, she
+did not know where she was, nor where she was going to carry her, and
+she would go no farther; and without any more ceremony, turns back, and
+walks apace away from her. Amy owned she was surprised, and came back
+too, and called to her, upon which the girl stopped, and Amy coming up
+to her, asked her what she meant?
+
+The girl boldly replied she did not know but she might murder her; and
+that, in short, she would not trust herself with her, and never would
+come into her company again alone.
+
+It was very provoking, but, however, Amy kept her temper with much
+difficulty, and bore it, knowing that much might depend upon it; so she
+mocked her foolish jealousy, and told her she need not be uneasy for
+her, she would do her no harm, and would have done her good if she would
+have let her; but since she was of such a refractory humour, she should
+not trouble herself, for she should never come into her company again;
+and that neither she or her brother or sister should ever hear from her
+or see her any more; and so she should have the satisfaction of being
+the ruin of her brother and sisters as well as of herself.
+
+The girl seemed a little mollified at that, and said that for herself,
+she knew the worst of it, she could seek her fortune; but it was hard
+her brother and sister should suffer on her score; and said something
+that was tender and well enough on that account. But Amy told her it was
+for her to take that into consideration; for she would let her see that
+it was all her own; that she would have done them all good, but that
+having been used thus, she would do no more for any of them; and that
+she should not need to be afraid to come into her company again, for she
+would never give her occasion for it any more. This, by the way, was
+false in the girl too; for she did venture into Amy's company again
+after that, once too much, as I shall relate by itself.
+
+They grew cooler, however, afterwards, and Amy carried her into a house
+at Greenwich, where she was acquainted, and took an occasion to leave
+the girl in a room awhile, to speak to the people in the house, and so
+prepare them to own her as a lodger in the house; and then going in to
+her again told her there she lodged, if she had a mind to find her out,
+or if anybody else had anything to say to her. And so Amy dismissed her,
+and got rid of her again; and finding an empty hackney-coach in the
+town, came away by land to London, and the girl, going down to the
+water-side, came by boat.
+
+This conversation did not answer Amy's end at all, because it did not
+secure the girl from pursuing her design of hunting me out; and though
+my indefatigable friend the Quaker amused her three or four days, yet I
+had such notice of it at last that I thought fit to come away from
+Tunbridge upon it. And where to go I knew not; but, in short, I went to
+a little village upon Epping Forest, called Woodford, and took lodgings
+in a private house, where I lived retired about six weeks, till I
+thought she might be tired of her search, and have given me over.
+
+Here I received an account from my trusty Quaker that the wench had
+really been at Tunbridge, had found out my lodgings, and had told her
+tale there in a most dismal tone; that she had followed us, as she
+thought, to London; but the Quaker had answered her that she knew
+nothing of it, which was indeed true; and had admonished her to be easy,
+and not hunt after people of such fashion as we were, as if we were
+thieves; that she might be assured, that since I was not willing to see
+her, I would not be forced to it; and treating me thus would effectually
+disoblige me. And with such discourses as these she quieted her; and she
+(the Quaker) added that she hoped I should not be troubled much more
+with her.
+
+It was in this time that Amy gave me the history of her Greenwich
+voyage, when she spoke of drowning and killing the girl in so serious a
+manner, and with such an apparent resolution of doing it, that, as I
+said, put me in a rage with her, so that I effectually turned her away
+from me, as I have said above, and she was gone; nor did she so much as
+tell me whither or which way she was gone. On the other hand, when I
+came to reflect on it that now I had neither assistant or confidant to
+speak to, or receive the least information from, my friend the Quaker
+excepted, it made me very uneasy.
+
+I waited and expected and wondered from day to day, still thinking Amy
+would one time or other think a little and come again, or at least let
+me hear of her; but for ten days together I heard nothing of her. I was
+so impatient that I got neither rest by day or sleep by night, and what
+to do I knew not. I durst not go to town to the Quaker's for fear of
+meeting that vexatious creature, my girl, and I could get no
+intelligence where I was; so I got my spouse, upon pretence of wanting
+her company, to take the coach one day and fetch my good Quaker to me.
+
+When I had her, I durst ask her no questions, nor hardly knew which end
+of the business to begin to talk of; but of her own accord she told me
+that the girl had been three or four times haunting her for news from
+me; and that she had been so troublesome that she had been obliged to
+show herself a little angry with her; and at last told her plainly that
+she need give herself no trouble in searching after me by her means, for
+she (the Quaker) would not tell her if she knew; upon which she
+refrained awhile. But, on the other hand, she told me it was not safe
+for me to send my own coach for her to come in, for she had some reason
+to believe that she (my daughter) watched her door night and day; nay,
+and watched her too every time she went in and out; for she was so bent
+upon a discovery that she spared no pains, and she believed she had
+taken a lodging very near their house for that purpose.
+
+I could hardly give her a hearing of all this for my eagerness to ask
+for Amy; but I was confounded when she told me she had heard nothing of
+her. It is impossible to express the anxious thoughts that rolled about
+in my mind, and continually perplexed me about her; particularly I
+reproached myself with my rashness in turning away so faithful a
+creature that for so many years had not only been a servant but an
+agent; and not only an agent, but a friend, and a faithful friend too.
+
+Then I considered too that Amy knew all the secret history of my life;
+had been in all the intrigues of it, and been a party in both evil and
+good; and at best there was no policy in it; that as it was very
+ungenerous and unkind to run things to such an extremity with her, and
+for an occasion, too, in which all the fault she was guilty of was owing
+to her excessive care for my safety, so it must be only her steady
+kindness to me, and an excess of generous friendship for me, that should
+keep her from ill-using me in return for it; which ill-using me was
+enough in her power, and might be my utter undoing.
+
+These thoughts perplexed me exceedingly, and what course to take I
+really did not know. I began, indeed, to give Amy quite over, for she
+had now been gone above a fortnight, and as she had taken away all her
+clothes, and her money too, which was not a little, and so had no
+occasion of that kind to come any more, so she had not left any word
+where she was gone, or to which part of the world I might send to hear
+of her.
+
+And I was troubled on another account too, viz., that my spouse and I
+too had resolved to do very handsomely for Amy, without considering what
+she might have got another way at all; but we had said nothing of it to
+her, and so I thought, as she had not known what was likely to fall in
+her way, she had not the influence of that expectation to make her come
+back.
+
+Upon the whole, the perplexity of this girl, who hunted me as if, like a
+hound, she had had a hot scent, but was now at a fault, I say, that
+perplexity, and this other part of Amy being gone, issued in this--I
+resolved to be gone, and go over to Holland; there, I believed, I should
+be at rest. So I took occasion one day to tell my spouse that I was
+afraid he might take it ill that I had amused him thus long, and that at
+last I doubted I was not with child; and that since it was so, our
+things being packed up, and all in order for going to Holland, I would
+go away now when he pleased.
+
+My spouse, who was perfectly easy whether in going or staying, left it
+all entirely to me; so I considered of it, and began to prepare again
+for my voyage. But, alas! I was irresolute to the last degree. I was,
+for want of Amy, destitute; I had lost my right hand; she was my
+steward, gathered in my rents (I mean my interest money) and kept my
+accounts, and, in a word, did all my business; and without her, indeed,
+I knew not how to go away nor how to stay. But an accident thrust itself
+in here, and that even in Amy's conduct too, which frighted me away, and
+without her too, in the utmost horror and confusion.
+
+I have related how my faithful friend the Quaker was come to me, and
+what account she gave me of her being continually haunted by my
+daughter; and that, as she said, she watched her very door night and
+day. The truth was, she had set a spy to watch so effectually that she
+(the Quaker) neither went in or out but she had notice of it.
+
+This was too evident when, the next morning after she came to me (for I
+kept her all night), to my unspeakable surprise I saw a hackney-coach
+stop at the door where I lodged, and saw her (my daughter) in the coach
+all alone. It was a very good chance, in the middle of a bad one, that
+my husband had taken out the coach that very morning, and was gone to
+London. As for me, I had neither life or soul left in me; I was so
+confounded I knew not what to do or to say.
+
+My happy visitor had more presence of mind than I, and asked me if I had
+made no acquaintance among the neighbours. I told her, yes, there was a
+lady lodged two doors off that I was very intimate with. "But hast thou
+no way out backward to go to her?" says she. Now it happened there was
+a back-door in the garden, by which we usually went and came to and from
+the house, so I told her of it. "Well, well," says she, "go out and make
+a visit then, and leave the rest to me." Away I run, told the lady (for
+I was very free there) that I was a widow to-day, my spouse being gone
+to London, so I came not to visit her, but to dwell with her that day,
+because also our landlady had got strangers come from London. So having
+framed this orderly lie, I pulled some work out of my pocket, and added
+I did not come to be idle.
+
+As I went out one way, my friend the Quaker went the other to receive
+this unwelcome guest. The girl made but little ceremony, but having bid
+the coachman ring at the gate, gets down out of the coach and comes to
+the door, a country girl going to the door (belonging to the house), for
+the Quaker forbid any of my maids going. Madam asked for my Quaker by
+name, and the girl asked her to walk in.
+
+Upon this, my Quaker, seeing there was no hanging back, goes to her
+immediately, but put all the gravity upon her countenance that she was
+mistress of, and that was not a little indeed.
+
+When she (the Quaker) came into the room (for they had showed my
+daughter into a little parlour), she kept her grave countenance, but
+said not a word, nor did my daughter speak a good while; but after some
+time my girl began and said, "I suppose you know me, madam?"
+
+"Yes," says the Quaker, "I know thee." And so the dialogue went on.
+
+_Girl._ Then you know my business too?
+
+_Quaker._ No, verily, I do not know any business thou canst have here
+with me.
+
+_Girl._ Indeed, my business is not chiefly with you.
+
+_Qu._ Why, then, dost thou come after me thus far?
+
+_Girl._ You know whom I seek. [_And with that she cried._]
+
+_Qu._ But why shouldst thou follow me for her, since thou know'st that I
+assured thee more than once that I knew not where she was?
+
+_Girl._ But I hoped you could.
+
+_Qu._ Then thou must hope that I did not speak the truth, which would be
+very wicked.
+
+_Girl._ I doubt not but she is in this house.
+
+_Qu._ If those be thy thoughts, thou may'st inquire in the house; so
+thou hast no more business with me. Farewell! [_Offers to go._]
+
+_Girl._ I would not be uncivil; I beg you to let me see her.
+
+_Qu._ I am here to visit some of my friends, and I think thou art not
+very civil in following me hither.
+
+_Girl._ I came in hopes of a discovery in my great affair which you know
+of.
+
+_Qu._ Thou cam'st wildly, indeed; I counsel thee to go back again, and
+be easy; I shall keep my word with thee, that I would not meddle in it,
+or give thee any account, if I knew it, unless I had her orders.
+
+[Illustration: ROXANA'S DAUGHTER AND THE QUAKER
+
+_Here the girl importuned her again with the utmost earnestness, and
+cried bitterly_]
+
+_Girl._ If you knew my distress you could not be so cruel.
+
+_Qu._ Thou hast told me all thy story, and I think it might be more
+cruelty to tell thee than not to tell thee; for I understand she is
+resolved not to see thee, and declares she is not thy mother. Will'st
+thou be owned where thou hast no relation?
+
+_Girl._ Oh, if I could but speak to her, I would prove my relation to
+her so that she could not deny it any longer.
+
+_Qu._ Well, but thou canst not come to speak with her, it seems.
+
+_Girl._ I hope you will tell me if she is here. I had a good account
+that you were come out to see her, and that she sent for you.
+
+_Qu._ I much wonder how thou couldst have such an account. If I had come
+out to see her, thou hast happened to miss the house, for I assure thee
+she is not to be found in this house.
+
+Here the girl importuned her again with the utmost earnestness, and
+cried bitterly, insomuch that my poor Quaker was softened with it, and
+began to persuade me to consider of it, and, if it might consist with my
+affairs, to see her, and hear what she had to say; but this was
+afterwards. I return to the discourse.
+
+The Quaker was perplexed with her a long time; she talked of sending
+back the coach, and lying in the town all night. This, my friend knew,
+would be very uneasy to me, but she durst not speak a word against it;
+but on a sudden thought, she offered a bold stroke, which, though
+dangerous if it had happened wrong, had its desired effect.
+
+She told her that, as for dismissing her coach, that was as she pleased,
+she believed she would not easily get a lodging in the town; but that as
+she was in a strange place, she would so much befriend her, that she
+would speak to the people of the house, that if they had room, she might
+have a lodging there for one night, rather than be forced back to London
+before she was free to go.
+
+This was a cunning, though a dangerous step, and it succeeded
+accordingly, for it amused the creature entirely, and she presently
+concluded that really I could not be there then, otherwise she would
+never have asked her to lie in the house; so she grew cold again
+presently as to her lodging there, and said, No, since it was so, she
+would go back that afternoon, but she would come again in two or three
+days, and search that and all the towns round in an effectual manner, if
+she stayed a week or two to do it; for, in short, if I was in England or
+Holland she would find me.
+
+"In truth," says the Quaker, "thou wilt make me very hurtful to thee,
+then." "Why so?" says she, "Because wherever I go, thou wilt put thyself
+to great expense, and the country to a great deal of unnecessary
+trouble." "Not unnecessary," says she. "Yes, truly," says the Quaker;
+"it must be unnecessary, because it will be to no purpose. I think I
+must abide in my own house to save thee that charge and trouble."
+
+She said little to that, except that, she said, she would give her as
+little trouble as possible; but she was afraid she should sometimes be
+uneasy to her, which she hoped she would excuse. My Quaker told her she
+would much rather excuse her if she would forbear; for that if she would
+believe her, she would assure her she should never get any intelligence
+of me by her.
+
+That set her into tears again; but after a while, recovering herself,
+she told her perhaps she might be mistaken; and she (the Quaker) should
+watch herself very narrowly, or she might one time or other get some
+intelligence from her, whether she would or no; and she was satisfied
+she had gained some of her by this journey, for that if I was not in the
+house, I was not far off; and if I did not remove very quickly, she
+would find me out. "Very well," says my Quaker; "then if the lady is not
+willing to see thee, thou givest me notice to tell her, that she may get
+out of thy way."
+
+She flew out in a rage at that, and told my friend that if she did, a
+curse would follow her, and her children after her, and denounced such
+horrid things upon her as frighted the poor tender-hearted Quaker
+strangely, and put her more out of temper than ever I saw her before; so
+that she resolved to go home the next morning, and I, that was ten times
+more uneasy than she, resolved to follow her, and go to London too;
+which, however, upon second thoughts, I did not, but took effectual
+measures not to be seen or owned if she came any more; but I heard no
+more of her for some time.
+
+I stayed there about a fortnight, and in all that time I heard no more
+of her, or of my Quaker about her; but after about two days more, I had
+a letter from my Quaker, intimating that she had something of moment to
+say, that she could not communicate by letter, but wished I would give
+myself the trouble to come up, directing me to come with the coach into
+Goodman's Fields, and then walk to her back-door on foot, which being
+left open on purpose, the watchful lady, if she had any spies, could not
+well see me.
+
+My thoughts had for so long time been kept, as it were, waking, that
+almost everything gave me the alarm, and this especially, so that I was
+very uneasy; but I could not bring matters to bear to make my coming to
+London so clear to my husband as I would have done; for he liked the
+place, and had a mind, he said, to stay a little longer, if it was not
+against my inclination; so I wrote my friend the Quaker word that I
+could not come to town yet; and that, besides, I could not think of
+being there under spies, and afraid to look out of doors; and so, in
+short, I put off going for near a fortnight more.
+
+At the end of that time she wrote again, in which she told me that she
+had not lately seen the impertinent visitor which had been so
+troublesome; but that she had seen my trusty agent Amy, who told her
+she had cried for six weeks without intermission; that Amy had given her
+an account how troublesome the creature had been, and to what straits
+and perplexities I was driven by her hunting after and following me from
+place to place; upon which Amy had said, that, notwithstanding I was
+angry with her, and had used her so hardly for saying something about
+her of the same kind, yet there was an absolute necessity of securing
+her, and removing her out of the way; and that, in short, without asking
+my leave, or anybody's leave, she should take care she should trouble
+her mistress (meaning me) no more; and that after Amy had said so, she
+had indeed never heard any more of the girl; so that she supposed Amy
+had managed it so well as to put an end to it.
+
+The innocent, well-meaning creature, my Quaker, who was all kindness and
+goodness in herself, and particularly to me, saw nothing in this; but
+she thought Amy had found some way to persuade her to be quiet and easy,
+and to give over teasing and following me, and rejoiced in it for my
+sake; as she thought nothing of any evil herself, so she suspected none
+in anybody else, and was exceeding glad of having such good news to
+write to me; but my thoughts of it run otherwise.
+
+I was struck, as with a blast from heaven, at the reading her letter; I
+fell into a fit of trembling from head to foot, and I ran raving about
+the room like a mad woman. I had nobody to speak a word to, to give
+vent to my passion; nor did I speak a word for a good while, till after
+it had almost overcome me. I threw myself on the bed, and cried out,
+"Lord, be merciful to me, she has murdered my child!" and with that a
+flood of tears burst out, and I cried vehemently for above an hour.
+
+My husband was very happily gone out a-hunting, so that I had the
+opportunity of being alone, and to give my passions some vent, by which
+I a little recovered myself. But after my crying was over, then I fell
+in a new rage at Amy; I called her a thousand devils and monsters and
+hard-hearted tigers; I reproached her with her knowing that I abhorred
+it, and had let her know it sufficiently, in that I had, at it were,
+kicked her out of doors, after so many years' friendship and service,
+only for naming it to me.
+
+Well, after some time, my spouse came in from his sport, and I put on
+the best looks I could to deceive him; but he did not take so little
+notice of me as not to see I had been crying, and that something
+troubled me, and he pressed me to tell him. I seemed to bring it out
+with reluctance, but told him my backwardness was more because I was
+ashamed that such a trifle should have any effect upon me, than for any
+weight that was in it; so I told him I had been vexing myself about my
+woman Amy's not coming again; that she might have known me better than
+not to believe I should have been friends with her again, and the like;
+and that, in short, I had lost the best servant by my rashness that ever
+woman had.
+
+"Well, well," says he, "if that be all your grief, I hope you will soon
+shake it off; I'll warrant you in a little while we shall hear of Mrs.
+Amy again." And so it went off for that time. But it did not go off with
+me; for I was uneasy and terrified to the last degree, and wanted to get
+some farther account of the thing. So I went away to my sure and certain
+comforter, the Quaker, and there I had the whole story of it; and the
+good innocent Quaker gave me joy of my being rid of such an unsufferable
+tormentor.
+
+"Rid of her! Ay," says I, "if I was rid of her fairly and honourably;
+but I don't know what Amy may have done. Sure, she ha'n't made her
+away?" "Oh fie!" says my Quaker; "how canst thou entertain such a
+notion! No, no. Made her away? Amy didn't talk like that; I dare say
+thou may'st be easy in that; Amy has nothing of that in her head, I dare
+say," says she; and so threw it, as it were, out of my thoughts.
+
+But it would not do; it run in my head continually; night and day I
+could think of nothing else; and it fixed such a horror of the fact upon
+my spirits, and such a detestation of Amy, who I looked upon as the
+murderer, that, as for her, I believe if I could have seen her I should
+certainly have sent her to Newgate, or to a worse place, upon
+suspicion; indeed, I think I could have killed her with my own hands.
+
+As for the poor girl herself, she was ever before my eyes; I saw her by
+night and by day; she haunted my imagination, if she did not haunt the
+house; my fancy showed me her in a hundred shapes and postures; sleeping
+or waking, she was with me. Sometimes I thought I saw her with her
+throat cut; sometimes with her head cut, and her brains knocked out;
+other times hanged up upon a beam; another time drowned in the great
+pond at Camberwell. And all these appearances were terrifying to the
+last degree; and that which was still worse, I could really hear nothing
+of her; I sent to the captain's wife in Redriff, and she answered me,
+she was gone to her relations in Spitalfields. I sent thither, and they
+said she was there about three weeks ago, but that she went out in a
+coach with the gentlewoman that used to be so kind to her, but whither
+she was gone they knew not, for she had not been there since. I sent
+back the messenger for a description of the woman she went out with; and
+they described her so perfectly, that I knew it to be Amy, and none but
+Amy.
+
+I sent word again that Mrs. Amy, who she went out with, left her in two
+or three hours, and that they should search for her, for I had a reason
+to fear she was murdered. This frighted them all intolerably. They
+believed Amy had carried her to pay her a sum of money, and that
+somebody had watched her after her having received it, and had robbed
+and murdered her.
+
+I believed nothing of that part; but I believed, as it was, that
+whatever was done, Amy had done it; and that, in short, Amy had made her
+away; and I believed it the more, because Amy came no more near me, but
+confirmed her guilt by her absence.
+
+Upon the whole, I mourned thus for her for above a month; but finding
+Amy still come not near me, and that I must put my affairs in a posture
+that I might go to Holland, I opened all my affairs to my dear trusty
+friend the Quaker, and placed her, in matters of trust, in the room of
+Amy; and with a heavy, bleeding heart for my poor girl, I embarked with
+my spouse, and all our equipage and goods, on board another Holland's
+trader, not a packet-boat, and went over to Holland, where I arrived, as
+I have said.
+
+I must put in a caution, however, here, that you must not understand me
+as if I let my friend the Quaker into any part of the secret history of
+my former life; nor did I commit the grand reserved article of all to
+her, viz., that I was really the girl's mother, and the Lady Roxana;
+there was no need of that part being exposed; and it was always a maxim
+with me, that secrets should never be opened without evident utility. It
+could be of no manner of use to me or her to communicate that part to
+her; besides, she was too honest herself to make it safe to me; for
+though she loved me very sincerely, and it was plain by many
+circumstances that she did so, yet she would not lie for me upon
+occasion, as Amy would, and therefore it was not advisable on any terms
+to communicate that part; for if the girl, or any one else, should have
+come to her afterwards, and put it home to her, whether she knew that I
+was the girl's mother or not, or was the same as the Lady Roxana or not,
+she either would not have denied it, or would have done it with so ill a
+grace, such blushing, such hesitations and falterings in her answers, as
+would have put the matter out of doubt, and betrayed herself and the
+secret too.
+
+For this reason, I say, I did not discover anything of that kind to her;
+but I placed her, as I have said, in Amy's stead in the other affairs of
+receiving money, interests, rents, and the like, and she was as faithful
+as Amy could be, and as diligent.
+
+But there fell out a great difficulty here, which I knew not how to get
+over; and this was how to convey the usual supply of provision and money
+to the uncle and the other sister, who depended, especially the sister,
+upon the said supply for her support; and indeed, though Amy had said
+rashly that she would not take any more notice of the sister, and would
+leave her to perish, as above, yet it was neither in my nature, or Amy's
+either, much less was it in my design; and therefore I resolved to leave
+the management of what I had reserved for that work with my faithful
+Quaker, but how to direct her to manage them was the great difficulty.
+
+Amy had told them in so many words that she was not their mother, but
+that she was the maid Amy, that carried them to their aunt's; that she
+and their mother went over to the East Indies to seek their fortune, and
+that there good things had befallen them, and that their mother was very
+rich and happy; that she (Amy) had married in the Indies, but being now
+a widow, and resolving to come over to England, their mother had obliged
+her to inquire them out, and do for them as she had done; and that now
+she was resolved to go back to the Indies again; but that she had orders
+from their mother to do very handsomely by them; and, in a word, told
+them she had £2000 apiece for them, upon condition that they proved
+sober, and married suitably to themselves, and did not throw themselves
+away upon scoundrels.
+
+The good family in whose care they had been, I had resolved to take more
+than ordinary notice of; and Amy, by my order, had acquainted them with
+it, and obliged my daughters to promise to submit to their government,
+as formerly, and to be ruled by the honest man as by a father and
+counsellor; and engaged him to treat them as his children. And to oblige
+him effectually to take care of them, and to make his old age
+comfortable both to him and his wife, who had been so good to the
+orphans, I had ordered her to settle the other £2000, that is to say,
+the interest of it, which was £120 a year, upon them, to be theirs for
+both their lives, but to come to my two daughters after them. This was
+so just, and was so prudently managed by Amy, that nothing she ever did
+for me pleased me better. And in this posture, leaving my two daughters
+with their ancient friend, and so coming away to me (as they thought to
+the East Indies), she had prepared everything in order to her going over
+with me to Holland; and in this posture that matter stood when that
+unhappy girl, who I have said so much of, broke in upon all our
+measures, as you have heard, and, by an obstinacy never to be conquered
+or pacified, either with threats or persuasions, pursued her search
+after me (her mother) as I have said, till she brought me even to the
+brink of destruction; and would, in all probability, have traced me out
+at last, if Amy had not, by the violence of her passion, and by a way
+which I had no knowledge of, and indeed abhorred, put a stop to her, of
+which I cannot enter into the particulars here.
+
+However, notwithstanding this, I could not think of going away and
+leaving this work so unfinished as Amy had threatened to do, and for the
+folly of one child to leave the other to starve, or to stop my
+determined bounty to the good family I have mentioned. So, in a word, I
+committed the finishing it all to my faithful friend the Quaker, to whom
+I communicated as much of the whole story as was needful to empower her
+to perform what Amy had promised, and to make her talk so much to the
+purpose, as one employed more remotely than Amy had been, needed to be.
+
+To this purpose she had, first of all, a full possession of the money;
+and went first to the honest man and his wife, and settled all the
+matter with them; when she talked of Mrs. Amy, she talked of her as one
+that had been empowered by the mother of the girls in the Indies, but
+was obliged to go back to the Indies, and had settled all sooner if she
+had not been hindered by the obstinate humour of the other daughter;
+that she had left instructions with her for the rest; but that the other
+had affronted her so much that she was gone away without doing anything
+for her; and that now, if anything was done, it must be by fresh orders
+from the East Indies.
+
+I need not say how punctually my new agent acted; but, which was more,
+she brought the old man and his wife, and my other daughter, several
+times to her house, by which I had an opportunity, being there only as a
+lodger, and a stranger, to see my other girl, which I had never done
+before, since she was a little child.
+
+The day I contrived to see them I was dressed up in a Quaker's habit,
+and looked so like a Quaker, that it was impossible for them, who had
+never seen me before, to suppose I had ever been anything else; also my
+way of talking was suitable enough to it, for I had learned that long
+before.
+
+I have not time here to take notice what a surprise it was to me to see
+my child; how it worked upon my affections; with what infinite struggle
+I mastered a strong inclination that I had to discover myself to her;
+how the girl was the very counterpart of myself, only much handsomer;
+and how sweetly and modestly she behaved; how, on that occasion, I
+resolved to do more for her than I had appointed by Amy, and the like.
+
+It is enough to mention here, that as the settling this affair made way
+for my going on board, notwithstanding the absence of my old agent Amy,
+so, however, I left some hints for Amy too, for I did not yet despair of
+my hearing from her; and that if my good Quaker should ever see her
+again, she should let her see them; wherein, particularly, ordering her
+to leave the affair of Spitalfields just as I had done, in the hands of
+my friend, she should come away to me; upon this condition,
+nevertheless, that she gave full satisfaction to my friend the Quaker
+that she had not murdered my child; for if she had, I told her I would
+never see her face more. However, notwithstanding this, she came over
+afterwards, without giving my friend any of that satisfaction, or any
+account that she intended to come over.
+
+I can say no more now, but that, as above, being arrived in Holland,
+with my spouse and his son, formerly mentioned, I appeared there with
+all the splendour and equipage suitable to our new prospect, as I have
+already observed.
+
+Here, after some few years of flourishing and outwardly happy
+circumstances, I fell into a dreadful course of calamities, and Amy
+also; the very reverse of our former good days. The blast of Heaven
+seemed to follow the injury done the poor girl by us both, and I was
+brought so low again, that my repentance seemed to be only the
+consequence of my misery, as my misery was of my crime.
+
+
+
+
+CONTINUATION
+
+(_From the 1745 Edition_)
+
+
+In resolving to go to Holland with my husband, and take possession of
+the title of countess as soon as possible, I had a view of deceiving my
+daughter, were she yet alive, and seeking me out; for it seldom happens
+that a nobleman, or his lady, are called by their surnames, and as she
+was a stranger to our noble title, might have inquired at our next door
+neighbours for Mr. ----, the Dutch merchant, and not have been one jot
+the wiser for her inquiry. So one evening, soon after this resolution,
+as I and my husband were sitting together when supper was over, and
+talking of several various scenes in life, I told him that, as there was
+no likelihood of my being with child, as I had some reason to suspect I
+was some time before, I was ready to go with him to any part of the
+world, whenever he pleased. I said, that great part of my things were
+packed up, and what was not would not be long about, and that I had
+little occasion to buy any more clothes, linen, or jewels, whilst I was
+in England, having a large quantity of the richest and best of
+everything by me already. On saying these words, he took me in his
+arms, and told me that he looked on what I had now spoken with so great
+an emphasis, to be my settled resolution, and the fault should not lie
+on his side if it miscarried being put in practice.
+
+The next morning he went out to see some merchants, who had received
+advice of the arrival of some shipping which had been in great danger at
+sea, and whose insurance had run very high; and it was this interval
+that gave me an opportunity of my coming to a final resolution. I now
+told the Quaker, as she was sitting at work in her parlour, that we
+should very speedily leave her, and although she daily expected it, yet
+she was really sorry to hear that we had come to a full determination;
+she said abundance of fine things to me on the happiness of the life I
+did then, and was going to live; believing, I suppose, that a countess
+could not have a foul conscience; but at that very instant, I would
+have, had it been in my power, resigned husband, estate, title, and all
+the blessings she fancied I had in the world, only for her real virtue,
+and the sweet peace of mind, joined to a loving company of children,
+which she really possessed.
+
+When my husband returned, he asked me at dinner if I persevered in my
+resolution of leaving England; to which I answered in the affirmative.
+"Well," says he, "as all my affairs will not take up a week's time to
+settle, I will be ready to go from London with you in ten days' time."
+We fixed upon no particular place or abode, but in general concluded to
+go to Dover, cross the Channel to Calais, and proceed from thence by
+easy journeys to Paris, where after staying about a week, we intended to
+go through part of France, the Austrian Netherlands, and so on to
+Amsterdam, Rotterdam, or the Hague, as we were to settle before we went
+from Paris. As my husband did not care to venture all our fortune in one
+bottom, so our goods, money, and plate were consigned to several
+merchants, who had been his intimates many years, and he took notes of a
+prodigious value in his pocket, besides what he gave me to take care of
+during our journey. The last thing to be considered was, how we should
+go ourselves, and what equipage we should take with us; my thoughts were
+wholly taken up about it some time; I knew I was going to be a countess,
+and did not care to appear anything mean before I came to that honour;
+but, on the other hand, if I left London in any public way, I might
+possibly hear of inquiries after me in the road, that I had been
+acquainted with before. At last I said we would discharge all our
+servants, except two footmen, who should travel with us to Dover, and
+one maid to wait on me, that had lived with me only since the retreat of
+Amy, and she was to go through, if she was willing; and as to the
+carriage of us, a coach should be hired for my husband, myself, and
+maid, and two horses were to be hired for the footmen, who were to
+return with them to London.
+
+When the Quaker had heard when and how we intended to go, she begged, as
+there would be a spare seat in the coach, to accompany us as far as
+Dover, which we both readily consented to; no woman could be a better
+companion, neither was there any acquaintance that we loved better, or
+could show more respect to us.
+
+The morning before we set out, my husband sent for a master coachman to
+know the price of a handsome coach, with six able horses, to go to
+Dover. He inquired how many days we intended to be on the journey? My
+husband said he would go but very easy, and chose to be three days on
+the road; that they should stay there two days, and be three more
+returning to London, with a gentlewoman (meaning the Quaker) in it. The
+coachman said it would be an eight days' journey, and he would have ten
+guineas for it. My husband consented to pay him his demand, and he
+received orders to be ready at the door by seven of the clock the next
+morning: I was quite prepared to go, having no person to take leave of
+but the Quaker, and she had desired to see us take the packet-boat at
+Dover, before we parted with her; and the last night of my stay in
+London was spent very agreeably with the Quaker and her family. My
+husband, who stayed out later than usual, in taking his farewell of
+several merchants of his acquaintance, came home about eleven o'clock,
+and drank a glass or two of wine with us before we went to bed.
+
+The next morning, the whole family got up about five o'clock, and I,
+with my husband's consent, made each of the Quaker's daughters a present
+of a diamond ring, valued at £20, and a guinea apiece to all the
+servants, without exception. We all breakfasted together, and at the
+hour appointed, the coach and attendants came to the door; this drew
+several people about it, who were all very inquisitive to know who was
+going into the country, and what is never forgot on such occasions, all
+the beggars in the neighbourhood were prepared to give us their
+benedictions in hopes of an alms. When the coachmen had packed up what
+boxes were designed for our use, we, namely, my husband, the Quaker,
+myself, and the waiting-maid, all got into the coach, the footmen were
+mounted on horses behind, and in this manner the coach, after I had
+given a guinea to one of the Quaker's daughters equally to divide among
+the beggars at the door, drove away from the house, and I took leave of
+my lodging in the Minories, as well as of London.
+
+At St. George's Church, Southwark, we were met by three gentlemen on
+horseback, who were merchants of my husband's acquaintance, and had come
+out on purpose, to go half a day's journey with us; and as they kept
+talking to us at the coach side, we went a good pace, and were very
+merry together; we stopped at the best house of entertainment on
+Shooter's Hill.
+
+Here we stopped for about an hour, and drank some wine, and my husband,
+whose chief study was how to please and divert me, caused me to alight
+out of the coach; which the gentlemen who accompanied us observing,
+alighted also. The waiter showed us upstairs into a large room, whose
+window opened to our view a fine prospect of the river Thames, which
+here, they say, forms one of the most beautiful meanders. It was within
+an hour of high water, and such a number of ships coming in under sail
+quite astonished as well as delighted me, insomuch that I could not help
+breaking out into such-like expressions, "My dear, what a fine sight
+this is; I never saw the like before! Pray will they get to London this
+tide?" At which the good-natured gentleman smiled, and said, "Yes, my
+dear; why, there is London, and as the wind is quite fair for them, some
+of them will come to an anchor in about half-an-hour, and all within an
+hour."
+
+I was so taken up with looking down the river that, till my husband
+spoke, I had not once looked up the river; but when I did, and saw
+London, the Monument, the cathedral church of St. Paul, and the steeples
+belonging to the several parish churches, I was transported into an
+ecstasy, and could not refrain from saying, "Sure that cannot be the
+place we are now just come from, it must be further off, for that looks
+to be scarce three miles off, and we have been three hours, by my watch,
+coming from our lodgings in the Minories! No, no, it is not London, it
+is some other place!"
+
+Upon which one of the gentlemen present offered to convince me that the
+place I saw was London if I would go up to the top of the house, and
+view it from the turret. I accepted the offer, and I, my husband, and
+the three gentlemen were conducted by the master of the house upstairs
+into the turret. If I was delighted before with my prospect, I was now
+ravished, for I was elevated above the room I was in before upwards of
+thirty feet. I seemed a little dizzy, for the turret being a lantern,
+and giving light all ways, for some time I thought myself suspended in
+the air; but sitting down, and having eat a mouthful of biscuit and
+drank a glass of sack, I soon recovered, and then the gentleman who had
+undertaken to convince me that the place I was shown was really London,
+thus began, after having drawn aside one of the windows.
+
+"You see, my lady," says the gentleman, "the greatest, the finest, the
+richest, and the most populous city in the world, at least in Europe, as
+I can assure your ladyship, upon my own knowledge, it deserves the
+character I have given it." "But this, sir, will never convince me that
+the place you now show me is London, though I have before heard that
+London deserves the character you have with so much cordiality bestowed
+upon it. And this I can testify, that London, in every particular you
+have mentioned, greatly surpasses Paris, which is allowed by all
+historians and travellers to be the second city in Europe."
+
+Here the gentleman, pulling out his pocket-glass, desired me to look
+through it, which I did; and then he directed me to look full at St.
+Paul's, and to make that the centre of my future observation, and
+thereupon he promised me conviction.
+
+Whilst I took my observation, I sat in a high chair, made for that
+purpose, with a convenience before you to hold the glass. I soon found
+the cathedral, and then I could not help saying I have been several
+times up to the stone gallery, but not quite so often up to the iron
+gallery. Then I brought my eye to the Monument, and was obliged to
+confess I knew it to be such. The gentleman then moved the glass and
+desired me to look, which doing, I said, "I think I see Whitehall and
+St. James's Park, and I see also two great buildings like barns, but I
+do not know what they are." "Oh," says the gentleman, "they are the
+Parliament House and Westminster Abbey." "They may be so," said I; and
+continuing looking, I perceived the very house at Kensington which I had
+lived in some time; but of that I took no notice, yet I found my colour
+come, to think what a life of gaiety and wickedness I had lived. The
+gentleman, perceiving my disorder, said, "I am afraid I have tired your
+ladyship; I will make but one remove, more easterly, and then I believe
+you will allow the place we see to be London."
+
+He might have saved himself the trouble, for I was thoroughly convinced
+of my error; but to give myself time to recover, and to hide my
+confusion, I seemed not yet to be quite convinced. I looked, and the
+first object that presented itself was Aldgate Church, which, though I
+confess to my shame, I seldom saw the inside of it, yet I was well
+acquainted with the outside, for many times my friend the Quaker and I
+had passed and repassed by it when we used to go in the coach to take an
+airing. I saw the church, or the steeple of the church, so plain, and
+knew it so well, that I could not help saying, with some earnestness,
+"My dear, I see our church; the church, I mean, belonging to our
+neighbourhood; I am sure it is Aldgate Church." Then I saw the Tower,
+and all the shipping; and, taking my eye from the glass, I thanked the
+gentleman for the trouble I had given him, and said to him that I was
+fully convinced that the place I saw was London, and that it was the
+very place we came from that morning.
+
+When we came to Sittingbourne, our servant soon brought us word that
+although we were at the best inn in the town, yet there was nothing in
+the larder fit for our dinner. The landlord came in after him and began
+to make excuses for his empty cupboard. He told us, withal, that if we
+would please to stay, he would kill a calf, a sheep, a hog, or anything
+we had a fancy to. We ordered him to kill a pig and some pigeons, which,
+with a dish of fish, a cherry pie, and some pastry, made up a tolerable
+dinner. We made up two pounds ten shillings, for we caused the landlord,
+his wife, and two daughters, to dine with us, and help us off with our
+wine. Our landlady and her two daughters, with a glass or two given to
+the cook, managed two bottles of white wine. This operated so strong
+upon one of the young wenches that, my spouse being gone out into the
+yard, her tongue began to run; and, looking at me, she says to her
+mother, "La! mother, how much like the lady her ladyship is" (speaking
+of me), "the young woman who lodged here the other night, and stayed
+here part of the next day, and then set forward for Canterbury,
+described. The lady is the same person, I'm sure."
+
+This greatly alarmed me, and made me very uneasy, for I concluded this
+young woman could be no other than my daughter, who was resolved to find
+me out, whether I would or no. I desired the girl to describe the young
+woman she mentioned, which she did, and I was convinced it was my own
+daughter. I asked in what manner she travelled, and whether she had any
+company. I was answered that she was on foot, and that she had no
+company; but that she always travelled from place to place in company;
+that her method was, when she came into any town, to go to the best inns
+and inquire for the lady she sought; and then, when she had satisfied
+herself that the lady, whom she called her mother, was not to be found
+in that town or neighbourhood, she then begged the favour of the
+landlady of the inn where she was, to put her into such a company that
+she knew that she might go safe to the next town; that this was the
+manner of her proceeding at her house, and she believed she had
+practised it ever since she set out from London; and she hoped to meet
+with her mother, as she called her, upon the road.
+
+I asked my landlady whether she described our coach and equipage, but
+she said the young woman did not inquire concerning equipage, but only
+described a lady "so like your ladyship, that I have often, since I saw
+your ladyship, took you to be the very person she was looking for."
+
+Amidst the distractions of my mind, this afforded me some comfort, that
+my daughter was not in the least acquainted with the manner in which we
+travelled. My husband and the landlord returned, and that put an end to
+the discourse.
+
+I left this town with a heavy heart, feeling my daughter would
+infallibly find me out at Canterbury; but, as good luck would have it,
+she had left that city before we came thither, some time. I was very
+short in one thing, that I had not asked my landlady at Sittingbourne
+how long it was since my daughter was there. But when I came to
+Canterbury I was a very anxious and indefatigable in inquiring after my
+daughter, and I found that she had been at the inn where we then were,
+and had inquired for me, as I found by the description the people gave
+of myself.
+
+Here I learnt my daughter had left Canterbury a week. This pleased me;
+and I was determined to stay in Canterbury one day, to view the
+cathedral, and see the antiquities of this metropolis.
+
+As we had sixteen miles to our journey's end that night, for it was near
+four o'clock before we got into our coach again, the coachman drove with
+great speed, and at dusk in the evening we entered the west gate of the
+city, and put up at an inn in High Street (near St. Mary Bredman's
+church), which generally was filled with the best of company. The
+anxiety of my mind, on finding myself pursued by this girl, and the
+fatigue of my journey, had made me much out of order, my head ached, and
+I had no stomach.
+
+This made my husband (but he knew not the real occasion of my illness)
+and the Quaker very uneasy, and they did all in their power to persuade
+me to eat anything I could fancy.
+
+At length the landlady of the inn, who perceived I was more disturbed in
+my mind than sick, advised me to eat one poached egg, drink a glass of
+sack, eat a toast, and go to bed, and she warranted, she said, I should
+be well by the morning. This was immediately done; and I must
+acknowledge, that the sack and toast cheered me wonderfully, and I began
+to take heart again; and my husband would have the coachman in after
+supper, on purpose to divert me and the honest Quaker, who, poor
+creature, seemed much more concerned at my misfortune than I was myself.
+
+I went soon to bed, but for fear I should be worse in the night, two
+maids of the inn were ordered to sit up in an adjoining chamber; the
+Quaker and my waiting-maid lay in a bed in the same room, and my
+husband by himself in another apartment.
+
+While my maid was gone down on some necessary business, and likewise to
+get me some burnt wine, which I was to drink going to bed, or rather
+when I was just got into bed, the Quaker and I had the following
+dialogue:
+
+_Quaker._ The news thou heardest at Sittingbourne has disordered thee. I
+am glad the young woman has been out of this place a week; she went
+indeed for Dover; and when she comes there and canst not find thee, she
+may go to Deal, and so miss of thee.
+
+_Roxana._ What I most depend upon is, that as we do not travel by any
+particular name, but the general one of the baronet and his lady, and
+the girl hath no notion what sort of equipage we travelled with, it was
+not easy to make a discovery of me, unless she accidentally, in her
+travels, light upon you (meaning the Quaker), or upon me; either of
+which must unavoidably blow the secret I had so long laboured to
+conceal.
+
+_Quaker._ As thou intendest to stay here to-morrow, to see the things
+which thou callest antiquities, and which are more properly named the
+relics of the Whore of Babylon; suppose thou wert to send Thomas, who at
+thy command followeth after us, to the place called Dover, to inquire
+whether such a young woman has been inquiring for thee. He may go out
+betimes in the morning, and may return by night, for it is but twelve
+or fourteen miles at farthest thither.
+
+_Roxana._ I like thy scheme very well; and I beg the favour of you in
+the morning, as soon as you are up, to send Tom to Dover, with such
+instructions as you shall think proper.
+
+After a good night's repose I was well recovered, to the great
+satisfaction of all that were with me.
+
+The good-natured Quaker, always studious to serve and oblige me, got up
+about five o'clock in the morning, and going down into the inn-yard, met
+with Tom, gave him his instructions, and he set out for Dover before six
+o'clock.
+
+As we were at the best inn in the city, so we could readily have
+whatever we pleased, and whatever the season afforded; but my husband,
+the most indulgent man that ever breathed, having observed how heartily
+I ate my dinner at Rochester two days before, ordered the very same bill
+of fare, and of which I made a heartier meal than I did before. We were
+very merry, and after we had dined, we went to see the town-house, but
+as it was near five o'clock I left the Quaker behind me, to receive what
+intelligence she could get concerning my daughter, from the footman, who
+was expected to return from Dover at six.
+
+We came to the inn just as it was dark, and then excusing myself to my
+husband, I immediately ran up into my chamber, where I had appointed the
+Quaker to be against my return. I ran to her with eagerness, and
+inquired what news from Dover, by Tom, the footman.
+
+She said, Tom had been returned two hours; that he got to Dover that
+morning between seven and eight, and found, at the inn he put up at,
+there had been an inquisitive young woman to find out a gentleman that
+was a Dutch merchant, and a lady who was her mother; that the young
+woman perfectly well described his lady; that he found that she had
+visited every public inn in the town; that she said she would go to
+Deal, and that if she did not find the lady, her mother, there, she
+would go by the first ship to the Hague, and go from thence, to
+Amsterdam and Rotterdam, searching all the towns through which she
+passed in the United Provinces.
+
+This account pleased me very well, especially when I understood that she
+had been gone from Dover five days. The Quaker comforted me, and said it
+was lucky this busy creature had passed the road before us, otherwise
+she might easily have found means to have overtaken us, for, as she
+observed, the wench had such an artful way of telling her story, that
+she moved everybody to compassion; and she did not doubt but that if we
+had been before, as we were behind, she would have got those who would
+have assisted her with a coach, &c., to have pursued us, and they might
+have come up with us.
+
+I was of the honest Quaker's sentiments. I grew pretty easy, called Tom,
+and gave him half a guinea for his diligence; then I and the Quaker went
+into the parlour to my husband, and soon after supper came in, and I
+ate moderately, and we spent the remainder of the evening, for the clock
+had then tolled nine, very cheerfully; for my Quaker was so rejoiced at
+my good fortune, as she called it, that she was very alert, and
+exceeding good company; and her wit, and she had no small share of it, I
+thought was better played off than ever I had heard it before.
+
+My husband asked me how I should choose to go on board; I desired him to
+settle it as he pleased, telling him it was a matter of very great
+indifference to me, as he was to go with me. "That may be true, my
+dear," says he, "but I ask you for a reason or two, which I will lay
+before you, viz., if we hire a vessel for ourselves, we may set sail
+when we please, have the liberty of every part of the ship to ourselves,
+and land at what port, either in Holland or France, we might make choice
+of. Besides," added he, "another reason I mention it to you is, that I
+know you do not love much company, which, in going into the packet-boat,
+it is almost impossible to avoid." "I own, my dear," said I, "your
+reasons are very good; I have but one thing to say against them, which
+is, that the packet-boat, by its frequent voyages, must of course be
+furnished with experienced seamen, who know the seas too well even to
+run any hazard." (At this juncture the terrible voyage I and Amy made
+from France to Harwich came so strong in my mind, that I trembled so as
+to be taken notice of by my husband.) "Besides," added I, "the landlord
+may send the master of one of them to you, and I think it may be best to
+hire the state cabin, as they call it, to ourselves, by which method we
+shall avoid company, without we have an inclination to associate
+ourselves with such passengers we may happen to like; and the expense
+will be much cheaper than hiring a vessel to go the voyage with us
+alone, and every whit as safe."
+
+The Quaker, who had seriously listened to our discourse, gave it as her
+opinion that the method I had proposed was by far the safest, quickest,
+and cheapest. "Not," said she, "as I think thou wouldest be against any
+necessary expense, though I am certain thou wouldest not fling thy money
+away."
+
+Soon after, my husband ordered the landlord to send for one of the
+masters of the packet-boats, of whom he hired the great cabin, and
+agreed to sail from thence the next day, if the wind and the tide
+answered.
+
+The settling our method of going over sea had taken up the time till the
+dinner was ready, which we being informed of, came out of a chamber we
+had been in all the morning, to a handsome parlour, where everything was
+placed suitable to our rank; there was a large, old-fashioned service of
+plate, and a sideboard genteelly set off. The dinner was excellent, and
+well dressed.
+
+After dinner, we entered into another discourse, which was the hiring of
+servants to go with us from Dover to Paris; a thing frequently done by
+travellers; and such are to be met with at every stage inn. Our footmen
+set out this morning on their return to London, and the Quaker and coach
+was to go the next day. My new chambermaid, whose name was Isabel, was
+to go through the journey, on condition of doing no other business than
+waiting on me. In a while we partly concluded to let the hiring of
+men-servants alone till we came to Calais, for they could be of no use
+to us on board a ship, the sailor's or cabin boy's place being to attend
+the cabin passengers as well as his master.
+
+To divert ourselves, we took a walk after we had dined, round about the
+town, and coming to the garrison, and being somewhat thirsty, all went
+into the sutler's for a glass of wine. A pint was called for and
+brought; but the man of the house came in with it raving like a madman,
+saying, "Don't you think you are a villain, to ask for a pot of ale when
+I know you have spent all your money, and are ignorant of the means of
+getting more, without you hear of a place, which I look upon to be very
+unlikely?" "Don't be in such a passion, landlord," said my husband.
+"Pray, what is the matter?" "Oh, nothing, sir," says he; "but a young
+fellow in the sutling room, whom I find to have been a gentleman's
+servant, wants a place; and having spent all his money, would willingly
+run up a score with me, knowing I must get him a master if ever I intend
+to have my money." "Pray, sir," said my husband, "send the young fellow
+to me; if I like him, and can agree with him, it is possible I may take
+him into my service." The landlord took care we should not speak to him
+twice, he went and fetched him in himself, and my husband examined him
+before he spoke, as to his size, mien, and garb. The young man was clean
+dressed, of a middling stature, a dark complexion, and about
+twenty-seven years old.
+
+"I hear, young man," says he to him, "that you want a place; it may
+perhaps be in my power to serve you. Let me know at once what education
+you have had, if you have any family belonging to you, or if you are fit
+for a gentleman's service, can bring any person of reputation to your
+character, and are willing to go and live in Holland with me: we will
+not differ about your wages."
+
+The young fellow made a respectful bow to each of us, and addressed
+himself to my husband as follows: "Sir," said he, "in me you behold the
+eldest child of misfortune. I am but young, as you may see; I have no
+comers after me, and having lived with several gentlemen, some of whom
+are on their travels, others settled in divers parts of the world,
+besides what are dead, makes me unable to produce a character without a
+week's notice to write to London, and I should not doubt but by the
+return of the post to let you see some letters as would satisfy you in
+any doubts about me. My education," continued he, "is but very middling,
+being taken from school before I had well learnt to read, write, and
+cast accounts; and as to my parentage, I cannot well give you any
+account of them: all that I know is, that my father was a brewer, and by
+his extravagance ran out a handsome fortune, and afterwards left my poor
+mother almost penniless, with five small children, of which I was the
+second, though not above five years old. My mother knew not what to do
+with us, so she sent a poor girl, our maid, whose name I have forgot
+this many years, with us all to a relation's, and there left us, and I
+never saw or heard of or from them any more. Indeed, I inquired among
+the neighbours, and all that I could learn was that my mother's goods
+were seized, that she was obliged to apply to the parish for relief, and
+died of grief soon after. For my part," says he, "I was put into the
+hands of my father's sister, where, by her cruel usage, I was forced to
+run away at nine years of age; and the numerous scenes of life I have
+since gone through are more than would fill a small volume. Pray, sir,"
+added he, "let it satisfy you that I am thoroughly honest, and should be
+glad to serve you at any rate; and although I cannot possibly get a good
+character from anybody at present, yet I defy the whole world to give me
+an ill one, either in public or private life."
+
+If I had had the eyes of Argus I should have seen with them all on this
+occasion. I knew that this was my son, and one that, among all my
+inquiry, I could never get any account of. The Quaker seeing my colour
+come and go, and also tremble, said, "I verily believe thou art not
+well; I hope this Kentish air, which was always reckoned aguish, does
+not hurt thee?" "I am taken very sick of a sudden," said I; "so pray let
+me go to our inn that I may go to my chamber." Isabel being called in,
+she and the Quaker attended me there, leaving the young fellow with my
+spouse. When I was got into my chamber I was seized with such a grief as
+I had never known before; and flinging myself down upon the bed, burst
+into a flood of tears, and soon after fainted away. Soon after, I came a
+little to myself, and the Quaker begged of me to tell her what was the
+cause of my sudden indisposition. "Nothing at all," says I, "as I know
+of; but a sudden chilliness seized my blood, and that, joined to a
+fainting of the spirits, made me ready to sink."
+
+Presently after my husband came to see how I did, and finding me
+somewhat better, he told me that he had a mind to hire the young man I
+had left him with, for he believed he was honest and fit for our
+service. "My dear," says I, "I did not mind him. I would desire you to
+be cautious who we pick up on the road; but as I have the satisfaction
+of hiring my maids, I shall never trouble myself with the men-servants,
+that is wholly your province. However," added I (for I was very certain
+he was my son, and was resolved to have him in my service, though it was
+my interest to keep my husband off, in order to bring him on), "if you
+like the fellow, I am not averse to your hiring one servant in England.
+We are not obliged to trust him with much before we see his conduct,
+and if he does not prove as you may expect, you may turn him off
+whenever you please." "I believe," said my husband, "he has been
+ingenuous in his relation to me; and as a man who has seen great variety
+of life, and may have been the shuttlecock of fortune, the butt of envy,
+and the mark of malice, I will hire him when he comes to me here anon,
+as I have ordered him."
+
+As I knew he was to be hired, I resolved to be out of the way when he
+came to my husband; so about five o'clock I proposed to the Quaker to
+take a walk on the pier and see the shipping, while the tea-kettle was
+boiling. We went, and took Isabel with us, and as we were going along I
+saw my son Thomas (as I shall for the future call him) going to our inn;
+so we stayed out about an hour, and when we returned my husband told me
+he had hired the man, and that he was to come to him as a servant on the
+morrow morning. "Pray, my dear," said I, "did you ask where he ever
+lived, or what his name is?" "Yes," replied my husband, "he says his
+name is Thomas ----; and as to places, he has mentioned several families
+of note, and among others, he lived at my Lord ----'s, next door to the
+great French lady's in Pall Mall, whose name he tells me was Roxana." I
+was now in a sad dilemma, and was fearful I should be known by my own
+son; and the Quaker took notice of it, and afterwards told me she
+believed fortune had conspired that all the people I became acquainted
+with, should have known the Lady Roxana. "I warrant," said she, "this
+young fellow is somewhat acquainted with the impertinent wench that
+calls herself thy daughter."
+
+I was very uneasy in mind, but had one thing in my favour, which was
+always to keep myself at a very great distance from my servants; and as
+the Quaker was to part with us the next day or night, he would have
+nobody to mention the name Roxana to, and so of course it would drop.
+
+We supped pretty late at night, and were very merry, for my husband said
+all the pleasant things he could think of, to divert me from the
+supposed illness he thought I had been troubled with in the day. The
+Quaker kept up the discourse with great spirit, and I was glad to
+receive the impression, for I wanted the real illness to be drove out of
+my head.
+
+The next morning, after breakfast, Thomas came to his new place. He
+appeared very clean, and brought with him a small bundle, which I
+supposed to be linen tied up in a handkerchief. My husband sent him to
+order some porters belonging to the quay to fetch our boxes to the
+Custom-house, where they were searched, for which we paid one shilling;
+and he had orders to give a crown for head money, as they called it;
+their demand by custom is but sixpence a head, but we appeared to our
+circumstances in everything. As soon as our baggage was searched, it was
+carried from the Custom-house on board the packet-boat, and there
+lodged in the great cabin as we had ordered it.
+
+This took up the time till dinner, and when we were sitting together
+after we had both dined, the captain came to tell us that the wind was
+very fair, and that he was to sail at high water, which would be about
+ten o'clock at night. My husband asked him to stay and drink part of a
+bottle of wine with him, which he did; and their discourse being all in
+the maritime strain, the Quaker and I retired and left them together,
+for I had something to remind her of in our discourse before we left
+London. When we got into the garden, which was rather neat than fine, I
+repeated all my former requests to her about my children, Spitalfields,
+Amy, &c., and we sat talking together till Thomas was sent to tell us
+the captain was going, on which we returned; but, by the way, I kissed
+her and put a large gold medal into her hand, as a token of my sincere
+love, and desired that she would never neglect the things she had
+promised to perform, and her repeated promise gave me great
+satisfaction.
+
+The captain, who was going out of the parlour as we returned in, was
+telling my husband he would send six of his hands to conduct us to the
+boat, about a quarter of an hour before he sailed, and as the moon was
+at the full, he did not doubt of a pleasant passage.
+
+Our next business was to pay off the coachman, to whom my husband gave
+half a guinea extraordinary, to set the Quaker down at the house he
+took us all up at, which he promised to perform.
+
+As it was low water, we went on board to see the cabin that we were to
+go our voyage in, and the captain would detain us to drink a glass of
+the best punch, I think, I ever tasted.
+
+When we returned to the inn, we ordered supper to be ready by eight
+o'clock, that we might drink a parting glass to settle it, before we
+went on board; for my husband, who knew the sea very well, said a full
+stomach was the forerunner of sea-sickness, which I was willing to
+avoid.
+
+We invited the landlord, his wife, and daughter, to supper with us, and
+having sat about an hour afterwards, the captain himself, with several
+sailors, came to fetch us to the vessel. As all was paid, we had nothing
+to hinder us but taking a final leave of the Quaker, who would go to see
+us safe in the vessel, where tears flowed from both our eyes; and I
+turned short in the boat, while my husband took his farewell, and he
+then followed me, and I never saw the Quaker or England any more.
+
+We were no sooner on board than we hoisted sail; the anchors being up,
+and the wind fair, we cut the waves at a great rate, till about four
+o'clock in the morning, when a French boat came to fetch the mail to
+carry it to the post-house, and the boat cast her anchors, for we were a
+good distance from the shore, neither could we sail to the town till
+next tide, the present one being too far advanced in the ebb.
+
+We might have gone on shore in the boat that carried the mail, but my
+husband was sleeping in the cabin when it came to the packet-boat, and I
+did not care to disturb him; however, we had an opportunity soon after,
+for my husband awaking, and two other boats coming up with oars to see
+for passengers, Thomas came to let us know we might go on shore, if we
+pleased. My husband paid the master of the packet-boat for our passage,
+and Thomas, with the sailors' assistance, got our boxes into the wherry,
+so we sailed for Calais; but before our boat came to touch ground,
+several men, whose bread I suppose it is, rushed into the water, without
+shoes or stockings, to carry us on shore; so having paid ten shillings
+for the wherry, we each of us was carried from the boat to the land by
+two men, and our goods brought after us; here was a crown to be paid, to
+save ourselves from being wet, by all which a man that is going a
+travelling may see that it is not the bare expense of the packet-boat
+that will carry him to Calais.
+
+It would be needless to inform the reader of all the ceremonies that we
+passed through at this place before we were suffered to proceed on our
+journey; however, our boxes having been searched at the Custom-house, my
+husband had them plumbed, as they called it, to hinder any further
+inquiry about them; and we got them all to the Silver Lion, a noted inn,
+and the post-house of this place, where we took a stage-coach for
+ourselves, and the next morning, having well refreshed ourselves, we
+all, viz., my husband, self, and chambermaid within the coach, and
+Thomas behind (beside which my husband hired two horsemen well armed,
+who were pretty expensive, to travel with us), set forward on our
+journey.
+
+We were five days on our journey from Calais to Paris, which we went
+through with much satisfaction, for, having fine weather and good
+attendance, we had nothing to hope for.
+
+When we arrived at Paris (I began to be sorry I had ever proposed going
+to it for fear of being known, but as we were to stay there but a few
+days, I was resolved to keep very retired), we went to a merchant's
+house of my husband's acquaintance in the Rue de la Bourle, near the
+Carmelites, in the Faubourg de St. Jacques.
+
+This being a remote part of the city, on the south side, and near
+several pleasant gardens, I thought it would be proper to be a little
+indisposed, that my husband might not press me to go with him to see the
+curiosities; for he could do the most needful business, such as going to
+the bankers to exchange bills, despatching of letters, settling affairs
+with merchants, &c., without my assistance; and I had a tolerable plea
+for my conduct, such as the great fatigue of our journey, being among
+strangers, &c.; so we stayed at Paris eight days without my going to any
+particular places, except going one day to the gardens of Luxembourg,
+another to the church of Notre Dame on the Isle of Paris, a third to the
+Hôtel Royale des Invalides, a fourth to the gardens of the Tuileries, a
+fifth to the suburbs of St. Lawrence, to see the fair which was then
+holding there; a sixth to the gardens of the Louvre, a seventh to the
+playhouse, and the eighth stayed all day at home to write a letter to
+the Quaker, letting her know where I then was, and how soon we should go
+forwards in our journey, but did not mention where we intended to
+settle, as, indeed, we had not yet settled that ourselves.
+
+One of the days, viz., that in which I went to the gardens of the
+Tuileries, I asked Thomas several questions about his father, mother,
+and other relations, being resolved, notwithstanding he was my own son,
+as he did not know it, to turn him off by some stratagem or another, if
+he had any manner of memory of me, either as his mother, or the Lady
+Roxana. I asked him if he had any particular memory of his mother or
+father; he answered, "No, I scarce remember anything of either of them,"
+said he, "but I have heard from several people that I had one brother
+and three sisters, though I never saw them all, to know them,
+notwithstanding I lived with an aunt four years; I often asked after my
+mother, and some people said she went away with a man, but it was
+allowed by most people, that best knew her, that she, being brought to
+the greatest distress, was carried to the workhouse belonging to the
+parish, where she died soon after with grief."
+
+Nothing could give me more satisfaction than what Thomas had related; so
+now, I thought I would ask about the Lady Roxana (for he had been my
+next-door neighbour when I had that title conferred on me). "Pray,
+Thomas," said I, "did not you speak of a great person of quality, whose
+name I have forgot, that lived next door to my Lord ----'s when you was
+his valet? pray who was she? I suppose a foreigner, by the name you
+called her." "Really, my lady," replied he, "I do not know who she was;
+all I can say of her is, that she kept the greatest company, and was a
+beautiful woman, by report, but I never saw her; she was called the Lady
+Roxana, was a very good mistress, but her character was not so good as
+to private life as it ought to be. Though I once had an opportunity,"
+continued he, "of seeing a fine outlandish dress she danced in before
+the king, which I took as a great favour, for the cook took me up when
+the lady was out, and she desired my lady's woman to show it to me."
+
+All this answered right, and I had nothing to do but to keep my Turkish
+dress out of the way, to be myself unknown to my child, for as he had
+never seen Roxana, so he knew nothing of me.
+
+In the interval, my husband had hired a stage-coach to carry us to the
+city of Menin, where he intended to go by water down the river Lys to
+Ghent, and there take coach to Isabella fort, opposite the city of
+Anvers, and cross the river to that place, and go from thence by land to
+Breda; and as he had agreed and settled this patrol, I was satisfied,
+and we set out next day. We went through several handsome towns and
+villages before we took water, but by water we went round part of the
+city of Courtrai, and several fortified towns. At Anvers we hired a
+coach to Breda, where we stayed two days to refresh ourselves, for we
+had been very much fatigued; as Willemstadt was situated so as to be
+convenient for our taking water for Rotterdam, we went there, and being
+shipped, had a safe and speedy voyage to that city.
+
+As we had resolved in our journey to settle at the Hague, we did not
+intend to stay any longer at Rotterdam, than while my husband had all
+our wealth delivered to him from the several merchants he had consigned
+it to. This business took up a month, during which time we lived in
+ready-furnished lodgings on the Great Quay, where all the respect was
+shown us as was due to our quality.
+
+Here my husband hired two more men-servants, and I took two maids, and
+turned Isabel, who was a well-bred, agreeable girl, into my companion;
+but that I might not be too much fatigued, my husband went to the Hague
+first, and left me, with three maids and Thomas, at Rotterdam, while he
+took a house, furnished it, and had everything ready for my reception,
+which was done with great expedition. One of his footmen came with a
+letter to me one morning, to let me know his master would come by the
+scow next day to take me home, in which he desired that I would prepare
+for my departure. I soon got everything ready, and the next morning, on
+the arrival of the scow, I saw my husband; and we both, with all the
+servants, left the city of Rotterdam, and safely got to the Hague the
+afternoon following.
+
+It was now the servants had notice given them to call me by the name of
+"my lady," as the honour of baronetage had entitled me, and with which
+title I was pretty well satisfied, but should have been more so had not
+I yet the higher title of countess in view.
+
+I now lived in a place where I knew nobody, neither was I known, on
+which I was pretty careful whom I became acquainted with; our
+circumstances were very good, my husband loving, to the greatest degree,
+my servants respectful; and, in short, I lived the happiest life woman
+could enjoy, had my former crimes never crept into my guilty conscience.
+
+I was in this happy state of life when I wrote a letter to the Quaker,
+in which I gave her a direction where she might send to me. And about a
+fortnight after, as I was one afternoon stepping into my coach in order
+to take an airing, the postman came to our door with letters, one of
+which was directed to me, and as soon as I saw it was the Quaker's hand,
+I bid the coachman put up again, and went into my closet to read the
+contents, which were as follows:
+
+     "DEAR FRIEND,--I have had occasion to write to thee several times
+     since we saw each other, but as this is my first letter, so it
+     shall contain all the business thou wouldst know. I got safe to
+     London, by thy careful ordering of the coach, and the attendants
+     were not at all wanting in their duty. When I had been at home a
+     few days, thy woman, Mrs. Amy, came to see me, so I took her to
+     task as thou ordered me, about murdering thy pretended daughter;
+     she declared her innocence, but said she had procured a false
+     evidence to swear a large debt against her, and by that means had
+     put her into a prison, and fee'd the keepers to hinder her from
+     sending any letter or message out of the prison to any person
+     whatever. This, I suppose, was the reason thou thought she was
+     murdered, because thou wert relieved from her by this base usage.
+     However, when I heard of it, I checked Amy very much, but was well
+     satisfied to hear she was alive. After this I did not hear from Amy
+     for above a month, and in the interim (as I knew thou wast safe), I
+     sent a friend of mine to pay the debt, and release the prisoner,
+     which he did, but was so indiscreet as to let her know who was the
+     benefactress. My next care was to manage thy Spitalfields business,
+     which I did with much exactness. And the day that I received thy
+     last letter, Amy came to me again, and I read as much of it to her
+     as she was concerned in: nay, I entreated her to drink tea with me,
+     and after it one glass of citron, in which she drank towards thy
+     good health, and she told me she would come to see thee as soon as
+     possible. Just as she was gone, I was reading thy letter again in
+     the little parlour, and that turbulent creature (thy pretended
+     daughter) came to me, as she said, to return thanks for the favour
+     I had done her, so I accidentally laid thy letter down in the
+     window, while I went to fetch her a glass of cordial, for she
+     looked sadly; and before I returned I heard the street door shut,
+     on which I went back without the liquor, not knowing who might have
+     come in, but missing her, I thought she might be gone to stand at
+     the door, and the wind had blown it to; but I was never the nearer,
+     she was sought for in vain. So when I believed her to be quite
+     gone, I looked to see if I missed anything, which I did not; but at
+     last, to my great surprise, I missed your letter, which she
+     certainly took and made off with. I was so terrified at this
+     unhappy chance that I fainted away, and had not one of my maidens
+     come in at that juncture, it might have been attended with fatal
+     consequences. I would advise thee to prepare thyself to see her,
+     for I verily believe she will come to thee. I dread your knowing of
+     this, but hope the best. Before I went to fetch the unhappy
+     cordial, she told me, as she had often done before, that she was
+     the eldest daughter, that the captain's wife was your second
+     daughter, and her sister, and that the youngest sister was dead.
+     She also said there were two brothers, the eldest of whom had never
+     been seen by any of them since he run away from an uncle's at nine
+     years of age, and that the youngest had been taken care of by an
+     old lady that kept her coach, whom he took to be his godmother. She
+     gave me a long history in what manner she was arrested and flung
+     into Whitechapel jail, how hardly she fared there; and at length
+     the keeper's wife, to whom she told her pitiful story, took
+     compassion of her, and recommended her to the bounty of a certain
+     lady who lived in that neighbourhood, that redeemed prisoners for
+     small sums, and who lay for their fees, every return of the day of
+     her nativity; that she was one of the six the lady had discharged;
+     that the lady prompted her to seek after her mother; that she
+     thereupon did seek thee in all the towns and villages between
+     London and Dover; that not finding thee at Dover she went to Deal;
+     and that at length, she being tired of seeking thee, she returned
+     by shipping to London, where she was no sooner arrived but she was
+     immediately arrested and flung into the Marshalsea prison, where
+     she lived in a miserable condition, without the use of pen, ink,
+     and paper, and without the liberty of having any one of her friends
+     come near her. 'In this condition I was,' continued she, 'when you
+     sent and paid my debt for me, and discharged me.' When she had
+     related all this she fell into such a fit of crying, sighing, and
+     sobbing, from which, when she was a little recovered, she broke out
+     into loud exclamations against the wickedness of the people in
+     England, that they could be so unchristian as to arrest her twice,
+     when she said it was as true as the Gospel that she never did owe
+     to any one person the sum of one shilling in all her life; that she
+     could not think who it was that should owe her so much ill-will,
+     for that she was not conscious to herself that she had any ways
+     offended any person in the whole universal world, except Mrs. Amy,
+     in the case of her mother, which, she affirmed, she was acquitted
+     of by all men, and hoped she should be so by her Maker; and that if
+     she (Mrs. Amy) had any hand in her sufferings, God would forgive
+     her, as she heartily did. 'But then,' she added, 'I will not stay
+     in England, I will go all over the world, I will go to France, to
+     Paris; I know my mother did once live there, and if I do not find
+     her there, I will go through Holland, to Amsterdam, to Rotterdam;
+     in short, I will go till I find my mother out, if I should die in
+     the pursuit.' I should be glad to hear of thine and thy spouse's
+     welfare, and remain with much sincerity, your sincere friend,
+
+     "M.P.
+
+     "The ninth of the month called October.
+
+     "P.S.--If thou hast any business to transact in this city, pray let
+     me know; I shall use my best endeavours to oblige thee; my
+     daughters all join with me in willing thee a hearty farewell."
+
+I concealed my surprise for a few minutes, only till I could get into
+the summer-house, at the bottom of our large garden; but when I was shut
+in, no living soul can describe the agony I was in, I raved, tore,
+fainted away, swore, prayed, wished, cried, and promised, but all
+availed nothing, I was now stuck in to see the worst of it, let what
+would happen.
+
+At last I came to the following resolution, which was to write a letter
+to the Quaker, and in it enclose a fifty pound bank-bill, and tell the
+Quaker to give that to the young woman if she called again, and also to
+let her know a fifty pound bill should be sent her every year, so long
+as she made no inquiry after me, and kept herself retired in England.
+Although this opened myself too full to the Quaker, yet I thought I had
+better venture my character abroad, than destroy my peace at home.
+
+Soon after, my husband came home, and he perceived I had been crying,
+and asked what was the reason. I told him that I had shed tears both
+for joy and sorrow: "For," said I, "I have received one of the
+tenderest letters from Amy, as it was possible for any person, and she
+tells me in it," added I, "that she will soon come to see me; which so
+overjoyed me, that I cried, and after it, I went to read the letter a
+second time, as I was looking out of the summer-house window over the
+canal; and in unfolding it, I accidentally let it fall in, by which
+mischance it is lost, for which I am very sorry, as I intended you
+should see it." "Pray, my dear," said he, "do not let that give you any
+uneasiness; if Amy comes, and you approve of it, you have my consent to
+take her into the house, in what capacity you please. I am very glad,"
+continued he, "that you have nothing of more consequence to be uneasy
+at, I fancy you would make but an indifferent helpmate if you had." Oh!
+thought I to myself, if you but knew half the things that lie on my
+conscience, I believe you would think that I bear them out past all
+example.
+
+About ten days afterwards, as we were sitting at dinner with two
+gentlemen, one of the footmen came to the door, and said, "My lady, here
+is a gentlewoman at the door who desires to speak with you: she says her
+name is Mrs. Amy."
+
+I no sooner heard her name, but I was ready to swoon away, but I ordered
+the footman to call Isabel, and ask the gentlewoman to walk up with her
+into my dressing-room; which he immediately did, and there I went to
+have my first interview with her. She kissed me for joy when she saw
+me, and I sent Isabel downstairs, for I was in pain till I had some
+private conversation with my old confidante.
+
+There was not much ceremony between us, before I told her all the
+material circumstances that had happened in her absence, especially
+about the girl's imprisonments which she had contrived, and how she had
+got my letter at the Quaker's, the very day she had been there. "Well,"
+says Amy, when I had told her all, "I find nothing is to ensue, if she
+lives, but your ruin; you would not agree to her death, so I will not
+make myself uneasy about her life; it might have been rectified, but you
+were angry with me for giving you the best of counsel, viz., when I
+proposed to murder her."
+
+"Hussy," said I, in the greatest passion imaginable, "how dare you
+mention the word murder? You wretch you, I could find in my heart, if my
+husband and the company were gone, to kick you out of my house. Have you
+not done enough to kill her, in throwing her into one of the worst jails
+in England, where, you see, that Providence in a peculiar manner
+appeared to her assistance. Away! thou art a wicked wretch; thou art a
+murderer in the sight of God."
+
+"I will say no more," says Amy, "but if I could have found her, after
+thy friend the Quaker had discharged her out of the Marshalsea prison, I
+had laid a scheme to have her taken up for a theft, and by that means
+got her transported for fourteen years. She will be with you soon, I am
+sure; I believe she is now in Holland."
+
+While we were in this discourse, I found the gentlemen who dined with us
+were going, so we came downstairs, and I went into the parlour to take
+leave of them before their departure. When they were gone, my husband
+told me he had been talking with them about taking upon him the title of
+Count or Earl of ----, as he had told me of, and as an opportunity now
+offered, he was going to put it in execution.
+
+I told him I was so well settled, as not to want anything this world
+could afford me, except the continuance of his life and love (though the
+very thing he had mentioned, joined with the death of my daughter, in
+the natural way, would have been much more to my satisfaction). "Well,
+my dear," says he, "the expense will be but small, and as I promised you
+the title, it shall not be long before the honour shall be brought home
+to your toilette." He was as good as his word, for that day week he
+brought the patent home to me, in a small box covered with crimson
+velvet and two gold hinges. "There, my lady countess," says he, "long
+may you live to bear the title, for I am certain you are a credit to
+it." In a few days after, I had the pleasure to see our equipage, as
+coach, chariot, &c., all new painted, and a coronet fixed at the proper
+place, and, in short, everything was proportioned to our quality, so
+that our house vied with most of the other nobility.
+
+It was at this juncture that I was at the pinnacle of all my worldly
+felicity, notwithstanding my soul was black with the foulest crimes.
+And, at the same time, I may begin to reckon the beginning of my
+misfortunes, which were in embryo, but were very soon brought forth, and
+hurried me on to the greatest distress.
+
+As I was sitting one day talking to Amy in our parlour, and the street
+door being left open by one of the servants, I saw my daughter pass by
+the window, and without any ceremony she came to the parlour door, and
+opening of it, came boldly in. I was terribly amazed, and asked her who
+she wanted, as if I had not known her, but Amy's courage was quite lost,
+and she swooned away. "Your servant, my lady," says she; "I thought I
+should never have had the happiness to see you _tête-à-tête_, till your
+agent, the Quaker, in Haydon Yard, in the Minories, carelessly left a
+direction for me in her own window; however, she is a good woman, for
+she released me out of a jail in which, I believe, that base wretch"
+(pointing to Amy, who was coming to herself) "caused me to be confined."
+As soon as Amy recovered, she flew at her like a devil, and between them
+there was so much noise as alarmed the servants, who all came to see
+what was the matter. Amy had pulled down one of my husband's swords,
+drawn it, and was just going to run her through the body, as the
+servants came in, who not knowing anything of the matter, some of them
+secured Amy, others held the girl, and the rest were busy about me, to
+prevent my fainting away, which was more than they could do, for I fell
+into strong fits, and in the interim they turned the girl out of the
+house, who was fully bent on revenge.
+
+My lord, as I now called him, was gone out a-hunting. I was satisfied he
+knew nothing of it, as yet, and when Amy and I were thoroughly come to
+ourselves, we thought it most advisable to find the girl out, and give
+her a handsome sum of money to keep her quiet. So Amy went out, but in
+all her searching could hear nothing of her; this made me very uneasy. I
+guessed she would contrive to see my lord before he came home, and so it
+proved, as you shall presently hear.
+
+When night came on, that I expected his return, I wondered I did not see
+him. Amy sat up in my chamber with me, and was as much concerned as was
+possible. Well, he did not come in all that night, but the next morning,
+about ten o'clock, he rapped at the door, with the girl along with him.
+When it was opened, he went into the great parlour, and bid Thomas go
+call down his lady. This was the crisis. I now summoned up all my
+resolution, and took Amy down with me, to see if we could not baffle the
+girl, who, to an inch, was her mother's own child.
+
+It will be necessary here to give a short account of our debate, because
+on it all my future misery depended, and it made me lose my husband's
+love, and own my daughter; who would not rest there, but told my lord
+how many brothers and sisters she had.
+
+When we entered the room, my lord was walking very gravely about it, but
+with his brows knit, and a wild confusion in his face, as if all the
+malice and revenge of a Dutchman had joined to put me out of countenance
+before I spoke a word.
+
+"Pray, madam," says he, "do you know this young woman? I expect a speedy
+and positive answer, without the least equivocation."
+
+"Really, my lord," replied I, "to give you an answer as quick as you
+desire, I declare I do not."
+
+"Do not!" said he, "what do you mean by that? She tells me that you are
+her mother, and that her father ran away from you, and left two sons,
+and two daughters besides herself, who were all sent to their relations
+for provision, after which you ran away with a jeweller to Paris. Do you
+know anything of this? answer me quickly."
+
+"My lord," said the girl, "there is Mrs. Amy, who was my mother's
+servant at the time (as she told me herself about three months ago),
+knows very well I am the person I pretend to be, and caused me to be
+thrown into jail for debts I knew nothing of, because I should not find
+out my mother to make myself known to her before she left England."
+
+After this she told my lord everything she knew of me, even in the
+character of Roxana, and described my dress so well, that he knew it to
+be mine.
+
+[Illustration: ROXANA IS CONFRONTED WITH HER DAUGHTER
+
+"_Pray, madam," says he, "do you know this young woman?_"]
+
+When she had quite gone through her long relation, "Well, madam,"
+says he, "now let me see if I cannot tell how far she has told the truth
+in relation to you. When I first became acquainted with you, it was on
+the sale of those jewels, in which I stood so much your friend, at a
+time that you were in the greatest distress, your substance being in the
+hands of the Jew; you then passed for a jeweller's widow; this agrees
+with her saying you ran away with a jeweller. In the next place, you
+would not consent to marry me about twelve years ago; I suppose then
+your real husband was living, for nothing else could tally with your
+condescension to me in everything except marriage. Since that time, your
+refusing to come to Holland in the vessel I had provided for you, under
+a distant prospect of your being with child, though in reality it was
+your having a child too much, as the captain told me of, when I, being
+ignorant of the case, did not understand him. Now," continued he, "she
+says that you are the identical Lady Roxana which made so much noise in
+the world, and has even described the robe and head-dress you wore on
+that occasion, and in that I know she is right; for, to my own
+knowledge, you have that very dress by you now; I having seen you
+dressed in it at our lodging at the Quaker's. From all these
+circumstances," says he, "I may be assured that you have imposed grossly
+upon me, and instead of being a woman of honour as I took you for, I
+find that you have been an abandoned wretch, and had nothing to
+recommend you but a sum of money and a fair countenance, joined to a
+false unrelenting heart."
+
+These words of my lord's struck such a damp upon my spirits, as made me
+unable to speak in my turn. But at last, I spoke as follows: "My lord, I
+have most patiently stood to hear all it was possible for you to allege
+against me, which has no other proof than imagination. That I was the
+wife of a brewer, I have no reason now to deny, neither had I any
+occasion before to acknowledge it. I brought him a handsome fortune,
+which, joined to his, made us appear in a light far superior to our
+neighbours. I had also five children by him, two sons and three
+daughters, and had my husband been as wise as rich, we might have lived
+happily together now. But it was not so, for he minded nothing but
+sporting, in almost every branch; and closely following of it soon run
+out all his substance, and then left me in an unhappy, helpless
+condition. I did not send my children to my relations till the greatest
+necessity drove me, and after that, hearing my husband was dead, I
+married the jeweller, who was afterwards murdered. If I had owned how
+many children I had, the jeweller would not have married me, and the way
+of life I was in would not keep my family, so I was forced to deny them
+in order to get them bread. Neither can I say that I have either heard
+or known anything of my children since, excepting that I heard they were
+all taken care of; and this was the very reason I would not marry you,
+when you offered it some years since, for these children lay seriously
+at my heart, and as I did not want money, my inclination was to come to
+England, and not entail five children upon you the day of marriage."
+
+"Pray, madam," said my lord, interrupting me, "I do not find that you
+kept up to your resolutions when you got there; you were so far from
+doing your duty as a parent, that you even neglected the civility of
+acquaintances, for they would have asked after them, but your whole
+scheme has been to conceal yourself as much as possible, and even when
+you were found out, denied yourself, as witness the case of your
+daughter here. As to the character of Lady Roxana, which you so nicely
+managed," said he, "did that become a woman that had five children,
+whose necessity had obliged you to leave them, to live in a continual
+scene of pageantry and riot, I could almost say debauchery? Look into
+your conduct, and see if you deserve to have the title or the estate you
+now so happily enjoy."
+
+After this speech, he walked about the room in a confused manner for
+some minutes, and then addressed himself to Amy. "Pray, Mrs. Amy," says
+he, "give me your judgment in this case, for although I know you are as
+much as possible in your lady's interest, yet I cannot think you have so
+little charity as to think she acted like a woman of worth and
+discretion. Do you really think, as you knew all of them from infants,
+that this young woman is your lady's daughter?"
+
+Amy, who always had spirits enough about her, said at once she believed
+the girl was my daughter. "And truly," says she, "I think your man
+Thomas is her eldest son, for the tale he tells of his birth and
+education suits exactly with our then circumstances."
+
+"Why, indeed," said my lord, "I believe so too, for I now recollect that
+when we first took him into our service at Dover, he told me he was the
+son of a brewer in London; that his father had run away from his mother,
+and left her in a distressed condition with five children, of which he
+was second child, or eldest son."
+
+Thomas was then called into the parlour, and asked what he knew of his
+family; he repeated all as above, concerning his father's running away
+and leaving me; but said that he had often asked and inquired after
+them, but without any success, and concluded, that he believed his
+brothers and sisters were distributed in several places, and that his
+mother died in the greatest distress, and was buried by the parish.
+
+"Indeed," said my lord, "it is my opinion that Thomas is one of your
+sons; do not you think the same?" addressing himself to me.
+
+"From the circumstances that have been related, my lord," said I, "I now
+believe that these are both my children; but you would have thought me a
+mad woman to have countenanced and taken this young woman in as my
+child, without a thorough assurance of it; for that would have been
+running myself to a certain expense and trouble, without the least
+glimpse of real satisfaction."
+
+"Pray," said my lord to my daughter, "let me know what is become of
+your brothers and sisters; give me the best account of them that you
+can."
+
+"My lord," replied she, "agreeably to your commands, I will inform you
+to the best of my knowledge; and to begin with myself, who am the eldest
+of the five. I was put to a sister of my father's with my youngest
+brother, who, by mere dint of industry, gave us maintenance and
+education, suitable to her circumstances; and she, with my uncle's
+consent, let me go to service when I was advanced in years; and among
+the variety of places I lived at, Lady Roxana's was one."
+
+"Yes," said Thomas, "I knew her there, when I was a valet at my Lord
+D----'s, the next door; it was there I became acquainted with her; and
+she, by the consent of the gentlewoman," pointing to Amy, "let me see
+the Lady Roxana's fine vestment, which she danced in at the grand ball."
+
+"Well," continued my daughter, "after I left this place, I was at
+several others before I became acquainted with Mrs. Amy a second time (I
+knew her before as Roxana's woman), who told me one day some things
+relating to my mother, and from thence I concluded if she was not my
+mother herself (as I at first thought she was), she must be employed by
+her; for no stranger could profess so much friendship, where there was
+no likelihood of any return, after being so many years asunder.
+
+"After this, I made it my business to find your lady out if possible,
+and was twice in her company, once on board the ship you were to have
+come to Holland in, and once at the Quaker's house in the Minories,
+London; but as I gave her broad hints of whom I took her for, and my
+lady did not think proper to own me, I began to think I was mistaken,
+till your voyage to Holland was put off. Soon after, I was flung into
+Whitechapel jail for a false debt, but, through the recommendation of
+the jailer's wife to the annual charity of the good Lady Roberts, of
+Mile End, I was discharged. Whereupon I posted away, seeking my mother
+all down the Kent Road as far as Dover and Deal, at which last place not
+finding her, I came in a coaster to London, and landing in Southwark,
+was immediately arrested, and confined in the Marshalsea prison, where I
+remained some time, deprived of every means to let any person without
+the prison know my deplorable state and condition, till my chum, a young
+woman, my bedfellow, who was also confined for debt, was, by a
+gentleman, discharged. This young woman of her own free will, went, my
+lord, to your lodgings in the Minories, and acquainted your landlady,
+the Quaker, where I was, and for what sum I was confined, who
+immediately sent and paid the pretended debt, and so I was a second time
+discharged. Upon which, going to the Quaker's to return her my thanks
+soon after a letter from your lady to her, with a direction in it where
+to find you, falling into my hands, I set out the next morning for the
+Hague; and I humbly hope your pardon, my lord, for the liberty I have
+taken; and you may be assured, that whatever circumstances of life I
+happen to be in, I will be no disgrace to your lordship or family."
+
+"Well," said my husband, "what can you say of your mother's second
+child, who, I hear, was a son?"
+
+"My lord," said I, "it is in my power to tell you, that Thomas there is
+the son you mention; their circumstances are the same, with this
+difference, that she was brought up under the care of a good aunt, and
+the boy forced to run away from a bad one, and shift for his bread ever
+since; so if she is my daughter, he is my son, and to oblige you, my
+lord, I own her, and to please myself I will own him, and they two are
+brother and sister." I had no sooner done speaking, than Thomas fell
+down before me, and asked my blessing, after which, he addressed himself
+to my lord as follows:
+
+"My lord," said he, "out of your abundant goodness you took me into your
+service at Dover. I told you then the circumstances I was in, which will
+save your lordship much time by preventing a repetition; but, if your
+lordship pleases, it shall be carefully penned down, for such a variety
+of incidents has happened to me in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland,
+Holland, France, and the Isle of Man, in which I have travelled for
+about eighteen years past, as may prove an agreeable amusement to you,
+when you are cloyed with better company; for as I have never been
+anything above a common servant, so my stories shall only consist of
+facts, and such as are seldom to be met with, as they are all in low
+life."
+
+"Well, Thomas," said my lord, "take your own time to do it, and I will
+reward you for your trouble."
+
+"Now, madam," said my lord to my daughter, "if you please to proceed."
+"My lord," continued she, "my mother's third child, which was a
+daughter, lived with the relation I did, and got a place to wait upon a
+young lady whose father and mother were going to settle at Boulogne, in
+France; she went with them, and having stayed at this gentleman's (who
+was a French merchant) two years, was married to a man with the consent
+of the family she lived in; and her master, by way of fortune, got him
+to be master of a French and Holland coaster, and this was the very
+person whose ship you hired to come to Holland in; the captain's wife
+was my own sister, consequently my lady's second daughter; as to my
+youngest sister, she lived with the uncle and aunt Thomas ran away from,
+and died of the smallpox soon after. My youngest brother was put out
+apprentice to a carpenter, where he improved in his business, till a
+gentlewoman came to his master and mistress (which I take by the
+description they gave me, to be Mrs. Amy), who had him put out to an
+education fit for a merchant, and then sent him to the Indies, where he
+is now settled, and in a fair way to get a large estate. This, my lord,
+is the whole account I can at present give of them, and although it may
+seem very strange, I assure you, it is all the just truth."
+
+When she had finished her discourse, my lord turned to me, and said,
+that since I that was her mother had neglected doing my duty, though
+sought so much after, he would take it upon himself to see both the girl
+and Thomas provided for, without any advising or letting me know
+anything about them; and added, with a malicious sneer, "I must take
+care of the child I have had by you too, or it will have but an
+indifferent parent to trust to in case of my decease."
+
+This finished the discourse, and my lord withdrew into his study, in a
+humour that I am unable to describe, and left me, Amy, Thomas, and my
+daughter Susanna, as I must now call her, in the parlour together. We
+sat staring at each other some time, till at last Amy said, "I suppose,
+my lady, you have no farther business with your new daughter; she has
+told her story, and may now dispose of herself to the best advantage she
+can." "No," said I, "I have nothing to say to her, only that she shall
+never be admitted into my presence again." The poor girl burst out into
+tears, and said, "Pray, my lady, excuse me, for I am certain that were
+you in my circumstances, you would have done the very action I have, and
+would expect a pardon for committing the offence."
+
+After this, I said to Thomas, "Keep what has been said to yourself, and
+I shall speak to you by-and-by;" and then I withdrew, and went upstairs
+to my closet, leaving Amy with Susanna, who soon dismissed her, and
+followed me.
+
+When Amy came to me, "Now, my lady," says she, "what do you think of
+this morning's work? I believe my lord is not so angry as we were
+fearful of." "You are mistaken in your lord, Amy," said I, "and are not
+so well acquainted with the deep and premeditated revenge of Dutchmen as
+I am, and although it may not be my husband's temper, yet I dread it as
+much, but shall see more at dinner time."
+
+Soon after this, my husband called Thomas, and bid him order the cloth
+for his dinner to be laid in his study, and bid him tell his mother that
+he would dine by himself. When I heard this, I was more shocked than I
+had been yet. "Now his anger begins to work, Amy," said I, "how must I
+act?" "I do not know," answered she, "but I will go into the study, and
+try what can be done, and, as a faithful mediator, will try to bring you
+together." She was not long before she returned, and bursting into
+tears, "I know not what to do," says she, "for your husband is in a deep
+study, and when I told him you desired him to dine with you in the
+parlour as usual, he only said, 'Mrs. Amy, go to your lady, tell her to
+dine when and where she pleases, and pray obey her as your lady; but let
+her know from me that she has lost the tenderness I had for her as a
+wife, by the little thought she had of her children.'"
+
+Nothing could have shocked me more than the delivery of this message by
+Amy. I, almost bathed in tears, went to him myself; found him in a
+melancholy posture reading in Milton's "Paradise Regained." He looked at
+me very sternly when I entered his study, told me he had nothing to say
+to me at that time, and if I had a mind not to disturb him, I must leave
+him for the present. "My lord," said I, "supposing all that has been
+said by this girl was truth, what reason have you to be in this
+unforgiving humour? What have I done to you to deserve this usage? Have
+you found any fault with me since I had the happiness of being married
+to you? Did you ever find me in any company that you did not approve of?
+Have you any reason to think that I have wasted any of your substance?
+If you have none of these things to allege against me, for heaven's sake
+do not let us now make our lives unhappy, for my having had legitimate
+children by a lawful husband, at a time that you think it no crime to
+have had a natural son by me, which I had the most reason to repent of."
+
+I spoke the latter part of these words with a small air of authority,
+that he might think me the less guilty; but, I believe, he only looked
+on what I had said as a piece of heroism; for he soon after delivered
+himself in the following speech: "Madam, do you not think that you have
+used me in a very deceitful manner? If you think that I have not had
+that usage, I will, in a few words, prove the contrary. When first I
+knew you, soon after the jeweller's death at Paris, you never mentioned,
+in all that intricate affair I was engaged in for you, so much as your
+having any children; that, as your circumstances then were, could have
+done you no harm, but, on the contrary, it would have moved the
+compassion of your bitter enemy the Jew, if he had any. Afterwards, when
+I first saw you in London, and began to treat with you about marriage,
+your children, which, to all prudent women, are the first things
+provided for, were so far neglected as not to be spoken of, though mine
+were mentioned to you; and as our fortunes were very considerable, yours
+might very well have been put into the opposite scale with them. Another
+great piece of your injustice was when I offered to settle your own
+fortune upon yourself, you would not consent to it; I do not look on
+that piece of condescension out of love to me, but a thorough hatred you
+had to your own flesh and blood; and lastly, your not owning your
+daughter, though she strongly hinted who she was to you when she was
+twice in your company, and even followed you from place to place while
+you were in England. Now, if you can reconcile this piece of inhumanity
+with yourself, pray try what you can say to me about your never telling
+me the life you led in Pall Mall, in the character of Roxana? You
+scrupled to be happily married to me, and soon after came to England,
+and was a reputed whore to any nobleman that would come up to your
+price, and lived with one a considerable time, and was taken by several
+people to be his lawful wife. If any gentleman should ask me what I have
+taken to my bed, what must I answer? I must say an inhuman false-hearted
+whore, one that had not tenderness enough to own her own children, and
+has too little virtue, in my mind, to make a good wife.
+
+"I own I would," says he, "have settled your own estate upon you with
+great satisfaction, but I will not do it now; you may retire to your
+chamber, and when I have any occasion to speak with you, I will send a
+messenger to you; so, my undeserving lady countess, you may walk out of
+the room."
+
+I was going to reply to all this, but instead of hearing me, he began to
+speak against the Quaker, who, he supposed, knew all the intrigues of my
+life; but I cleared her innocence, by solemnly declaring it was a
+thorough reformation of my past life that carried me to live at the
+Quaker's house, who knew nothing of me before I went to live with her,
+and that she was, I believed, a virtuous woman.
+
+I went away prodigiously chagrined. I knew not what course to take; I
+found expostulation signified nothing, and all my hopes depended on what
+I might say to him after we were gone to bed at night. I sent in for
+Amy, and having told her our discourse, she said she knew not what to
+think of him, but hoped it would, by great submission, wear off by
+degrees. I could eat but little dinner, and Amy was more sorrowful than
+hungry, and after we had dined, we walked by ourselves in the garden,
+to know what we had best pursue. As we were walking about, Thomas came
+to us, and told us that the young woman who had caused all the words,
+had been at the door, and delivered a letter to my lord's footman, who
+had carried it upstairs, and that she was ordered to go to his lordship
+in his study, which struck me with a fresh and sensible grief. I told
+Thomas, as he was to be her brother, to learn what my lord had said to
+her, if he could, as she came down; on which he went into the house to
+obey his order.
+
+He was not gone in above a quarter of an hour before he came to me
+again, and told me she was gone, and that my lord had given her a purse
+of twenty guineas, with orders to live retired, let nobody know who or
+what she was, and come to him again in about a month's time. I was very
+much satisfied to hear this, and was in hopes of its proving a happy
+omen; and I was better pleased about two hours after, when Thomas came
+to me to let me know that my lord had given him thirty guineas, and bid
+him take off his livery, and new clothe himself, for he intended to make
+him his first clerk, and put him in the way of making his fortune. I now
+thought it was impossible for me to be poor, and was inwardly rejoiced
+that my children (meaning Thomas and Susanna) were in the high road to
+grow rich.
+
+As Amy and I had dined by ourselves, my lord kept his study all the day,
+and at night, after supper, Isabel came and told me that my lord's man
+had received orders to make his bed in the crimson room, which name it
+received from the colour of the bed and furniture, and was reserved
+against the coming of strangers, or sickness. When she had delivered her
+message she withdrew, and I told Amy it would be to no purpose to go to
+him again, but I would have her lie in a small bed, which I ordered
+immediately to be carried into my chamber. Before we went to bed, I went
+to his lordship to know why he would make us both look so little among
+our own servants, as to part, bed and board, so suddenly. He only said,
+"My Lady Roxana knows the airs of quality too well to be informed that a
+scandal among nobility does not consist in parting of beds; if you
+cannot lie by yourself, you may send a letter to my Lord ----, whom you
+lived with as a mistress in London; perhaps he may want a bedfellow as
+well as you, and come to you at once; you are too well acquainted with
+him to stand upon ceremony."
+
+I left him, with my heart full of malice, grief, shame, and revenge. I
+did not want a good will to do any mischief; but I wanted an unlimited
+power to put all my wicked thoughts in execution.
+
+Amy and I lay in our chamber, and the next morning at breakfast we were
+talking of what the servants (for there were thirteen of them in all,
+viz., two coachmen, four footmen, a groom, and postillion, two women
+cooks, two housemaids, and a laundry-maid, besides Isabel, who was my
+waiting-maid, and Amy, who acted as housekeeper) could say of the
+disturbance that was in the family. "Pho!" said Amy, "never trouble your
+head about that, for family quarrels are so common in noblemen's houses,
+both here and in England, that there are more families parted, both in
+bed and board, than live lovingly together. It can be no surprise to the
+servants, and if your neighbours should hear it, they will only think
+you are imitating the air of nobility, and have more of that blood in
+you than you appeared to have when you and your lord lived happily
+together."
+
+The time, I own, went very sluggishly on. I had no company but Amy and
+Isabel, and it was given out among the servants of noblemen and gentry
+that I was very much indisposed, for I thought it a very improper time
+either to receive or pay visits.
+
+In this manner I lived till the month was up that my daughter was to
+come again to my lord, for although I went morning, noon, and night,
+into his apartment to see him, I seldom had a quarter of an hour's
+discourse with him, and oftentimes one of his valets would be sent to
+tell me his lord was busy, a little before the time I usually went,
+which I found was to prevent my going in to him, but this was only when
+he was in an ill humour, as his man called it.
+
+Whether my lord used to make himself uneasy for want of mine or other
+company, I cannot tell, but the servants complained every day, as I
+heard by Amy, that his lordship ate little or nothing, and would
+sometimes shed tears when he sat down by himself to breakfast, dinner,
+or supper; and, indeed, I began to think that he looked very thin, his
+countenance grew pale, and that he had every other sign of a grieved or
+broken heart.
+
+My daughter came to him one Monday morning, and stayed with him in his
+study near two hours. I wondered at the reason of it, but could guess at
+nothing certain; and at last she went away, but I fixed myself so as to
+see her as she passed by me, and she appeared to have a countenance full
+of satisfaction.
+
+In the evening, when I went in as usual, he spoke to me in a freer style
+than he had done since our breach. "Well, madam" (for he had not used
+the words "my lady" at any time after my daughter's coming to our
+house), said he, "I think I have provided for your daughter." "As how,
+my lord, pray will you let me know?" said I. "Yes," replied he, "as I
+have reason to think you will be sorry to hear of her welfare in any
+shape, I will tell you. A gentleman who is going factor for the Dutch
+East India Company, on the coast of Malabar, I have recommended her to;
+and he, on my character and promise of a good fortune, will marry her
+very soon, for the Company's ships sail in about twelve days; so, in a
+fortnight, like a great many mothers as there are nowadays, you may
+rejoice at having got rid of one of your children, though you neither
+know where, how, or to whom."
+
+Although I was very glad my lord spoke to me at all, and more especially
+so at my daughter's going to be married, and settling in the Indies, yet
+his words left so sharp a sting behind them as was exceeding troublesome
+to me to wear off. I did not dare venture to make any further inquiries,
+but was very glad of what I heard, and soon bidding my lord goodnight,
+went and found Amy, who was reading a play in the chamber.
+
+I waited with the greatest impatience for this marriage; and when I
+found the day was fixed, I made bold to ask my lord if I should not be
+present in his chamber when the ceremony was performed. This favor was
+also denied me. I then asked my lord's chaplain to speak to him on that
+head, but he was deaf to his importunities, and bade him tell me that I
+very well knew his mind. The wedding was performed on a Wednesday
+evening, in my lord's presence, and he permitted nobody to be there but
+a sister of the bridegroom's, and Thomas (now my lord's secretary or
+chief clerk), who was brother to the bride, and who gave her away. They
+all supped together after the ceremony was over in the great
+dining-room, where the fortune was paid, which was £2000 (as I heard
+from Thomas afterwards), and the bonds for the performance of the
+marriage were redelivered.
+
+Next morning my lord asked me if I was willing to see my daughter before
+she sailed to the Indies. "My lord," said I, "as the seeing of her was
+the occasion of this great breach that has happened between us, so if
+your lordship will let me have a sight of her and a reconciliation with
+you at the same time, there is nothing can be more desirable to me, or
+would more contribute to my happiness during the rest of my life."
+
+"No, madam," says he, "I would have you see your daughter, to be
+reconciled to her, and give her your blessing (if a blessing can proceed
+from you) at parting; but our reconciliation will never be completed
+till one of us comes near the verge of life, if then; for I am a man
+that am never reconciled without ample amends, which is a thing that is
+not in your power to give, without you can alter the course of nature
+and recall time."
+
+On hearing him declare himself so open, I told him that my curse instead
+of my blessing would pursue my daughter for being the author of all the
+mischiefs that had happened between us. "No, madam," said he, "if you
+had looked upon her as a daughter heretofore, I should have had no
+occasion to have had any breach with you. The whole fault lies at your
+own door; for whatever your griefs may inwardly be, I would have you
+recollect they were of your own choosing."
+
+I found I was going to give way to a very violent passion, which would
+perhaps be the worse for me, so I left the room and went up to my own
+chamber, not without venting bitter reproaches both against my daughter
+and her unknown husband.
+
+However, the day she was to go on shipboard, she breakfasted with my
+lord, and as soon as it was over, and my lord was gone into his study to
+fetch something out, I followed him there, and asked him if he would
+give me leave to present a gold repeating watch to my daughter before
+she went away. I thought he seemed somewhat pleased with this piece of
+condescension in me, though it was done more to gain his goodwill than
+to express any value I had for her. He told me that he did not know who
+I could better make such a present to, and I might give it to her if I
+pleased. Accordingly I went and got it out of my cabinet in a moment,
+and bringing it to my lord, desired he would give it her from me. He
+asked me if I would not give it her myself. I told him no; I wished her
+very well, but had nothing to say to her till I was restored to his
+lordship's bed and board.
+
+About two hours after all this, the coach was ordered to the door, and
+my daughter and her new husband, the husband's sister, and my son
+Thomas, all went into it, in order to go to the house of a rich uncle of
+the bridegroom's, where they were to dine before they went on board, and
+my lord went there in a sedan about an hour after. And having eaten
+their dinner, which on this occasion was the most elegant, they all went
+on board the Indiaman, where my lord and my son Thomas stayed till the
+ship's crew was hauling in their anchors to sail, and then came home
+together in the coach, and it being late in the evening, he told Thomas
+he should sup with him that night, after which they went to bed in
+their several apartments.
+
+Next morning when I went to see my lord as usual, he told me that as he
+had handsomely provided for my daughter, and sent her to the Indies with
+a man of merit and fortune, he sincerely wished her great prosperity.
+"And," he added, "to let you see, madam, that I should never have parted
+from my first engagements of love to you, had you not laid yourself so
+open to censure for your misconduct, my next care shall be to provide
+for your son Thomas in a handsome manner, before I concern myself with
+my son by you."
+
+This was the subject of our discourse, with which I was very well
+pleased. I only wished my daughter had been married and sent to the
+Indies before I had married myself; but I began to hope that the worst
+would be over when Thomas was provided for too, and the son my lord had
+by me, who was now at the university, was at home; which I would have
+brought to pass could my will be obeyed, but I was not to enjoy that
+happiness.
+
+My lord and I lived with a secret discontent of each other for near a
+twelvemonth before I saw any provision made for my son Thomas, and then
+I found my lord bought him a very large plantation in Virginia, and was
+furnishing him to go there in a handsome manner; he also gave him four
+quarter parts in four large trading West India vessels, in which he
+boarded a great quantity of merchandise to traffic with when he came to
+the end of his journey, so that he was a very rich man before he (what
+we call) came into the world.
+
+The last article that was to be managed, was to engage my son to a wife
+before he left Holland; and it happened that the gentleman who was the
+seller of the plantation my husband bought, had been a Virginia planter
+in that colony a great many years; but his life growing on the decline,
+and his health very dubious, he had come to Holland with an intent to
+sell his plantation, and then had resolved to send for his wife, son,
+and daughter, to come to him with the return of the next ships. This
+gentleman had brought over with him the pictures of all his family,
+which he was showing to my lord at the same time he was paying for the
+effects; and on seeing the daughter's picture, which appeared to him
+very beautiful, my lord inquired if she was married. "No, my lord," says
+the planter, "but I believe I shall dispose of her soon after she comes
+to me." "How old is your daughter?" said my lord. "Why, my lord,"
+replied the planter, "she is twenty-two years of age." Then my lord
+asked my son if he should like that young lady for a wife. "Nothing, my
+lord," said Thomas, "could lay a greater obligation upon me than your
+lordship's providing me with a wife."
+
+"Now, sir," said my lord to the planter, "what do you say to a match
+between this young gentleman and your daughter? Their ages are
+agreeable, and if you can, or will, give her more fortune than he has,
+his shall be augmented. You partly know his substance, by the money I
+have now paid you."
+
+This generous proposal of my lord's pleased the planter to a great
+degree, and he declared to my lord that he thought nothing could be a
+greater favour done him, for two reasons; one of which was, that he was
+certain the young gentleman was as good as he appeared, because he had
+taken for his plantation so large a sum of money as none but a gentleman
+could pay. The next reason was, that this marriage, to be performed as
+soon as my son arrived there, would be a great satisfaction to his wife,
+whose favourite the daughter was. "For," added he, "my wife will not
+only have the pleasure of seeing her daughter settled on what was our
+own hereditary estate, but also see her married to a man of substance,
+without the danger of crossing the seas to be matched to a person equal
+to herself."
+
+"Pray, sir," said my lord, "let me hear what fortune you are willing to
+give with your daughter; you have but two children, and I know you must
+be rich." "Why, my lord," replied the planter, "there is no denying
+that; but you must remember I have a son as well as a daughter to
+provide for, and he I intend to turn into the mercantile way as soon as
+he arrives safe from Virginia. I have, my lord," continued he, "a very
+large stock-in-trade there, as warehouses of tobacco, &c., lodged in the
+custom-houses of the ports, to the value of £7000, to which I will add
+£3000 in money, and I hope you will look upon that as a very competent
+estate; and when the young gentleman's fortune is joined to that, I
+believe he will be the richest man in the whole American colonies of his
+age."
+
+It was then considered between my lord and Thomas, that no woman with a
+quarter of that fortune would venture herself over to the West Indies
+with a man that had ten times as much; so it being hinted to the planter
+that my lord had agreed to the proposals, they promised to meet the next
+morning to settle the affair.
+
+In the evening, my lord, with Thomas in his company, hinted the above
+discourse to me. I was frightened almost out of my wits to think what a
+large sum of money had been laid out for my son, but kept what I thought
+to myself. It was agreed that my son was to marry the old planter's
+daughter, and a lawyer was sent for, with instructions to draw up all
+the writings for the marriage-settlement, &c., and the next morning a
+messenger came from the planter with a note to my lord, letting him
+know, if it was not inconvenient, he would wait on his lordship to
+breakfast. He came soon after with a Dutch merchant of great estate, who
+was our neighbour at The Hague, where they settled every point in
+question, and the articles were all drawn up and signed by the several
+parties the next day before dinner.
+
+There was nothing now remaining but my son's departure to his new
+plantation in Virginia. Great despatch was made that he might be ready
+to sail in one of his own ships, and take the advantage of an English
+convoy, which was almost ready to sail. My lord sent several valuable
+presents to my son's lady, as did her father; and as I was at liberty in
+this case to do as I would, and knowing my lord had a very great value
+for my son, I thought that the richer my presents were, the more he
+would esteem me (but there was nothing in it, the enmity he took against
+me had taken root in his heart); so I sent her a curious set of china,
+the very best I could buy, with a silver tea-kettle and lamp, tea-pot,
+sugar-dish, cream-pot, teaspoons, &c., and as my lord had sent a golden
+repeater, I added to it a golden equipage, with my lord's picture
+hanging to it, finely painted; (This was another thing I did purposely
+to please him, but it would not do.) A few days after, he came to take
+his leave of me, by my lord's order, and at my parting with him I shed
+abundance of tears, to think I was then in an almost strange place, no
+child that could then come near me, and under so severe a displeasure of
+my lord, that I had very little hopes of ever being friends with him
+again.
+
+My life did not mend after my son was gone; all I could do would not
+persuade my lord to have any free conversation with me. And at this
+juncture it was that the foolish jade Amy, who was now advanced in
+years, was catched in a conversation with one of my lord's men, which
+was not to her credit; for, it coming to his ears, she was turned out of
+the house by my lord's orders, and was never suffered to come into it
+again during his lifetime, and I did not dare to speak a word in her
+favour for fear he should retort upon me, "Like mistress, like maid."
+
+I could hear nothing of Amy for the first three months after she had
+left me, till one day, as I was looking out of a dining-room window, I
+saw her pass by, but I did not dare ask her to come in, for fear my lord
+should hear of her being there, which would have been adding fuel to the
+fire; however, she, looking up at the house, saw me. I made a motion to
+her to stay a little about the door, and in the meantime I wrote a note,
+and dropped it out of the window, in which I told her how I had lived in
+her absence, and desired her to write me a letter, and carry it the next
+day to my sempstress's house, who would take care to deliver it to me
+herself.
+
+I told Isabel that she should let me know when the milliner came again,
+for I had some complaints to her about getting up my best suit of
+Brussels lace nightclothes. On the Saturday following, just after I had
+dined, Isabel came into my apartment. "My lady," says she, "the milliner
+is in the parlour; will you be pleased to have her sent upstairs, or
+will your ladyship be pleased to go down to her?" "Why, send her up,
+Isabel," said I, "she is as able to come to me as I am to go to her; I
+will see her here."
+
+When the milliner came into my chamber, I sent Isabel to my
+dressing-room to fetch a small parcel of fine linen which lay there, and
+in the interim she gave me Amy's letter, which I put into my pocket,
+and, having pretended to be angry about my linen, I gave her the small
+bundle Isabel brought, and bid her be sure to do them better for the
+future.
+
+She promised me she would, and went about her business; and when she was
+gone, I opened Amy's letter, and having read it, found it was to the
+following purpose, viz., that she had opened a coffee-house, and
+furnished the upper part of it to let out in lodgings; that she kept two
+maids and a man, but that the trade of it did not answer as she had
+reason to expect; she was willing to leave it off, and retire into the
+country to settle for the rest of her life, but was continually harassed
+by such disturbance in her conscience as made her unfit to resolve upon
+anything, and wished there was a possibility for her to see me, that she
+might open her mind with the same freedom as formerly, and have my
+advice upon some particular affairs; and such-like discourse.
+
+It was a pretty while before I heard from Amy again, and when I did, the
+letter was in much the same strain as the former, excepting that things
+were coming more to a crisis; for she told me in it that her money was
+so out, that is, lent as ready money to traders, and trusted for liquors
+in her house, that if she did not go away this quarter, she should be
+obliged to run away the next. I very much lamented her unfortunate case,
+but that could be no assistance to her, as I had it not now in my power
+to see her when I would, or give her what I pleased, as it had always
+used to be; so all I could do was to wish her well, and leave her to
+take care of herself.
+
+About this time it was that I perceived my lord began to look very pale
+and meagre, and I had a notion he was going into a consumption, but did
+not dare tell him so, for fear he should say I was daily looking for his
+death, and was now overjoyed that I saw a shadow of it; nevertheless, he
+soon after began to find himself in a very bad state of health, for he
+said to me one morning, that my care would not last long, for he
+believed he was seized by a distemper it was impossible for him to get
+over. "My lord," said I, "you do not do me justice in imagining anything
+concerning me that does not tend to your own happiness, for if your body
+is out of order, my mind suffers for it." Indeed, had he died then,
+without making a will, it might have been well for me; but he was not so
+near death as that; and, what was worse, the distemper, which proved a
+consumption (which was occasioned chiefly by much study, watchings,
+melancholy thoughts, wilful and obstinate neglect of taking care of his
+body, and such like things), held him nine weeks and three days after
+this, before it carried him off.
+
+He now took country lodgings, most delightfully situated both for air
+and prospect, and had a maid and man to attend him. I begged on my knees
+to go with him, but could not get that favour granted; for, if I could,
+it might have been the means of restoring me to his favour, but our
+breach was too wide to be thoroughly reconciled, though I used all the
+endearing ways I had ever had occasion for to creep into his favour.
+
+Before he went out of town he locked and sealed up every room in the
+house, excepting my bedchamber, dressing-room, one parlour, and all the
+offices and rooms belonging to the servants; and, as he had now all my
+substance in his power, I was in a very poor state for a countess, and
+began to wish, with great sincerity, that I had never seen him, after I
+had lived so happy a life as I did at the Quaker's. For notwithstanding
+our estates joined together, when we were first married, amounted to
+£3376 per annum, and near £18,000 ready money, besides jewels, plate,
+goods, &c., of a considerable value, yet we had lived in a very high
+manner since our taking the title of earl and countess upon us; setting
+up a great house, and had a number of servants; our equipage, such as
+coach, chariot, horses, and their attendants; a handsome fortune my lord
+had given to my daughter, and a very noble one to my son, whom he loved
+very well, not for his being my son, but for the courteous behaviour of
+him in never aspiring to anything above a valet after he knew who he
+was, till my lord made him his secretary or clerk. Besides all these
+expenses, my lord, having flung himself into the trade to the Indies,
+both East and West, had sustained many great and uncommon losses,
+occasioned by his merchandise being mostly shipped in English bottoms;
+and that nation having declared war against the crown of Spain, he was
+one of the first and greatest sufferers by that power; so that, on the
+whole, our estate, which was as above, dwindled to about £1000 per
+annum, and our home stock, viz., about £17,000, was entirely gone. This,
+I believe, was another great mortification to his lordship, and one of
+the main things that did help to hasten his end; for he was observed,
+both by me and all his servants, to be more cast down at hearing of his
+losses, that were almost daily sent to him, than he was at what had
+happened between him and me.
+
+Nothing could give more uneasiness than the damage our estate sustained
+by this traffic. He looked upon it as a mere misfortune that no person
+could avoid; but I, besides that, thought it was a judgment upon me, to
+punish me in the loss of all my ill-got gain. But when I found that his
+own fortune began to dwindle as well as mine, I was almost ready to
+think it was possible his lordship might have been as wicked a liver as
+I had, and the same vengeance as had been poured upon me for my repeated
+crimes might also be a punishment for him.
+
+As his lordship was in a bad state of health, and had removed to a
+country lodging, his study and counting-house, as well as his other
+rooms, were locked and sealed up; all business was laid aside, excepting
+such letters as came to him were carried to his lordship to be opened,
+read, and answered. I also went to see him morning and evening, but he
+would not suffer me to stay with him a single night. I might have had
+another room in the same house, but was not willing the people who kept
+it should know that there was a misunderstanding between us; so I
+contented myself to be a constant visitor, but could not persuade him to
+forgive me the denying of my daughter, and acting the part of Roxana,
+because I had kept those two things an inviolable secret from him and
+everybody else but Amy, and it was carelessness in her conduct at last
+that was the foundation of all my future misery.
+
+As my lord's weakness increased, so his ill temper, rather than
+diminish, increased also. I could do nothing to please him, and began to
+think that he was only pettish because he found it was his turn to go
+out of the world first. A gentleman that lived near him, as well as his
+chaplain, persuaded him to have a physician, to know in what state his
+health was; and by all I could learn, the doctor told him to settle his
+worldly affairs as soon as he conveniently could. "For," says he,
+"although your death is not certain, still your life is very
+precarious."
+
+The first thing he did after this was to send for the son he had by me
+from the university. He came the week afterwards, and the tutor with
+him, to take care of his pupil. The next day after my lord came home,
+and sending for six eminent men that lived at The Hague he made his
+will, and signed it in the presence of them all; and they, with the
+chaplain, were appointed the executors of it, and guardians of my son.
+
+As I was in a great concern at his making his will unknown to me, and
+before we were friends, I thought of it in too serious a manner not to
+speak about it. I did not know where to apply first, but after mature
+consideration sent for the chaplain, and he coming to me, I desired he
+would give me the best intelligence he could about it. "My lady," said
+he, "you cannot be so unacquainted with the duty of my function, and the
+trust my lord has reposed in me, but you must know I shall go beyond my
+trust in relating anything of that nature to you; all that I can say on
+that head is, that I would have you make friends with my lord as soon as
+you possibly can, and get him to make another will, or else take the
+best care of yourself as lies in your power; for, I assure you, if his
+lordship dies, you are but poorly provided for."
+
+These last words of the chaplain's most terribly alarmed me. I knew not
+what to do; and, at last, as if I was to be guided by nothing but the
+furies, I went to his chamber, and after inquiring how he did, and
+hearing that he was far from well, I told him I had heard he had made
+his will. "Yes," said he, "I have; and what then?" "Why, my lord,"
+replied I, "I thought it would not have been derogatory to both our
+honours for you to have mentioned it to me before you did it, and have
+let me known in what manner you intended to settle your estate. This
+would have been but acting like a man to his wife, even if you had
+married me without a fortune; but as you received so handsomely with me,
+you ought to have considered it as my substance, as well as your own,
+that you were going to dispose of."
+
+My lord looked somewhat staggered at what I had said, and pausing a
+little while, answered, that he thought, and also looked upon it as a
+granted opinion, that after a man married a woman, all that she was in
+possession of was his, excepting he had made a prior writing or
+settlement to her of any part or all she was then possessed of.
+"Besides, my lady," added he, "I have married both your children, and
+given them very noble fortunes, especially your son. I have also had
+great losses in trade, both by sea and land, since you delivered your
+fortune to me, and even at this time, notwithstanding the appearance we
+make in the world, I am not worth a third of what I was when we came to
+settle in Holland; and then, here is our own son shall be provided for
+in a handsome manner by me; for I am thoroughly convinced there will be
+but little care taken of him if I leave anything in your power for that
+purpose: witness Thomas and Susanna."
+
+"My lord," said I, "I am not come into your chamber to know what care
+you have taken of our child. I do not doubt but you have acted like a
+father by it. What I would be informed in is, what I am to depend upon
+in case of your decease; which I, however, hope may be a great many
+years off yet." "You need not concern yourself about that," said he;
+"your son will take care that you shall not want; but yet, I will tell
+you, too," said he, "that it may prevent your wishing for my death. I
+have, in my will, left all I am possessed of in the world to my son,
+excepting £1500; out of that there is £500 for you, £500 among my
+executors, and the other £500 is to bury me, pay my funeral expenses,
+and what is overplus I have ordered to be equally divided among my
+servants."
+
+When I had heard him pronounce these words, I stared like one that was
+frightened out of his senses. "Five hundred pounds for me!" says I;
+"pray, what do you mean? What! am I, that brought you so handsome a
+fortune, to be under the curb of my son, and ask him for every penny I
+want? No, sir," said I, "I will not accept it. I expect to be left in
+full possession of one-half of your fortune, that I may live the
+remainder of my life like your wife." "Madam," replied my lord, "you may
+expect what you please. If you can make it appear since I found you out
+to be a jilt that I have looked upon you as my wife, everything shall be
+altered and settled just as you desire, which might then be called your
+will; but as the case now stands, the will is mine, and so it shall
+remain."
+
+I thought I should have sunk when I had heard him make this solemn and
+premeditated declaration. I raved like a mad woman, and, at the end of
+my discourse, told him that I did not value what could happen to me,
+even if I was forced to beg my bread, for I would stand the test of my
+own character; and as I could get nothing by being an honest woman, so
+I should not scruple to declare that "the son you have left what you
+have to is a bastard you had by me several years before we were
+married."
+
+"Oh," says he, "madam, do you think you can frighten me? no, not in the
+least; for if you ever mention anything of it, the title, as well as all
+the estate, will go to another branch of my family, and you will then be
+left to starve in good earnest, without having the least glimpse of hope
+to better your fortune; for," added he, "it is not very probable that
+you will be courted for a wife by any man of substance at these years;
+so if you have a mind to make yourself easy in your present
+circumstances, you must rest contented with what I have left you, and
+not prove yourself a whore to ruin your child, in whose power it will be
+to provide for you in a handsome manner, provided you behave yourself
+with that respect to him and me as you ought to do; for if any words
+arise about what I have done, I shall make a fresh will, and, as the
+laws of this nation will give me liberty, cut you off with a shilling."
+
+My own unhappiness, and his strong and lasting resentment, had kept me
+at high words, and flowing in tears, for some time; and as I was
+unwilling anybody should see me in that unhappy condition, I stayed
+coolly talking to him, till our son, who had been to several gentlemen's
+houses about my lord's business, came home to tell his father the
+success he had met with abroad. He brought in with him bank-notes to
+the amount of £12,000, which he had received of some merchants he held a
+correspondence with; at which my lord was well pleased, for he was
+pretty near out of money at this juncture. After our son had delivered
+the accounts and bills, and had withdrawn, I asked my lord, in a calm
+tone, to give me the satisfaction of knowing in what manner the losses
+he had complained to have suffered consisted. "You must consider, my
+lord," said I, "that according to what you have been pleased to inform
+me of, we are upwards of £2000 per annum, besides about £17,000 ready
+money, poorer than we were when we first came to settle in Holland."
+
+"You talk," replied my lord, "in a very odd manner. Do not you know that
+I had children of my own by a former wife? and of these I have taken so
+much care as to provide with very handsome fortunes, which are settled
+irrevocably upon them. I have, Providence be thanked, given each of them
+£5000, and that is laid in East India stock, sufficient to keep them
+genteelly, above the frowns of fortune, and free from the fear of want.
+This, joined to the money I mentioned to you before, as losses at sea,
+deaths, and bankruptcies, your children's fortunes, which are larger
+than my own children's, the buying the estate we live on, and several
+other things, which my receipts and notes will account for, as you may
+see after my decease. I have, to oblige you on this head, almost
+descended to particulars, which I never thought to have done; but as I
+have, rest yourself contented, and be well assured that I have not
+wilfully thrown any of your substance away."
+
+I could not tell what he meant by saying he had not wilfully thrown any
+of my substance away. These words puzzled me, for I found by his
+discourse I was to have but £500 of all I had brought him, at his
+decease, which I looked upon to be near at hand. I had but one thing
+that was any satisfaction to me, which was this: I was assured by him
+that he had not bestowed above the £15,000 he mentioned to me, on his
+children by his former wife; and, on an exact calculation, he made it
+appear that he had bestowed on my son Thomas alone near £13,000 in
+buying the plantation, shares in vessels, and merchandise, besides
+several valuable presents sent to his wife, both by him and me; and as
+for my daughter Susanna, she was very well married to a factor, with a
+fortune of £2000 (which was a great sum of money for a woman to have who
+was immediately to go to the East Indies), besides some handsome
+presents given to her both by him and me. In fact, her fortune was, in
+proportion, as large as her brother's, for there is but very few women
+in England or Holland with £2000 fortune that would venture to the coast
+of Malabar, even to have married an Indian king, much more to have gone
+over with a person that no one could tell what reception he might meet
+with, or might be recalled at the pleasure of the Company upon the least
+distaste taken by the merchants against him. Neither would I, though her
+own mother, hinder her voyage, for she had been the author of all the
+misfortunes that happened to me; and if my speaking a word would have
+saved her from the greatest torment, I believe I should have been quite
+silent. And I had but one reason to allege for the girl's going so
+hazardous a voyage, which is, she knew that the match was proposed by my
+lord, and if he had not thought it would have been advantageous for her,
+he would never have given £2000 to her husband as a fortune; and again,
+as my lord was the only friend she had in our family, she was cunning
+enough to know that the bare disobliging of him would have been her ruin
+for ever after; to which I may add, that it is possible, as she had made
+so much mischief about me, she was glad to get what she could and go out
+of the way, for fear my lord and I should be friends; which, if that had
+happened, she would have been told never to come to our house any more.
+
+As my lord's death began to be daily the discourse of the family, I
+thought that he might be more reconciled if I entered into the arguments
+again, pro and con, which we had together before. I did so, but all I
+could say was no satisfaction, till I importuned him on my knees, with a
+flood of tears. "Madam," said he, "what would you have me do?" "Do, my
+lord," said I, "only be so tender to my years and circumstances as to
+alter your will, or, at least, add a codicil to it; I desire nothing
+more, for I declare I had rather be a beggar, than live under my
+child's jurisdiction." To this he agreed with some reluctance, and he
+added a codicil to his will.
+
+This pleased me greatly, and gave me comfort, for I dreaded nothing so
+much, after all my high living, as being under any person, relation or
+stranger, and whether they exercised any power over me or not.
+
+I saw the lawyer come out of the chamber first, but was above asking him
+any questions; the next were the executors and chaplain. I asked the
+last how they came to have words. He did not answer me directly, but
+begged to know whose pleasure it was to have the codicil annexed. "It
+was mine, sir," replied I; "and it made me very uneasy before I could
+have the favour granted." He only replied by saying, "Ah! poor lady, the
+favour, as you are pleased to term it, is not calculated for any benefit
+to you; think the worst you can of it."
+
+I was terribly uneasy at what the chaplain had said, but I imagined to
+myself that I could not be worse off than I thought I should be before
+the codicil was annexed; and as he withdrew without saying any more, I
+was fain to rest satisfied with what I had heard, and that amounted to
+nothing.
+
+The next day after this the physicians that attended my lord told him it
+was time for him to settle his worldly affairs, and prepare himself for
+a hereafter. I now found all was over, and I had no other hopes of his
+life than the physicians' declaration of his being near his death. For
+it often happens that the gentlemen of the faculty give out that a man
+is near his death, to make the cure appear to be the effect of their
+great skill in distempers and medicine; as others, when they cannot find
+out the real disease, give out that a man's end is near, rather than
+discover their want of judgment; and this I thought might be the case
+with our doctors of physic.
+
+Our son was still kept from the university, and lodged at the house of
+one of his future guardians; but when he heard that his father was so
+near his end, he was very little out of his presence, for he dearly
+loved him. My lord sent the day before his death to lock and seal up all
+the doors in his dwelling house at The Hague; and the steward had
+orders, in case of my lord's decease, not to let anybody come in, not
+even his lady (who had for some time lodged in the same house with her
+lord), without an order from the executors.
+
+The keys of the doors were carried to him, and as he saw his death
+approach, he prepared for it, and, in fact, resigned up the keys of
+everything to the executors, and having bid them all a farewell, they
+were dismissed. The physicians waited; but as the verge of life
+approached, and it was out of their power to do him any service, he gave
+them a bill of £100 for the care they had taken of him, and dismissed
+them.
+
+I now went into the chamber, and kneeling by his bedside, kissed him
+with great earnestness, and begged of him, if ever I had disobliged him
+in any respect, to forgive me. He sighed, and said he most freely
+forgave me everything that I had reason to think I had offended him in;
+but he added, "If you had been so open in your conversation to me before
+our marriage as to discover your family and way of life, I know not but
+that I should have married you as I did. I might now have been in a good
+state of health, and you many years have lived with all the honours due
+to the Countess de Wintselsheim." These words drew tears from my eyes,
+and they being the last of any consequence he said, they had the greater
+impression upon me. He faintly bid me a long farewell, and said, as he
+had but a few moments to live, he hoped I would retire, and leave him
+with our son and chaplain. I withdrew into my own chamber, almost
+drowned in tears, and my son soon followed me out, leaving the chaplain
+with his father, offering up his prayers to Heaven for the receiving of
+his soul into the blessed mansions of eternal bliss.
+
+A few minutes after our son went into the chamber with me again, and
+received his father's last blessing. The chaplain now saw him departing,
+and was reading the prayer ordered by the Church for that occasion; and
+while he was doing it, my lord laid his head gently on the pillow, and
+turning on his left side, departed this life with all the calmness of a
+composed mind, without so much as a groan, in the fifty-seventh year of
+his age.
+
+As soon as he was dead an undertaker was sent for, by order of the
+executors, who met together immediately to open his will, and take care
+of all my son's effects. I was present when it was opened and read; but
+how terribly I was frightened at hearing the codicil repeated any person
+may imagine by the substance of it, which was to this effect; that if I
+had given me any more after his decease than the £500 he had left me,
+the £500 left to his executors, and the £1000 of my son's estate (which
+was now a year's interest), was to be given to such poor families at The
+Hague as were judged to be in the greatest want of it; not to be divided
+into equal sums, but every family to have according to their merit and
+necessity. But this was not all. My son was tied down much harder; for
+if it was known that he gave me any relief, let my condition be ever so
+bad, either by himself, by his order, or in any manner of way, device,
+or contrivance that he could think of, one-half of his estate, which was
+particularly mentioned, was to devolve to the executors for ever; and if
+they granted me ever so small a favour, that sum was to be equally
+divided among the several parishes where they lived, for the benefit of
+the poor.
+
+Any person would have been surprised to have seen how we all sat staring
+at each other; for though it was signed by all the executors, yet they
+did not know the substance of it till it was publicly read, excepting
+the chaplain; and he, as I mentioned before, had told me the codicil had
+better never have been added.
+
+I was now in a fine dilemma; had the title of a countess, with £500, and
+nothing else to subsist on but a very good wardrobe of clothes, which
+were not looked upon by my son and the executors to be my late lord's
+property, and which were worth, indeed, more than treble the sum I had
+left me.
+
+I immediately removed from the lodgings, and left them to bury the body
+when they thought proper, and retired to a lodging at a private
+gentleman's house, about a mile from The Hague. I was now resolved to
+find out Amy, being, as it were, at liberty; and accordingly went to the
+house where she had lived, and finding that empty, inquired for her
+among the neighbours, who gave various accounts of what had become of
+her; but one of them had a direction left at his house where she might
+be found. I went to the place and found the house shut up, and all the
+windows broken, the sign taken down, and the rails and benches pulled
+from before the door. I was quite ashamed to ask for her there, for it
+was a very scandalous neighbourhood, and I concluded that Amy had been
+brought to low circumstances, and had kept a house of ill-fame, and was
+either run away herself, or was forced to it by the officers of justice.
+However, as nobody knew me here, I went into a shop to buy some trifles,
+and asked who had lived in the opposite house (meaning Amy's). "Really,
+madam," says the woman, "I do not well know; but it was a woman who kept
+girls for gentlemen; she went on in that wickedness for some time, till
+a gentleman was robbed there of his watch and a diamond ring, on which
+the women were all taken up, and committed to the house of correction;
+but the young ones are now at liberty, and keep about the town." "Pray,"
+said I, "what may have become of the old beast that could be the ruin of
+those young creatures?" "Why, I do not well know," says she; "but I have
+heard that, as all her goods were seized upon, she was sent to the
+poorhouse; but it soon after appearing that she had the French disease
+to a violent degree, was removed to a hospital to be taken care of, but
+I believe she will never live to come out; and if she should be so
+fortunate, the gentleman that was robbed, finding that she was the
+guilty person, intends to prosecute her to the utmost rigour of the
+law."
+
+I was sadly surprised to hear this character of Amy; for I thought
+whatever house she might keep, that the heyday of her blood had been
+over. But I found that she had not been willing to be taken for an old
+woman, though near sixty years of age; and my not seeing or hearing from
+her for some time past was a confirmation of what had been told me.
+
+I went home sadly dejected, considering how I might hear of her. I had
+known her for a faithful servant to me, in all my bad and good fortune,
+and was sorry that at the last such a miserable end should overtake her,
+though she, as well as I, deserved it several years before.
+
+A few days after I went pretty near the place I had heard she was, and
+hired a poor woman to go and inquire how Amy ---- did, and whether she
+was likely to do well. The woman returned, and told me that the matron,
+or mistress, said, the person I inquired after died in a salivation two
+days before, and was buried the last night in the cemetery belonging to
+the hospital.
+
+I was very sorry to hear of Amy's unhappy and miserable death; for when
+she came first into my service she was really a sober girl, very witty
+and brisk, but never impudent, and her notions in general were good,
+till my forcing her, as it were, to have an intrigue with the jeweller.
+She had also lived with me between thirty and forty years, in the
+several stages of life as I had passed through; and as I had done
+nothing but what she was privy to, so she was the best person in the
+universal world to consult with and take advice from, as my
+circumstances now were.
+
+I returned to my lodgings much chagrined, and very disconsolate; for as
+I had for several years lived at the pinnacle of splendour and
+satisfaction, it was a prodigious heart-break to me now to fall from
+upwards of £3000 per annum to a poor £500 principal.
+
+A few days after this I went to see my son, the Earl of Wintselsheim. He
+received me in a very courteous (though far from a dutiful) manner. We
+talked together near an hour upon general things, but had no particular
+discourse about my late lord's effects, as I wanted to have. Among
+other things he told me that his guardians had advised him to go to the
+university for four years longer, when he would come of age, and his
+estate would be somewhat repaired; to which he said he had agreed; and
+for that purpose all the household goods and equipages were to be
+disposed of the next week, and the servants dismissed. I immediately
+asked if it would be looked upon as an encroachment upon his father's
+will if I took Isabel (who had been my waiting-maid ever since I came
+from England) to live with me. "No, my lady," very readily replied he;
+"as she will be dismissed from me, she is certainly at liberty and full
+freedom to do for herself as soon and in the best manner she possibly
+can." After this I stayed about a quarter of an hour with him, and then
+I sent for Isabel, to know if she would come and live with me on her
+dismission from her lord's. The girl readily consented, for I had always
+been a good mistress to her; and then I went to my own lodgings in my
+son's coach, which he had ordered to be got ready to carry me home.
+
+Isabel came, according to appointment, about ten days after, and told me
+the house was quite cleared both of men and movables, but said her lord
+(meaning my son) was not gone to the university as yet, but was at one
+of his guardians' houses, where he would stay about a month, and that he
+intended to make a visit before his departure, which he did, attended by
+my late chaplain; and I, being in handsome lodgings, received them with
+all the complaisance and love as was possible, telling them that time
+and circumstances having greatly varied with me, whatever they saw amiss
+I hoped they would be so good as to look over it at that time, by
+considering the unhappy situation of my affairs.
+
+After this visit was over, and I had myself and Isabel to provide for,
+handsome lodgings to keep (which were as expensive as they were fine),
+and nothing but my principal money to live on (I mean what I happened to
+have in my pocket at my lord's death, for I had not been paid my £500 as
+yet), I could not manage for a genteel maintenance as I had done some
+years before. I thought of divers things to lay my small sums out to
+advantage, but could fix on nothing; for it always happens that when
+people have but a trifle, they are very dubious in the disposal of it.
+
+Having been long resolving in my mind, I at last fixed on merchandise as
+the most genteel and profitable of anything else. Accordingly I went to
+a merchant who was intimate with my late lord, and letting him know how
+my circumstances were, he heartily condoled with me, and told me he
+could help me to a share in two ships--one was going a trading voyage to
+the coast of Africa, and the other a-privateering. I was now in a
+dilemma, and was willing to have a share in the trader, but was dubious
+of being concerned in the privateer; for I had heard strange stories
+told of the gentlemen concerned in that way of business. Nay, I had
+been told, but with what certainty I cannot aver, that there was a set
+of men who took upon them to issue ships, and as they always knew to
+what port they are bound, notice was sent to their correspondent abroad
+to order out their privateers on the coast the other sailed, and they
+knowing the loading, and the numbers of hands and guns were on board,
+soon made prizes of the vessels, and the profits were equally divided,
+after paying what was paid for their insurance, among them all.
+
+However, I at last resolved, by the merchant's advice, to have a share
+in the trader, and the next day he over-persuaded me to have a share in
+the privateer also. But that I may not lay out my money before I have
+it, it may not be amiss to observe that I went to the executors and
+received my £500 at an hour's notice, and then went to the merchant's to
+know what the shares would come to, and being told £1500, I was resolved
+to raise the money; so I went home, and, with my maid Isabel, in two
+days' time disposed of as many of my clothes as fetched me near £1100,
+which, joined to the above sum, I carried to the merchant's, where the
+writings were drawn, signed, sealed, and delivered to me in the presence
+of two witnesses, who went with me for that purpose. The ships were near
+ready for sailing; the trader was so well manned and armed, as well as
+the privateer, that the partners would not consent to insure them, and
+out they both sailed, though from different ports, and I depended on
+getting a good estate between them.
+
+When I was about this last ship a letter came from the count, my son,
+full of tender expressions of his duty to me, in which I was informed
+that he was going again to the university at Paris, where he should
+remain four years; after that he intended to make the tour of Europe,
+and then come and settle at The Hague. I returned him thanks in a letter
+for his compliment, wished him all happiness, and a safe return to
+Holland, and desired that he would write to me from time to time that I
+might hear of his welfare, which was all I could now expect of him. But
+this was the last time I heard from him, or he from me.
+
+In about a month's time the news came that the privateer (which sailed
+under British colours, and was divided into eight shares) had taken a
+ship, and was bringing it into the Texel, but that it accidentally
+foundered, and being chained to the privateer, had, in sinking, like to
+have lost that too. Two or three of the hands got on shore, and came to
+The Hague; but how terribly I was alarmed any one may judge, when I
+heard the ship the privateer had was the Newfoundland merchantman, as I
+had bought two shares in out of four. About two months after news was
+current about The Hague of a privateer or merchantman, one of them of
+the town, though not known which, having an engagement in the
+Mediterranean, in which action both the privateer and trader was lost.
+Soon after their names were publicly known, and, in the end, my partners
+heard that they were our ships, and unhappily sailing under false
+colours (a thing often practised in the time of war), and never having
+seen each other, had, at meeting, a very smart engagement, each fighting
+for life and honour, till two unfortunate shots; one of them, viz., the
+privateer, was sunk by a shot between wind and water, and the trader
+unhappily blown up by a ball falling in the powder-room. There were only
+two hands of the trader, and three of the privateer, that escaped, and
+they all fortunately met at one of the partners' houses, where they
+confirmed the truth of this melancholy story, and to me a fatal loss.
+
+What was to be done now? I had no money, and but few clothes left;
+there, was no hope of subsistence from my son or his guardians; they
+were tied down to be spectators of my misfortunes, without affording me
+any redress, even if they would.
+
+Isabel, though I was now reduced to the last penny, would live with me
+still, and, as I observed before and may now repeat, I was in a pretty
+situation to begin the world--upwards of sixty years of age, friendless,
+scanty of clothes, and but very little money.
+
+I proposed to Isabel to remove from lodgings and retire to Amsterdam,
+where I was not known, and might turn myself into some little way of
+business, and work for that bread now which had been too often
+squandered away upon very trifles. And upon consideration I found myself
+in a worse condition than I thought, for I had nothing to recommend me
+to Heaven, either in works or thoughts; had even banished from my mind
+all the cardinal and moral virtues, and had much more reason to hide
+myself from the sight of God, if possible, than I had to leave The
+Hague, that I might not be known of my fellow-creatures. And farther to
+hasten our removing to Amsterdam, I recollected I was involved in debt
+for money to purchase a share in the Newfoundland trader, which was
+lost, and my creditors daily threatened me with an arrest to make me pay
+them.
+
+I soon discharged my lodgings and went with Isabel to Amsterdam, where I
+thought, as I was advanced in years, to give up all I could raise in the
+world, and on the sale of everything I had to go into one of the
+Proveniers' houses, where I should be settled for life. But as I could
+not produce enough money for it, I turned it into a coffee-house near
+the Stadt-house, where I might have done well; but as soon as I was
+settled one of my Hague creditors arrested me for a debt of £75, and I
+not having a friend in the world of whom to raise the money, was, in a
+shameful condition, carried to the common jail, where poor Isabel
+followed me with showers of tears, and left me inconsolable for my great
+misfortunes. Here, without some very unforeseen accident, I shall never
+go out of it until I am carried to my grave, for which my much-offended
+God prepare me as soon as possible.
+
+_The continuation of the Life of Roxana, by Isabel Johnson, who had
+been her waiting-maid, from the time she was thrown into jail to
+the time of her death._
+
+After my lady, as it was my duty to call her, was thrown into jail for a
+debt she was unable to pay, she gave her mind wholly up to devotion.
+Whether it was from a thorough sense of her wretched state, or any other
+reason, I could never learn; but this I may say, that she was a sincere
+penitent, and in every action had all the behaviour of a Christian. By
+degrees all the things she had in the world were sold, and she began to
+find an inward decay upon her spirits. In this interval she repeated all
+the passages of her ill-spent life to me, and thoroughly repented of
+every bad action, especially the little value she had for her children,
+which were honestly born and bred. And having, as she believed, made her
+peace with God, she died with mere grief on the 2nd of July 1742, in the
+sixty-fifth year of her age, and was decently buried by me in the
+churchyard belonging to the Lutherans, in the city of Amsterdam.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2), by 
+Daniel Defoe
+
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Fortunate Mistress by DANIEL DEFOE.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+    p {  margin-top: .75em;
+         text-align: justify;
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+
+    table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}
+
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
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+
+    .pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
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+    .linenum  {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */
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+
+    .figcenter   {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
+
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2), by Daniel Defoe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2)
+       or a History of the Life of Mademoiselle de Beleau Known
+              by the Name of the Lady Roxana
+
+Author: Daniel Defoe
+
+Release Date: October 27, 2009 [EBook #30344]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORTUNATE MISTRESS (PARTS 1 AND 2) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach, Jane Hyland, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<p><a name="Frontispiece" id="Frontispiece"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/roxanavol1frontis.jpg" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="center"><span class="caption"><br />ROXANA<br />I was rich, beautiful, and agreeable, and not yet old</span></p>
+<p class="center">Page&nbsp;<a href="#Page_244">244</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h4>The Cripplegate Edition</h4>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>THE WORKS OF</h3>
+<h2>DANIEL DEFOE</h2>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>THE FORTUNATE MISTRESS</h2>
+<h3><br />OR A HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF MADEMOISELLE DE BELEAU</h3>
+<h5>KNOWN BY THE NAME OF THE LADY ROXANA</h5>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/image.jpg" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h4>NEW YORK &middot; &middot; <i>MCMVIII</i></h4>
+<h4>GEORGE D. SPROUL<br /><br /><br /></h4>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Copyright, 1904, by</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">The University Press</span><br />
+<br />
+UNIVERSITY PRESS &middot; JOHN WILSON<br />
+AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.<br /></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>ROXANA</td><td align='left'><i><a href="#Frontispiece">Frontispiece</a></i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BREWER AND HIS MEN</td><td align='right'><i>Page&nbsp;</i><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE JEWELLER IS ABOUT TO LEAVE FOR VERSAILLES</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE VISIT OF THE PRINCE</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE DUTCH MERCHANT CALLS ON ROXANA</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_286">286</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE AMOUR DRAWS TO AN END</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_302">302</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>ROXANA'S DAUGHTER AND THE QUAKER</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_479">479</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>ROXANA IS CONFRONTED WITH HER DAUGHTER</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_534">534</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vi-vii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h3>
+
+
+<p>In March, 1724, was published the narrative in which Defoe came, perhaps
+even nearer than in <i>Moll Flanders</i>, to writing what we to-day call a
+novel, namely: <i>The Fortunate Mistress; or, a History of the Life and
+Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de' Belau; afterwards called
+the Countess of Wintelsheim, in Germany. Being the Person known by the
+name of the Lady Roxana, in the Time of King Charles II</i>. No second
+edition appeared till after Defoe's death, which occurred in 1731. Then
+for some years, various editions of <i>The Fortunate Mistress</i> came out.
+Because Defoe had not indicated the end of his chief characters so
+clearly as he usually did in his stories, several of these later
+editions carried on the history of the heroine. Probably none of the
+continuations was by Defoe himself, though the one in the edition of
+1745 has been attributed to him. For this reason, and because it has
+some literary merit, it is included in the present edition.</p>
+
+<p>That this continuation was not by Defoe is attested in various ways. In
+the first place, it tells the history of Roxana down to her death in
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>July, 1742, a date which Defoe would not have been likely to fix, for
+he died himself in April, 1731. Moreover, the statement that she was
+sixty-four when she died, does not agree with the statement at the
+beginning of Defoe's narrative that she was ten years old in 1683. She
+must have been born in 1673, and consequently would have been sixty-nine
+in 1742. This discrepancy, however, ceases to be important when we
+consider the general confusion of dates in the part of the book
+certainly by Defoe. The title-page announces that his heroine was "known
+by the name of the Lady Roxana, in the Time of King Charles II." She
+must have been known by this name when she was a child of eleven or
+twelve, then, for she was ten when her parents fled to England "about
+1683," and Charles II. died in February, 1685. Moreover, she was not
+married till she was fifteen; she lived eight years with her husband;
+and then she was mistress successively to the friendly jeweller, the
+Prince, and the Dutch merchant. Yet after this career, she returned to
+London in time to become a noted toast among Charles II.'s courtiers and
+to entertain at her house that monarch and the Duke of Monmouth.</p>
+
+<p>A stronger argument for different authorship is the difference in style
+between the continuation of <i>Roxana</i> and the earlier narrative. In the
+continuation Defoe's best-known mannerisms are lacking, as two instances
+will show. Critics have often called atten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span>tion to the fact that
+<i>fright</i>, instead of <i>frighten</i>, was a favourite word of Defoe. Now
+<i>frighten</i>, and not <i>fright</i>, is the verb used in the continuation.
+Furthermore, I have pointed out in a previous introduction<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> that Defoe
+was fond of making his characters <i>smile</i>, to show either kindliness or
+shrewd penetration. They do not <i>smile</i> in the continuation.</p>
+
+<p>There are other differences between the original story of <i>The Fortunate
+Mistress</i> and the continuation of 1745. The former is better narrative
+than the latter; it moves quicker; it is more real. And yet there is a
+manifest attempt in the continuation to imitate the manner and the
+substance of the story proper. There is a dialogue, for example, between
+Roxana and the Quakeress, modelled on the dialogues which Defoe was so
+fond of. Again, there is a fairly successful attempt to copy Defoe's
+circumstantiality; there is an amount of detail in the continuation
+which makes it more graphic than much of the fiction which has been
+given to the world. And finally, in understanding and reproducing the
+characters of Roxana and Amy, the anonymous author has done remarkably
+well. The character of Roxana's daughter is less true to Defoe's
+conception; the girl, as he drew her, was actuated more by natural
+affection in seeking her mother, and less by interest. The character of
+the Dutch merchant, likewise, has <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>not changed for the better in the
+continuation. He has developed a vindictiveness which, in our former
+meetings with him, seemed foreign to his nature.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that in <i>The Fortunate Mistress</i> Defoe has come nearer than
+usual to writing what we to-day call a novel; the reason is that he has
+had more success than usual in making his characters real. Though many
+of them are still wooden&mdash;lifeless types, rather than individuals&mdash;yet
+the Prince, the Quakeress, and the Dutch merchant occasionally wake to
+life; so rather more does the unfortunate daughter; and more yet, Amy
+and Roxana. With the exception of Moll Flanders, these last two are more
+vitalised than any personages Defoe invented. In this pair, furthermore,
+Defoe seems to have been interested in bringing out the contrast between
+characters. The servant, Amy, thrown with another mistress, might have
+been a totally different woman. The vulgarity of a servant she would
+have retained under any circumstances, as she did even when promoted
+from being the maid to being the companion of Roxana; but it was
+unreasoning devotion to her mistress, combined with weakness of
+character, which led Amy to be vicious.</p>
+
+<p>Roxana, for her part, had to the full the independence, the initiative,
+which her woman was without,&mdash;or rather was without when acting for
+herself; for when acting in the interests of her mistress, Amy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> was a
+different creature. Like all of Defoe's principal characters, Roxana is
+eminently practical, cold-blooded and selfish. After the first pang at
+parting with her five children, she seldom thinks of them except as
+encumbrances; she will provide for them as decently as she can without
+personal inconvenience, but even a slight sacrifice for the sake of one
+of them is too much for her. Towards all the men with whom she has
+dealings, and towards the friendly Quakeress of the Minories, too, she
+shows a calculating reticence which is most unfeminine. The continuator
+of our story endowed the heroine with wholly characteristic selfishness
+when he made her, on hearing of Amy's death, feel less sorrow for the
+miserable fate of her friend, than for her own loss of an adviser.</p>
+
+<p>And yet Roxana is capable of fine feeling, as is proved by those tears
+of joy for the happy change in her fortunes, which bring about that
+realistic love scene between her and the Prince in regard to the
+supposed paint on her cheeks. Again, when shipwreck threatens her and
+Amy, her emotion and repentance are due as much to the thought that she
+has degraded Amy to her own level as to thoughts of her more flagrant
+sins. That she is capable of feeling gratitude, she shows in her
+generosity to the Quakeress. And in her rage and remorse, on suspecting
+that her daughter has been murdered, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span> in her emotion several times
+on seeing her children, Roxana shows herself a true woman. In short,
+though for the most part monumentally selfish, she is yet saved from
+being impossible by several displays of noble emotion. One of the
+surprises, to a student of Defoe, is that this thick-skinned, mercantile
+writer, the vulgarest of all our great men of letters in the early
+eighteenth century, seems to have known a woman's heart better than a
+man's. At least he has succeeded in making two or three of his women
+characters more alive than any of his men. It is another surprise that
+in writing of women, Defoe often seems ahead of his age. In the argument
+between Roxana and her Dutch merchant about a woman's independence,
+Roxana talks like a character in a "problem" play or novel of our own
+day. This, perhaps, is not to Defoe's credit, but it is to his credit
+that he has said elsewhere:<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> "A woman well-bred and well-taught,
+furnished with the ... accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a
+creature without comparison; her society is the emblem of sublime
+enjoyments; ... and the man that has such a one to his portion, has
+nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful." After reading
+these words, one cannot but regret that Defoe did not try to create
+heroines more virtuous than Moll Flanders and Roxana.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is not only in drawing his characters that Defoe, in <i>The Fortunate
+Mistress</i>, comes nearer than usual to producing a novel. This narrative
+of his is less loosely constructed than any others except <i>Robinson
+Crusoe</i> and the <i>Journal of the Plague Year</i>, which it was easier to
+give structure to. In both of them&mdash;the story of a solitary on a desert
+island and the story of the visitation of a pestilence&mdash;the nature of
+the subject made the author's course tolerably plain; in <i>The Fortunate
+Mistress</i>, the proper course was by no means so well marked. The more
+credit is due Defoe, therefore, that the book is so far from being
+entirely inorganised that, had he taken sufficient pains with the
+ending, it would have had as much structure as many good novels. There
+is no strongly defined plot, it is true; but in general, if a character
+is introduced, he is heard from again; a scene that impresses itself on
+the mind of the heroine is likely to be important in the sequel. The
+story seems to be working itself out to a logical conclusion, when
+unexpectedly it comes to an end. Defoe apparently grew tired of it for
+some reason, and wound it up abruptly, with only the meagre information
+as to the fate of Roxana and Amy that they "fell into a dreadful course
+of calamities."</p>
+
+<p>
+G.H. MAYNADIER.<br />
+</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv-xv]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See Memoirs of a Cavalier</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>An Essay upon Projects, An Academy for Women.</i></p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="AUTHORS_PREFACE" id="AUTHORS_PREFACE"></a>AUTHOR'S PREFACE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The history of this beautiful lady is to speak for itself; if it is not
+as beautiful as the lady herself is reported to be; if it is not as
+diverting as the reader can desire, and much more than he can reasonably
+expect; and if all the most diverting parts of it are not adapted to the
+instruction and improvement of the reader, the relator says it must be
+from the defect of his performance; dressing up the story in worse
+clothes than the lady whose words he speaks, prepared for the world.</p>
+
+<p>He takes the liberty to say that this story differs from most of the
+modern performances of this kind, though some of them have met with a
+very good reception in the world. I say, it differs from them in this
+great and essential article, namely, that the foundation of this is laid
+in truth of fact; and so the work is not a story, but a history.</p>
+
+<p>The scene is laid so near the place where the main part of it was
+transacted that it was necessary to conceal names and persons, lest what
+cannot be yet entirely forgot in that part of the town should be
+remembered, and the facts traced back too plainly by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span> the many people
+yet living, who would know the persons by the particulars.</p>
+
+<p>It is not always necessary that the names of persons should be
+discovered, though the history may be many ways useful; and if we should
+be always obliged to name the persons, or not to relate the story, the
+consequence might be only this&mdash;that many a pleasant and delightful
+history would be buried in the dark, and the world deprived both of the
+pleasure and the profit of it.</p>
+
+<p>The writer says he was particularly acquainted with this lady's first
+husband, the brewer, and with his father, and also with his bad
+circumstances, and knows that first part of the story to be truth.</p>
+
+<p>This may, he hopes, be a pledge for the credit of the rest, though the
+latter part of her history lay abroad, and could not be so well vouched
+as the first; yet, as she has told it herself, we have the less reason
+to question the truth of that part also.</p>
+
+<p>In the manner she has told the story, it is evident she does not insist
+upon her justification in any one part of it; much less does she
+recommend her conduct, or, indeed, any part of it, except her
+repentance, to our imitation. On the contrary, she makes frequent
+excursions, in a just censuring and condemning her own practice. How
+often does she reproach herself in the most passionate manner, and guide
+us to just reflections in the like cases!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is true she met with unexpected success in all her wicked courses;
+but even in the highest elevations of her prosperity she makes frequent
+acknowledgments that the pleasure of her wickedness was not worth the
+repentance; and that all the satisfaction she had, all the joy in the
+view of her prosperity&mdash;no, nor all the wealth she rolled in, the gaiety
+of her appearance, the equipages and the honours she was attended with,
+could quiet her mind, abate the reproaches of her conscience, or procure
+her an hour's sleep when just reflection kept her waking.</p>
+
+<p>The noble inferences that are drawn from this one part are worth all the
+rest of the story, and abundantly justify, as they are the professed
+design of, the publication.</p>
+
+<p>If there are any parts in her story which, being obliged to relate a
+wicked action, seem to describe it too plainly, the writer says all
+imaginable care has been taken to keep clear of indecencies and immodest
+expressions; and it is hoped you will find nothing to prompt a vicious
+mind, but everywhere much to discourage and expose it.</p>
+
+<p>Scenes of crime can scarce be represented in such a manner but some may
+make a criminal use of them; but when vice is painted in its low-prized
+colours, it is not to make people in love with it, but to expose it; and
+if the reader makes a wrong use of the figures, the wickedness is his
+own.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, the advantages of the present work are so great, and
+the virtuous reader has room for so much improvement, that we make no
+question the story, however meanly told, will find a passage to his best
+hours, and be read both with profit and delight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_HISTORY_OF_THE_LIFE_OF_ROXANA" id="A_HISTORY_OF_THE_LIFE_OF_ROXANA"></a>A HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF ROXANA</h2>
+
+
+<p>I was born, as my friends told me, at the city of Poitiers, in the
+province or county of Poitou, in France, from whence I was brought to
+England by my parents, who fled for their religion about the year 1683,
+when the Protestants were banished from France by the cruelty of their
+persecutors.</p>
+
+<p>I, who knew little or nothing of what I was brought over hither for, was
+well enough pleased with being here. London, a large and gay city, took
+with me mighty well, who, from my being a child, loved a crowd, and to
+see a great many fine folks.</p>
+
+<p>I retained nothing of France but the language, my father and mother
+being people of better fashion than ordinarily the people called
+refugees at that time were; and having fled early, while it was easy to
+secure their effects, had, before their coming over, remitted
+considerable sums of money, or, as I remember, a considerable value in
+French brandy, paper, and other goods; and these selling very much to
+advantage here, my father was in very good circum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>stances at his coming
+over, so that he was far from applying to the rest of our nation that
+were here for countenance and relief. On the contrary, he had his door
+continually thronged with miserable objects of the poor starving
+creatures who at that time fled hither for shelter on account of
+conscience, or something else.</p>
+
+<p>I have indeed heard my father say that he was pestered with a great many
+of those who, for any religion they had, might e'en have stayed where
+they were, but who flocked over hither in droves, for what they call in
+English a livelihood; hearing with what open arms the refugees were
+received in England, and how they fell readily into business, being, by
+the charitable assistance of the people in London, encouraged to work in
+their manufactories in Spitalfields, Canterbury, and other places, and
+that they had a much better price for their work than in France, and the
+like.</p>
+
+<p>My father, I say, told me that he was more pestered with the clamours of
+these people than of those who were truly refugees, and fled in distress
+merely for conscience.</p>
+
+<p>I was about ten years old when I was brought over hither, where, as I
+have said, my father lived in very good circumstances, and died in about
+eleven years more; in which time, as I had accomplished myself for the
+sociable part of the world, so I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> acquainted myself with some of our
+English neighbours, as is the custom in London; and as, while I was
+young, I had picked up three or four playfellows and companions suitable
+to my years, so, as we grew bigger, we learned to call one another
+intimates and friends; and this forwarded very much the finishing me for
+conversation and the world.</p>
+
+<p>I went to English schools, and being young, I learned the English tongue
+perfectly well, with all the customs of the English young women; so that
+I retained nothing of the French but the speech; nor did I so much as
+keep any remains of the French language tagged to my way of speaking, as
+most foreigners do, but spoke what we call natural English, as if I had
+been born here.</p>
+
+<p>Being to give my own character, I must be excused to give it as
+impartially as possible, and as if I was speaking of another body; and
+the sequel will lead you to judge whether I flatter myself or no.</p>
+
+<p>I was (speaking of myself at about fourteen years of age) tall, and very
+well made; sharp as a hawk in matters of common knowledge; quick and
+smart in discourse; apt to be satirical; full of repartee; and a little
+too forward in conversation, or, as we call it in English, bold, though
+perfectly modest in my behaviour. Being French born, I danced, as some
+say, naturally, loved it extremely, and sang well also, and so well
+that, as you will hear, it was afterwards some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> advantage to me. With
+all these things, I wanted neither wit, beauty, or money. In this manner
+I set out into the world, having all the advantages that any young woman
+could desire, to recommend me to others, and form a prospect of happy
+living to myself.</p>
+
+<p>At about fifteen years of age, my father gave me, as he called it in
+French, 25,000 livres, that is to say, two thousand pounds portion, and
+married me to an eminent brewer in the city. Pardon me if I conceal his
+name; for though he was the foundation of my ruin, I cannot take so
+severe a revenge upon him.</p>
+
+<p>With this thing called a husband I lived eight years in good fashion,
+and for some part of the time kept a coach, that is to say, a kind of
+mock coach; for all the week the horses were kept at work in the
+dray-carts; but on Sunday I had the privilege to go abroad in my
+chariot, either to church or otherways, as my husband and I could agree
+about it, which, by the way, was not very often; but of that hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>Before I proceed in the history of the married part of my life, you must
+allow me to give as impartial an account of my husband as I have done of
+myself. He was a jolly, handsome fellow, as any woman need wish for a
+companion; tall and well made; rather a little too large, but not so as
+to be ungenteel; he danced well, which I think was the first thing that
+brought us together. He had an old father who managed the business
+carefully, so that he had little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> of that part lay on him, but now and
+then to appear and show himself; and he took the advantage of it, for he
+troubled himself very little about it, but went abroad, kept company,
+hunted much, and loved it exceedingly.</p>
+
+<p>After I have told you that he was a handsome man and a good sportsman, I
+have indeed said all; and unhappy was I, like other young people of our
+sex, I chose him for being a handsome, jolly fellow, as I have said; for
+he was otherwise a weak, empty-headed, untaught creature, as any woman
+could ever desire to be coupled with. And here I must take the liberty,
+whatever I have to reproach myself with in my after conduct, to turn to
+my fellow-creatures, the young ladies of this country, and speak to them
+by way of precaution. If you have any regard to your future happiness,
+any view of living comfortably with a husband, any hope of preserving
+your fortunes, or restoring them after any disaster, never, ladies,
+marry a fool; any husband rather than a fool. With some other husbands
+you may be unhappy, but with a fool you will be miserable; with another
+husband you may, I say, be unhappy, but with a fool you must; nay, if he
+would, he cannot make you easy; everything he does is so awkward,
+everything he says is so empty, a woman of any sense cannot but be
+surfeited and sick of him twenty times a day. What is more shocking than
+for a woman to bring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> a handsome, comely fellow of a husband into
+company, and then be obliged to blush for him every time she hears him
+speak? to hear other gentlemen talk sense, and he able to say nothing?
+and so look like a fool, or, which is worse, hear him talk nonsense, and
+be laughed at for a fool.</p>
+
+<p>In the next place, there are so many sorts of fools, such an infinite
+variety of fools, and so hard it is to know the worst of the kind, that
+I am obliged to say, "No fool, ladies, at all, no kind of fool, whether
+a mad fool or a sober fool, a wise fool or a silly fool; take anything
+but a fool; nay, be anything, be even an old maid, the worst of nature's
+curses, rather than take up with a fool."</p>
+
+<p>But to leave this awhile, for I shall have occasion to speak of it
+again; my case was particularly hard, for I had a variety of foolish
+things complicated in this unhappy match.</p>
+
+<p>First, and which I must confess is very unsufferable, he was a conceited
+fool, <i>tout opiniatre</i>; everything he said was right, was best, and was
+to the purpose, whoever was in company, and whatever was advanced by
+others, though with the greatest modesty imaginable. And yet, when he
+came to defend what he had said by argument and reason, he would do it
+so weakly, so emptily, and so nothing to the purpose, that it was enough
+to make anybody that heard him sick and ashamed of him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Secondly, he was positive and obstinate, and the most positive in the
+most simple and inconsistent things, such as were intolerable to bear.</p>
+
+<p>These two articles, if there had been no more, qualified him to be a
+most unbearable creature for a husband; and so it may be supposed at
+first sight what a kind of life I led with him. However, I did as well
+as I could, and held my tongue, which was the only victory I gained over
+him; for when he would talk after his own empty rattling way with me,
+and I would not answer, or enter into discourse with him on the point he
+was upon, he would rise up in the greatest passion imaginable, and go
+away, which was the cheapest way I had to be delivered.</p>
+
+<p>I could enlarge here much upon the method I took to make my life
+passable and easy with the most incorrigible temper in the world; but it
+is too long, and the articles too trifling. I shall mention some of them
+as the circumstances I am to relate shall necessarily bring them in.</p>
+
+<p>After I had been married about four years, my own father died, my mother
+having been dead before. He liked my match so ill, and saw so little
+room to be satisfied with the conduct of my husband, that though he left
+me five thousand livres, and more, at his death, yet he left it in the
+hands of my elder brother, who, running on too rashly in his adven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>tures
+as a merchant, failed, and lost not only what he had, but what he had
+for me too, as you shall hear presently.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I lost the last gift of my father's bounty by having a husband not
+fit to be trusted with it: there's one of the benefits of marrying a
+fool.</p>
+
+<p>Within two years after my own father's death my husband's father also
+died, and, as I thought, left him a considerable addition to his estate,
+the whole trade of the brewhouse, which was a very good one, being now
+his own.</p>
+
+<p>But this addition to his stock was his ruin, for he had no genius to
+business, he had no knowledge of his accounts; he bustled a little about
+it, indeed, at first, and put on a face of business, but he soon grew
+slack; it was below him to inspect his books, he committed all that to
+his clerks and book-keepers; and while he found money in cash to pay the
+maltman and the excise, and put some in his pocket, he was perfectly
+easy and indolent, let the main chance go how it would.</p>
+
+<p>I foresaw the consequence of this, and attempted several times to
+persuade him to apply himself to his business; I put him in mind how his
+customers complained of the neglect of his servants on one hand, and how
+abundance broke in his debt, on the other hand, for want of the clerk's
+care to secure him, and the like; but he thrust me by, either with hard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+words, or fraudulently, with representing the cases otherwise than they
+were.</p>
+
+<p>However, to cut short a dull story, which ought not to be long, he began
+to find his trade sunk, his stock declined, and that, in short, he could
+not carry on his business, and once or twice his brewing utensils were
+extended for the excise; and, the last time, he was put to great
+extremities to clear them.</p>
+
+<p>This alarmed him, and he resolved to lay down his trade; which, indeed,
+I was not sorry for; foreseeing that if he did not lay it down in time,
+he would be forced to do it another way, namely, as a bankrupt. Also I
+was willing he should draw out while he had something left, lest I
+should come to be stripped at home, and be turned out of doors with my
+children; for I had now five children by him, the only work (perhaps)
+that fools are good for.</p>
+
+<p>I thought myself happy when he got another man to take his brewhouse
+clear off his hands; for, paying down a large sum of money, my husband
+found himself a clear man, all his debts paid, and with between two and
+three thousand pounds in his pocket; and being now obliged to remove
+from the brewhouse, we took a house at &mdash;&mdash;, a village about two miles
+out of town; and happy I thought myself, all things considered, that I
+was got off clear, upon so good terms; and had my handsome fellow had
+but one capful of wit, I had been still well enough.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I proposed to him either to buy some place with the money, or with part
+of it, and offered to join my part to it, which was then in being, and
+might have been secured; so we might have lived tolerably at least
+during his life. But as it is the part of a fool to be void of counsel,
+so he neglected it, lived on as he did before, kept his horses and men,
+rid every day out to the forest a-hunting, and nothing was done all this
+while; but the money decreased apace, and I thought I saw my ruin
+hastening on without any possible way to prevent it.</p>
+
+<p>I was not wanting with all that persuasions and entreaties could
+perform, but it was all fruitless; representing to him how fast our
+money wasted, and what would be our condition when it was gone, made no
+impression on him; but like one stupid, he went on, not valuing all that
+tears and lamentations could be supposed to do; nor did he abate his
+figure or equipage, his horses or servants, even to the last, till he
+had not a hundred pounds left in the whole world.</p>
+
+<p>It was not above three years that all the ready money was thus spending
+off; yet he spent it, as I may say, foolishly too, for he kept no
+valuable company neither, but generally with huntsmen and
+horse-coursers, and men meaner than himself, which is another
+consequence of a man's being a fool; such can never take delight in men
+more wise and capable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> than themselves, and that makes them converse
+with scoundrels, drink, belch with porters, and keep company always
+below themselves.</p>
+
+<p>This was my wretched condition, when one morning my husband told me he
+was sensible he was come to a miserable condition, and he would go and
+seek his fortune somewhere or other. He had said something to that
+purpose several times before that, upon my pressing him to consider his
+circumstances, and the circumstances of his family, before it should be
+too late; but as I found he had no meaning in anything of that kind, as,
+indeed, he had not much in anything he ever said, so I thought they were
+but words of course now. When he had said he would be gone, I used to
+wish secretly, and even say in my thoughts, I wish you would, for if you
+go on thus you will starve us all.</p>
+
+<p>He stayed, however, at home all that day, and lay at home that night;
+early the next morning he gets out of bed, goes to a window which looked
+out towards the stable, and sounds his French horn, as he called it,
+which was his usual signal to call his men to go out a-hunting.</p>
+
+<p>It was about the latter end of August, and so was light yet at five
+o'clock, and it was about that time that I heard him and his two men go
+out and shut the yard gates after them. He said nothing to me more than
+as usual when he used to go out upon his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> sport; neither did I rise, or
+say anything to him that was material, but went to sleep again after he
+was gone, for two hours or thereabouts.</p>
+
+<p>It must be a little surprising to the reader to tell him at once, that
+after this I never saw my husband more; but, to go farther, I not only
+never saw him more, but I never heard from him, or of him, neither of
+any or either of his two servants, or of the horses, either what became
+of them, where or which way they went, or what they did or intended to
+do, no more than if the ground had opened and swallowed them all up, and
+nobody had known it, except as hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>I was not, for the first night or two, at all surprised, no, nor very
+much the first week or two, believing that if anything evil had befallen
+them, I should soon enough have heard of that; and also knowing, that as
+he had two servants and three horses with him, it would be the strangest
+thing in the world that anything could befall them all but that I must
+some time or other hear of them.</p>
+
+<p>But you will easily allow, that as time ran on, a week, two weeks, a
+month, two months, and so on, I was dreadfully frighted at last, and the
+more when I looked into my own circumstances, and considered the
+condition in which I was left with five children, and not one farthing
+subsistence for them, other than about seventy pounds in money, and what
+few things <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>of value I had about me, which, though considerable in
+themselves, were yet nothing to feed a family, and for a length of time
+too.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/roxanavol1illo012.jpg" alt="" title="" />
+<span class="caption"><br />THE BREWER AND HIS MEN<br />
+
+I heard him and his two men go out and shut the yard gates after them</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>What to do I knew not, nor to whom to have recourse: to keep in the
+house where I was, I could not, the rent being too great; and to leave
+it without his orders, if my husband should return, I could not think of
+that neither; so that I continued extremely perplexed, melancholy, and
+discouraged to the last degree.</p>
+
+<p>I remained in this dejected condition near a twelvemonth. My husband had
+two sisters, who were married, and lived very well, and some other near
+relations that I knew of, and I hoped would do something for me; and I
+frequently sent to these, to know if they could give me any account of
+my vagrant creature. But they all declared to me in answer, that they
+knew nothing about him; and, after frequent sending, began to think me
+troublesome, and to let me know they thought so too, by their treating
+my maid with very slight and unhandsome returns to her inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>This grated hard, and added to my affliction; but I had no recourse but
+to my tears, for I had not a friend of my own left me in the world. I
+should have observed, that it was about half a year before this
+elopement of my husband that the disaster I mentioned above befell my
+brother, who broke, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> that in such bad circumstances, that I had the
+mortification to hear, not only that he was in prison, but that there
+would be little or nothing to be had by way of composition.</p>
+
+<p>Misfortunes seldom come alone: this was the forerunner of my husband's
+flight; and as my expectations were cut off on that side, my husband
+gone, and my family of children on my hands, and nothing to subsist
+them, my condition was the most deplorable that words can express.</p>
+
+<p>I had some plate and some jewels, as might be supposed, my fortune and
+former circumstances considered; and my husband, who had never stayed to
+be distressed, had not been put to the necessity of rifling me, as
+husbands usually do in such cases. But as I had seen an end of all the
+ready money during the long time I had lived in a state of expectation
+for my husband, so I began to make away one thing after another, till
+those few things of value which I had began to lessen apace, and I saw
+nothing but misery and the utmost distress before me, even to have my
+children starve before my face. I leave any one that is a mother of
+children, and has lived in plenty and in good fashion, to consider and
+reflect what must be my condition. As to my husband, I had now no hope
+or expectation of seeing him any more; and indeed, if I had, he was a
+man of all the men in the world the least able to help me, or to have
+turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> his hand to the gaining one shilling towards lessening our
+distress; he neither had the capacity or the inclination; he could have
+been no clerk, for he scarce wrote a legible hand; he was so far from
+being able to write sense, that he could not make sense of what others
+wrote; he was so far from understanding good English, that he could not
+spell good English; to be out of all business was his delight, and he
+would stand leaning against a post for half-an-hour together, with a
+pipe in his mouth, with all the tranquillity in the world, smoking, like
+Dryden's countryman, that whistled as he went for want of thought, and
+this even when his family was, as it were, starving, that little he had
+wasting, and that we were all bleeding to death; he not knowing, and as
+little considering, where to get another shilling when the last was
+spent.</p>
+
+<p>This being his temper, and the extent of his capacity, I confess I did
+not see so much loss in his parting with me as at first I thought I did;
+though it was hard and cruel to the last degree in him, not giving me
+the least notice of his design; and indeed, that which I was most
+astonished at was, that seeing he must certainly have intended this
+excursion some few moments at least before he put it in practice, yet he
+did not come and take what little stock of money we had left, or at
+least a share of it, to bear his expense for a little while; but he did
+not; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> I am morally certain he had not five guineas with him in the
+world when he went away. All that I could come to the knowledge of about
+him was, that he left his hunting-horn, which he called the French horn,
+in the stable, and his hunting-saddle, went away in a handsome
+furniture, as they call it, which he used sometimes to travel with,
+having an embroidered housing, a case of pistols, and other things
+belonging to them; and one of his servants had another saddle with
+pistols, though plain, and the other a long gun; so that they did not go
+out as sportsmen, but rather as travellers; what part of the world they
+went to I never heard for many years.</p>
+
+<p>As I have said, I sent to his relations, but they sent me short and
+surly answers; nor did any one of them offer to come to see me, or to
+see the children, or so much as to inquire after them, well perceiving
+that I was in a condition that was likely to be soon troublesome to
+them. But it was no time now to dally with them or with the world; I
+left off sending to them, and went myself among them, laid my
+circumstances open to them, told them my whole case, and the condition I
+was reduced to, begged they would advise me what course to take, laid
+myself as low as they could desire, and entreated them to consider that
+I was not in a condition to help myself, and that without some
+assistance we must all inevitably perish. I told them that if I had had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+but one child, or two children, I would have done my endeavour to have
+worked for them with my needle, and should only have come to them to beg
+them to help me to some work, that I might get our bread by my labour;
+but to think of one single woman, not bred to work, and at a loss where
+to get employment, to get the bread of five children, that was not
+possible&mdash;some of my children being young too, and none of them big
+enough to help one another.</p>
+
+<p>It was all one; I received not one farthing of assistance from anybody,
+was hardly asked to sit down at the two sisters' houses, nor offered to
+eat or drink at two more near relations'. The fifth, an ancient
+gentlewoman, aunt-in-law to my husband, a widow, and the least able also
+of any of the rest, did, indeed, ask me to sit down, gave me a dinner,
+and refreshed me with a kinder treatment than any of the rest, but added
+the melancholy part, viz., that she would have helped me, but that,
+indeed, she was not able, which, however, I was satisfied was very true.</p>
+
+<p>Here I relieved myself with the constant assistant of the afflicted, I
+mean tears; for, relating to her how I was received by the other of my
+husband's relations, it made me burst into tears, and I cried vehemently
+for a great while together, till I made the good old gentlewoman cry too
+several times.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>However, I came home from them all without any relief, and went on at
+home till I was reduced to such inexpressible distress that is not to be
+described. I had been several times after this at the old aunt's, for I
+prevailed with her to promise me to go and talk with the other
+relations, at least, that, if possible, she could bring some of them to
+take off the children, or to contribute something towards their
+maintenance. And, to do her justice, she did use her endeavour with
+them; but all was to no purpose, they would do nothing, at least that
+way. I think, with much entreaty, she obtained, by a kind of collection
+among them all, about eleven or twelve shillings in money, which, though
+it was a present comfort, was yet not to be named as capable to deliver
+me from any part of the load that lay upon me.</p>
+
+<p>There was a poor woman that had been a kind of a dependent upon our
+family, and whom I had often, among the rest of the relations, been very
+kind to; my maid put it into my head one morning to send to this poor
+woman, and to see whether she might not be able to help in this dreadful
+case.</p>
+
+<p>I must remember it here, to the praise of this poor girl, my maid, that
+though I was not able to give her any wages, and had told her so&mdash;nay, I
+was not able to pay her the wages that I was in arrears<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> to her&mdash;yet she
+would not leave me; nay, and as long as she had any money, when I had
+none, she would help me out of her own, for which, though I acknowledged
+her kindness and fidelity, yet it was but a bad coin that she was paid
+in at last, as will appear in its place.</p>
+
+<p>Amy (for that was her name) put it into my thoughts to send for this
+poor woman to come to me; for I was now in great distress, and I
+resolved to do so. But just the very morning that I intended it, the old
+aunt, with the poor woman in her company, came to see me; the good old
+gentlewoman was, it seems, heartily concerned for me, and had been
+talking again among those people, to see what she could do for me, but
+to very little purpose.</p>
+
+<p>You shall judge a little of my present distress by the posture she found
+me in. I had five little children, the eldest was under ten years old,
+and I had not one shilling in the house to buy them victuals, but had
+sent Amy out with a silver spoon to sell it, and bring home something
+from the butcher's; and I was in a parlour, sitting on the ground, with
+a great heap of old rags, linen, and other things about me, looking them
+over, to see if I had anything among them that would sell or pawn for a
+little money, and had been crying ready to burst myself, to think what I
+should do next.</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture they knocked at the door. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> thought it had been Amy,
+so I did not rise up; but one of the children opened the door, and they
+came directly into the room where I was, and where they found me in that
+posture, and crying vehemently, as above. I was surprised at their
+coming, you may be sure, especially seeing the person I had but just
+before resolved to send for; but when they saw me, how I looked, for my
+eyes were swelled with crying, and what a condition I was in as to the
+house, and the heaps of things that were about me, and especially when I
+told them what I was doing, and on what occasion, they sat down, like
+Job's three comforters, and said not one word to me for a great while,
+but both of them cried as fast and as heartily as I did.</p>
+
+<p>The truth was, there was no need of much discourse in the case, the
+thing spoke itself; they saw me in rags and dirt, who was but a little
+before riding in my coach; thin, and looking almost like one starved,
+who was before fat and beautiful. The house, that was before handsomely
+furnished with pictures and ornaments, cabinets, pier-glasses, and
+everything suitable, was now stripped and naked, most of the goods
+having been seized by the landlord for rent, or sold to buy necessaries;
+in a word, all was misery and distress, the face of ruin was everywhere
+to be seen; we had eaten up almost everything, and little remained,
+unless, like one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> the pitiful women of Jerusalem, I should eat up my
+very children themselves.</p>
+
+<p>After these two good creatures had sat, as I say, in silence some time,
+and had then looked about them, my maid Amy came in, and brought with
+her a small breast of mutton and two great bunches of turnips, which she
+intended to stew for our dinner. As for me, my heart was so overwhelmed
+at seeing these two friends&mdash;for such they were, though poor&mdash;and at
+their seeing me in such a condition, that I fell into another violent
+fit of crying, so that, in short, I could not speak to them again for a
+great while longer.</p>
+
+<p>During my being in such an agony, they went to my maid Amy at another
+part of the same room and talked with her. Amy told them all my
+circumstances, and set them forth in such moving terms, and so to the
+life, that I could not upon any terms have done it like her myself, and,
+in a word, affected them both with it in such a manner, that the old
+aunt came to me, and though hardly able to speak for tears, "Look ye,
+cousin," said she, in a few words, "things must not stand thus; some
+course must be taken, and that forthwith; pray, where were these
+children born?" I told her the parish where we lived before, that four
+of them were born there, and one in the house where I now was, where the
+landlord, after having seized my goods for the rent past,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> not then
+knowing my circumstances, had now given me leave to live for a whole
+year more without any rent, being moved with compassion; but that this
+year was now almost expired.</p>
+
+<p>Upon hearing this account, they came to this resolution, that the
+children should be all carried by them to the door of one of the
+relations mentioned above, and be set down there by the maid Amy, and
+that I, the mother, should remove for some days, shut up the doors, and
+be gone; that the people should be told, that if they did not think fit
+to take some care of the children, they might send for the churchwardens
+if they thought that better, for that they were born in that parish, and
+there they must be provided for; as for the other child, which was born
+in the parish of &mdash;&mdash;, that was already taken care of by the parish
+officers there, for indeed they were so sensible of the distress of the
+family that they had at first word done what was their part to do.</p>
+
+<p>This was what these good women proposed, and bade me leave the rest to
+them. I was at first sadly afflicted at the thoughts of parting with my
+children, and especially at that terrible thing, their being taken into
+the parish keeping; and then a hundred terrible things came into my
+thoughts, viz., of parish children being starved at nurse; of their
+being ruined, let grow crooked, lamed, and the like, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> want of being
+taken care of; and this sunk my very heart within me.</p>
+
+<p>But the misery of my own circumstances hardened my heart against my own
+flesh and blood; and when I considered they must inevitably be starved,
+and I too if I continued to keep them about me, I began to be reconciled
+to parting with them all, anyhow and anywhere, that I might be freed
+from the dreadful necessity of seeing them all perish, and perishing
+with them myself. So I agreed to go away out of the house, and leave the
+management of the whole matter to my maid Amy and to them; and
+accordingly I did so, and the same afternoon they carried them all away
+to one of their aunts.</p>
+
+<p>Amy, a resolute girl, knocked at the door, with the children all with
+her, and bade the eldest, as soon as the door was open, run in, and the
+rest after her. She set them all down at the door before she knocked,
+and when she knocked she stayed till a maid-servant came to the door;
+"Sweetheart," said she, "pray go in and tell your mistress here are her
+little cousins come to see her from &mdash;&mdash;," naming the town where we
+lived, at which the maid offered to go back. "Here, child," says Amy,
+"take one of 'em in your hand, and I'll bring the rest;" so she gives
+her the least, and the wench goes in mighty innocently, with the little
+one in her hand, upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> which Amy turns the rest in after her, shuts the
+door softly, and marches off as fast as she could.</p>
+
+<p>Just in the interval of this, and even while the maid and her mistress
+were quarrelling (for the mistress raved and scolded her like a mad
+woman, and had ordered her to go and stop the maid Amy, and turn all the
+children out of the doors again; but she had been at the door, and Amy
+was gone, and the wench was out of her wits, and the mistress too), I
+say, just at this juncture came the poor old woman, not the aunt, but
+the other of the two that had been with me, and knocks at the door: the
+aunt did not go, because she had pretended to advocate for me, and they
+would have suspected her of some contrivance; but as for the other
+woman, they did not so much as know that she had kept up any
+correspondence with me.</p>
+
+<p>Amy and she had concerted this between them, and it was well enough
+contrived that they did so. When she came into the house, the mistress
+was fuming, and raging like one distracted, and called the maid all the
+foolish jades and sluts that she could think of, and that she would take
+the children and turn them all out into the streets. The good poor
+woman, seeing her in such a passion, turned about as if she would be
+gone again, and said, "Madam, I'll come again another time, I see you
+are engaged." "No, no, Mrs. &mdash;&mdash;," says the mistress, "I am not much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+engaged, sit down; this senseless creature here has brought in my fool
+of a brother's whole house of children upon me, and tells me that a
+wench brought them to the door and thrust them in, and bade her carry
+them to me; but it shall be no disturbance to me, for I have ordered
+them to be set in the street without the door, and so let the
+churchwardens take care of them, or else make this dull jade carry 'em
+back to &mdash;&mdash; again, and let her that brought them into the world look
+after them if she will; what does she send her brats to me for?"</p>
+
+<p>"The last indeed had been the best of the two," says the poor woman, "if
+it had been to be done; and that brings me to tell you my errand, and
+the occasion of my coming, for I came on purpose about this very
+business, and to have prevented this being put upon you if I could, but
+I see I am come too late."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean too late?" says the mistress. "What! have you been
+concerned in this affair, then? What! have you helped bring this family
+slur upon us?" "I hope you do not think such a thing of me, madam," says
+the poor woman; "but I went this morning to &mdash;&mdash;, to see my old mistress
+and benefactor, for she had been very kind to me, and when I came to the
+door I found all fast locked and bolted, and the house looking as if
+nobody was at home.</p>
+
+<p>"I knocked at the door, but nobody came, till at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> last some of the
+neighbours' servants called to me and said, 'There's nobody lives there,
+mistress; what do you knock for?' I seemed surprised at that. 'What,
+nobody lives there!' said I; 'what d'ye mean? Does not Mrs. &mdash;&mdash; live
+there?' The answer was, 'No, she is gone;' at which I parleyed with one
+of them, and asked her what was the matter. 'Matter!' says she, 'why, it
+is matter enough: the poor gentlewoman has lived there all alone, and
+without anything to subsist her a long time, and this morning the
+landlord turned her out of doors.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Out of doors!' says I; 'what! with all her children? Poor lambs, what
+is become of them?' 'Why, truly, nothing worse,' said they, 'can come to
+them than staying here, for they were almost starved with hunger; so the
+neighbours, seeing the poor lady in such distress, for she stood crying
+and wringing her hands over her children like one distracted, sent for
+the churchwardens to take care of the children; and they, when they
+came, took the youngest, which was born in this parish, and have got it
+a very good nurse, and taken care of it; but as for the other four, they
+had sent them away to some of their father's relations, and who were
+very substantial people, and who, besides that, lived in the parish
+where they were born.'</p>
+
+<p>"I was not so surprised at this as not presently to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> foresee that this
+trouble would be brought upon you or upon Mr. &mdash;&mdash;; so I came immediately
+to bring word of it, that you might be prepared for it, and might not be
+surprised; but I see they have been too nimble for me, so that I know
+not what to advise. The poor woman, it seems, is turned out of doors
+into the street; and another of the neighbours there told me, that when
+they took her children from her she swooned away, and when they
+recovered her out of that, she ran distracted, and is put into a
+madhouse by the parish, for there is nobody else to take any care of
+her."</p>
+
+<p>This was all acted to the life by this good, kind, poor creature; for
+though her design was perfectly good and charitable, yet there was not
+one word of it true in fact; for I was not turned out of doors by the
+landlord, nor gone distracted. It was true, indeed, that at parting with
+my poor children I fainted, and was like one mad when I came to myself
+and found they were gone; but I remained in the house a good while after
+that, as you shall hear.</p>
+
+<p>While the poor woman was telling this dismal story, in came the
+gentlewoman's husband, and though her heart was hardened against all
+pity, who was really and nearly related to the children, for they were
+the children of her own brother, yet the good man was quite softened
+with the dismal relation of the circumstances of the family; and when
+the poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> woman had done, he said to his wife, "This is a dismal case,
+my dear, indeed, and something must be done." His wife fell a-raving at
+him: "What," says she, "do you want to have four children to keep? Have
+we not children of our own? Would you have these brats come and eat up
+my children's bread? No, no, let 'em go to the parish, and let them take
+care of them; I'll take care of my own."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, my dear," says the husband, "charity is a duty to the poor,
+and he that gives to the poor lends to the Lord; let us lend our
+heavenly Father a little of our children's bread, as you call it; it
+will be a store well laid up for them, and will be the best security
+that our children shall never come to want charity, or be turned out of
+doors, as these poor innocent creatures are." "Don't tell me of
+security," says the wife, "'tis a good security for our children to keep
+what we have together, and provide for them, and then 'tis time enough
+to help keep other folks' children. Charity begins at home."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear," says he again, "I only talk of putting out a little
+money to interest: our Maker is a good borrower; never fear making a bad
+debt there, child, I'll be bound for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't banter me with your charity and your allegories," says the wife
+angrily; "I tell you they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> are my relations, not yours, and they shall
+not roost here; they shall go to the parish."</p>
+
+<p>"All your relations are my relations now," says the good gentleman very
+calmly, "and I won't see your relations in distress, and not pity them,
+any more than I would my own; indeed, my dear, they shan't go to the
+parish. I assure you, none of my wife's relations shall come to the
+parish, if I can help it."</p>
+
+<p>"What! will you take four children to keep?" says the wife.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, my dear," says he, "there's your sister &mdash;&mdash;, I'll go and talk
+with her; and your uncle &mdash;&mdash;, I'll send for him, and the rest. I'll
+warrant you, when we are all together, we will find ways and means to
+keep four poor little creatures from beggary and starving, or else it
+would be very hard; we are none of us in so bad circumstances but we are
+able to spare a mite for the fatherless. Don't shut up your bowels of
+compassion against your own flesh and blood. Could you hear these poor
+innocent children cry at your door for hunger, and give them no bread?"</p>
+
+<p>"Prithee, what need they cry at our door?" says she. "'Tis the business
+of the parish to provide for them; they shan't cry at our door. If they
+do, I'll give them nothing." "Won't you?" says he; "but I will. Remember
+that dreadful Scripture is directly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> against us, Prov. xxi. 13, 'Whoso
+stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but
+shall not be heard.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," says she, "you must do what you will, because you pretend
+to be master; but if I had my will I would send them where they ought to
+be sent: I would send them from whence they came."</p>
+
+<p>Then the poor woman put in, and said, "But, madam, that is sending them
+to starve indeed, for the parish has no obligation to take care of 'em,
+and so they will lie and perish in the street."</p>
+
+<p>"Or be sent back again," says the husband, "to our parish in a
+cripple-cart, by the justice's warrant, and so expose us and all the
+relations to the last degree among our neighbours, and among those who
+know the good old gentleman their grandfather, who lived and flourished
+in this parish so many years, and was so well beloved among all people,
+and deserved it so well."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't value that one farthing, not I," says the wife; "I'll keep none
+of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear," says her husband, "but I value it, for I won't have
+such a blot lie upon the family, and upon your children; he was a
+worthy, ancient, and good man, and his name is respected among all his
+neighbours; it will be a reproach to you, that are his daughter, and to
+our children, that are his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> grandchildren, that we should let your
+brother's children perish, or come to be a charge to the public, in the
+very place where your family once flourished. Come, say no more; I will
+see what can be done."</p>
+
+<p>Upon this he sends and gathers all the relations together at a tavern
+hard by, and sent for the four little children, that they might see
+them; and they all, at first word, agreed to have them taken care of,
+and, because his wife was so furious that she would not suffer one of
+them to be kept at home, they agreed to keep them all together for a
+while; so they committed them to the poor woman that had managed the
+affair for them, and entered into obligations to one another to supply
+the needful sums for their maintenance; and, not to have one separated
+from the rest, they sent for the youngest from the parish where it was
+taken in, and had them all brought up together.</p>
+
+<p>It would take up too long a part of this story to give a particular
+account with what a charitable tenderness this good person, who was but
+an uncle-in-law to them, managed that affair; how careful he was of
+them; went constantly to see them, and to see that they were well
+provided for, clothed, put to school, and, at last, put out in the world
+for their advantage; but it is enough to say he acted more like a father
+to them than an uncle-in-law, though all along much against his wife's
+consent, who was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> of a disposition not so tender and compassionate as
+her husband.</p>
+
+<p>You may believe I heard this with the same pleasure which I now feel at
+the relating it again; for I was terribly affrighted at the
+apprehensions of my children being brought to misery and distress, as
+those must be who have no friends, but are left to parish benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>I was now, however, entering on a new scene of life. I had a great house
+upon my hands, and some furniture left in it; but I was no more able to
+maintain myself and my maid Amy in it than I was my five children; nor
+had I anything to subsist with but what I might get by working, and that
+was not a town where much work was to be had.</p>
+
+<p>My landlord had been very kind indeed after he came to know my
+circumstances; though, before he was acquainted with that part, he had
+gone so far as to seize my goods, and to carry some of them off too.</p>
+
+<p>But I had lived three-quarters of a year in his house after that, and
+had paid him no rent, and, which was worse, I was in no condition to pay
+him any. However, I observed he came oftener to see me, looked kinder
+upon me, and spoke more friendly to me, than he used to do, particularly
+the last two or three times he had been there. He observed, he said, how
+poorly I lived, how low I was reduced, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> the like; told me it grieved
+him for my sake; and the last time of all he was kinder still, told me
+he came to dine with me, and that I should give him leave to treat me;
+so he called my maid Amy, and sent her out to buy a joint of meat; he
+told her what she should buy; but naming two or three things, either of
+which she might take, the maid, a cunning wench, and faithful to me as
+the skin to my back, did not buy anything outright, but brought the
+butcher along with her, with both the things that she had chosen, for
+him to please himself. The one was a large, very good leg of veal; the
+other a piece of the fore-ribs of roasting beef. He looked at them, but
+made me chaffer with the butcher for him, and I did so, and came back to
+him and told him what the butcher had demanded for either of them, and
+what each of them came to. So he pulls out eleven shillings and
+threepence, which they came to together, and bade me take them both; the
+rest, he said, would serve another time.</p>
+
+<p>I was surprised, you may be sure, at the bounty of a man that had but a
+little while ago been my terror, and had torn the goods out of my house
+like a fury; but I considered that my distresses had mollified his
+temper, and that he had afterwards been so compassionate as to give me
+leave to live rent free in the house a whole year.</p>
+
+<p>But now he put on the face, not of a man of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> compassion only, but of a
+man of friendship and kindness, and this was so unexpected that it was
+surprising. We chatted together, and were, as I may call it, cheerful,
+which was more than I could say I had been for three years before. He
+sent for wine and beer too, for I had none; poor Amy and I had drank
+nothing but water for many weeks, and indeed I have often wondered at
+the faithful temper of the poor girl, for which I but ill requited her
+at last.</p>
+
+<p>When Amy was come with the wine, he made her fill a glass to him, and
+with the glass in his hand he came to me and kissed me, which I was, I
+confess, a little surprised at, but more at what followed; for he told
+me, that as the sad condition which I was reduced to had made him pity
+me, so my conduct in it, and the courage I bore it with, had given him a
+more than ordinary respect for me, and made him very thoughtful for my
+good; that he was resolved for the present to do something to relieve
+me, and to employ his thoughts in the meantime, to see if he could for
+the future put me into a way to support myself.</p>
+
+<p>While he found me change colour, and look surprised at his discourse,
+for so I did, to be sure, he turns to my maid Amy, and looking at her,
+he says to me, "I say all this, madam, before your maid, because both
+she and you shall know that I have no ill design, and that I have, in
+mere kindness, resolved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> to do something for you if I can; and as I have
+been a witness of the uncommon honesty and fidelity of Mrs. Amy here to
+you in all your distresses, I know she may be trusted with so honest a
+design as mine is; for I assure you, I bear a proportioned regard to
+your maid too, for her affection to you."</p>
+
+<p>Amy made him a curtsey, and the poor girl looked so confounded with joy
+that she could not speak, but her colour came and went, and every now
+and then she blushed as red as scarlet, and the next minute looked as
+pale as death. Well, having said this, he sat down, made me sit down,
+and then drank to me, and made me drink two glasses of wine together;
+"For," says he, "you have need of it;" and so indeed I had. When he had
+done so, "Come, Amy," says he, "with your mistress's leave, you shall
+have a glass too." So he made her drink two glasses also; and then
+rising up, "And now, Amy," says he, "go and get dinner; and you, madam,"
+says he to me, "go up and dress you, and come down and smile and be
+merry;" adding, "I'll make you easy if I can;" and in the meantime, he
+said, he would walk in the garden.</p>
+
+<p>When he was gone, Amy changed her countenance indeed, and looked as
+merry as ever she did in her life. "Dear madam," says she, "what does
+this gentleman mean?" "Nay, Amy," said I, "he means to do us good, you
+see, don't he? I know no other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> meaning he can have, for he can get
+nothing by me." "I warrant you, madam," says she, "he'll ask you a
+favour by-and-by." "No, no, you are mistaken, Amy, I dare say," said I;
+"you have heard what he said, didn't you?" "Ay," says Amy, "it's no
+matter for that, you shall see what he will do after dinner." "Well,
+well, Amy," says I, "you have hard thoughts of him. I cannot be of your
+opinion: I don't see anything in him yet that looks like it." "As to
+that, madam," says Amy, "I don't see anything of it yet neither; but
+what should move a gentleman to take pity of us as he does?" "Nay," says
+I, "that's a hard thing too, that we should judge a man to be wicked
+because he's charitable, and vicious because he's kind." "Oh, madam,"
+says Amy, "there's abundance of charity begins in that vice; and he is
+not so unacquainted with things as not to know that poverty is the
+strongest incentive&mdash;a temptation against which no virtue is powerful
+enough to stand out. He knows your condition as well as you do." "Well,
+and what then?" "Why, then, he knows too that you are young and
+handsome, and he has the surest bait in the world to take you with."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Amy," said I, "but he may find himself mistaken too in such a
+thing as that." "Why, madam," says Amy, "I hope you won't deny him if he
+should offer it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean by that, hussy?" said I. "No, I'd starve first."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not, madam, I hope you would be wiser; I'm sure if he will set
+you up, as he talks of, you ought to deny him nothing; and you will
+starve if you do not consent, that's certain."</p>
+
+<p>"What! consent to lie with him for bread? Amy," said I, "how can you
+talk so!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, madam," says Amy, "I don't think you would for anything else; it
+would not be lawful for anything else, but for bread, madam; why, nobody
+can starve, there's no bearing that, I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," says I, "but if he would give me an estate to live on, he should
+not lie with me, I assure you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, look you, madam; if he would but give you enough to live easy
+upon, he should lie with me for it with all my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a token, Amy, of inimitable kindness to me," said I, "and I know
+how to value it; but there's more friendship than honesty in it, Amy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, madam," says Amy, "I'd do anything to get you out of this sad
+condition; as to honesty, I think honesty is out of the question when
+starving is the case. Are not we almost starved to death?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am indeed," said I, "and thou art for my sake; but to be a whore,
+Amy!" and there I stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear madam," says Amy, "if I will starve for your sake, I will be a
+whore or anything for your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> sake; why, I would die for you if I were put
+to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's an excess of affection, Amy," said I, "I never met with
+before; I wish I may be ever in condition to make you some returns
+suitable. But, however, Amy, you shall not be a whore to him, to oblige
+him to be kind to me; no, Amy, nor I won't be a whore to him, if he
+would give me much more than he is able to give me or do for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, madam," says Amy, "I don't say I will go and ask him; but I say,
+if he should promise to do so and so for you, and the condition was such
+that he would not serve you unless I would let him lie with me, he
+should lie with me as often as he would, rather than you should not have
+his assistance. But this is but talk, madam; I don't see any need of
+such discourse, and you are of opinion that there will be no need of
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed so I am, Amy; but," said I, "if there was, I tell you again, I'd
+die before I would consent, or before you should consent for my sake."</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto I had not only preserved the virtue itself, but the virtuous
+inclination and resolution; and had I kept myself there I had been
+happy, though I had perished of mere hunger; for, without question, a
+woman ought rather to die than to prostitute her virtue and honour, let
+the temptation be what it will.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But to return to my story; he walked about the garden, which was,
+indeed, all in disorder, and overrun with weeds, because I had not been
+able to hire a gardener to do anything to it, no, not so much as to dig
+up ground enough to sow a few turnips and carrots for family use. After
+he had viewed it, he came in, and sent Amy to fetch a poor man, a
+gardener, that used to help our man-servant, and carried him into the
+garden, and ordered him to do several things in it, to put it into a
+little order; and this took him up near an hour.</p>
+
+<p>By this time I had dressed me as well as I could; for though I had good
+linen left still, yet I had but a poor head-dress, and no knots, but old
+fragments; no necklace, no earrings; all those things were gone long ago
+for mere bread.</p>
+
+<p>However, I was tight and clean, and in better plight than he had seen me
+in a great while, and he looked extremely pleased to see me so; for, he
+said, I looked so disconsolate and so afflicted before, that it grieved
+him to see me; and he bade me pluck up a good heart, for he hoped to put
+me in a condition to live in the world, and be beholden to nobody.</p>
+
+<p>I told him that was impossible, for I must be beholden to him for it,
+for all the friends I had in the world would not or could not do so much
+for me as that he spoke of "Well, widow," says he (so he called me, and
+so indeed I was in the worst sense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> that desolate word could be used
+in), "if you are beholden to me, you shall be beholden to nobody else."</p>
+
+<p>By this time dinner was ready, and Amy came in to lay the cloth, and
+indeed it was happy there was none to dine but he and I, for I had but
+six plates left in the house, and but two dishes; however, he knew how
+things were, and bade me make no scruple about bringing out what I had.
+He hoped to see me in a better plight. He did not come, he said, to be
+entertained, but to entertain me, and comfort and encourage me. Thus he
+went on, speaking so cheerfully to me, and such cheerful things, that it
+was a cordial to my very soul to hear him speak.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we went to dinner. I'm sure I had not ate a good meal hardly in a
+twelvemonth, at least not of such a joint of meat as the loin of veal
+was. I ate, indeed, very heartily, and so did he, and he made me drink
+three or four glasses of wine; so that, in short, my spirits were lifted
+up to a degree I had not been used to, and I was not only cheerful, but
+merry; and so he pressed me to be.</p>
+
+<p>I told him I had a great deal of reason to be merry, seeing he had been
+so kind to me, and had given me hopes of recovering me from the worst
+circumstances that ever woman of any sort of fortune was sunk into; that
+he could not but believe that what he had said to me was like life from
+the dead; that it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> like recovering one sick from the brink of the
+grave; how I should ever make him a return any way suitable was what I
+had not yet had time to think of; I could only say that I should never
+forget it while I had life, and should be always ready to acknowledge
+it.</p>
+
+<p>He said that was all he desired of me; that his reward would be the
+satisfaction of having rescued me from misery; that he found he was
+obliging one that knew what gratitude meant; that he would make it his
+business to make me completely easy, first or last, if it lay in his
+power; and in the meantime he bade me consider of anything that I
+thought he might do for me, for my advantage, and in order to make me
+perfectly easy.</p>
+
+<p>After we had talked thus, he bade me be cheerful. "Come," says he, "lay
+aside these melancholy things, and let us be merry." Amy waited at the
+table, and she smiled and laughed, and was so merry she could hardly
+contain it, for the girl loved me to an excess hardly to be described;
+and it was such an unexpected thing to hear any one talk to her
+mistress, that the wench was beside herself almost, and, as soon as
+dinner was over, Amy went upstairs, and put on her best clothes too, and
+came down dressed like a gentlewoman.</p>
+
+<p>We sat together talking of a thousand things&mdash;of what had been, and what
+was to be&mdash;all the rest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> of the day, and in the evening he took his
+leave of me, with a thousand expressions of kindness and tenderness and
+true affection to me, but offered not the least of what my maid Amy had
+suggested.</p>
+
+<p>At his going away he took me in his arms, protested an honest kindness
+to me; said a thousand kind things to me, which I cannot now recollect;
+and, after kissing me twenty times or thereabouts, put a guinea into my
+hand, which, he said, was for my present supply, and told me that he
+would see me again before it was out; also he gave Amy half-a-crown.</p>
+
+<p>When he was gone, "Well, Amy," said I, "are you convinced now that he is
+an honest as well as a true friend, and that there has been nothing, not
+the least appearance of anything, of what you imagined in his
+behaviour?" "Yes," says Amy, "I am, but I admire at it. He is such a
+friend as the world, sure, has not abundance of to show."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure," says I, "he is such a friend as I have long wanted, and as
+I have as much need of as any creature in the world has or ever had."
+And, in short, I was so overcome with the comfort of it that I sat down
+and cried for joy a good while, as I had formerly cried for sorrow. Amy
+and I went to bed that night (for Amy lay with me) pretty early, but lay
+chatting almost all night about it, and the girl was so transported that
+she got up two or three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> times in the night and danced about the room in
+her shift; in short, the girl was half distracted with the joy of it; a
+testimony still of her violent affection for her mistress, in which no
+servant ever went beyond her.</p>
+
+<p>We heard no more of him for two days, but the third day he came again;
+then he told me, with the same kindness, that he had ordered me a supply
+of household goods for the furnishing the house; that, in particular, he
+had sent me back all the goods that he had seized for rent, which
+consisted, indeed, of the best of my former furniture. "And now," says
+he, "I'll tell you what I have had in my head for you for your present
+supply, and that is," says he, "that the house being well furnished, you
+shall let it out to lodgings for the summer gentry," says he, "by which
+you will easily get a good comfortable subsistence, especially seeing
+you shall pay me no rent for two years, nor after neither, unless you
+can afford it."</p>
+
+<p>This was the first view I had of living comfortably indeed, and it was a
+very probable way, I must confess, seeing we had very good conveniences,
+six rooms on a floor, and three stories high. While he was laying down
+the scheme of my management, came a cart to the door with a load of
+goods, and an upholsterer's man to put them up. They were chiefly the
+furniture of two rooms which he had carried away for his two years'
+rent, with two fine cabinets, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> some pier-glasses out of the parlour,
+and several other valuable things.</p>
+
+<p>These were all restored to their places, and he told me he gave them me
+freely, as a satisfaction for the cruelty he had used me with before;
+and the furniture of one room being finished and set up, he told me he
+would furnish one chamber for himself, and would come and be one of my
+lodgers, if I would give him leave.</p>
+
+<p>I told him he ought not to ask me leave, who had so much right to make
+himself welcome. So the house began to look in some tolerable figure,
+and clean; the garden also, in about a fortnight's work, began to look
+something less like a wilderness than it used to do; and he ordered me
+to put up a bill for letting rooms, reserving one for himself, to come
+to as he saw occasion.</p>
+
+<p>When all was done to his mind, as to placing the goods, he seemed very
+well pleased, and we dined together again of his own providing; and the
+upholsterer's man gone, after dinner he took me by the hand. "Come now,
+madam," says he, "you must show me your house" (for he had a mind to see
+everything over again). "No, sir," said I; "but I'll go show you your
+house, if you please;" so we went up through all the rooms, and in the
+room which was appointed for himself Amy was doing something. "Well,
+Amy," says he, "I intend to lie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> with you to-morrow night." "To-night if
+you please, sir," says Amy very innocently; "your room is quite ready."
+"Well, Amy," says he, "I am glad you are so willing." "No," says Amy, "I
+mean your chamber is ready to-night," and away she run out of the room,
+ashamed enough; for the girl meant no harm, whatever she had said to me
+in private.</p>
+
+<p>However, he said no more then; but when Amy was gone he walked about the
+room, and looked at everything, and taking me by the hand he kissed me,
+and spoke a great many kind, affectionate things to me indeed; as of his
+measures for my advantage, and what he would do to raise me again in the
+world; told me that my afflictions and the conduct I had shown in
+bearing them to such an extremity, had so engaged him to me that he
+valued me infinitely above all the women in the world; that though he
+was under such engagements that he could not marry me (his wife and he
+had been parted for some reasons, which make too long a story to
+intermix with mine), yet that he would be everything else that a woman
+could ask in a husband; and with that he kissed me again, and took me in
+his arms, but offered not the least uncivil action to me, and told me he
+hoped I would not deny him all the favours he should ask, because he
+resolved to ask nothing of me but what it was fit for a woman of virtue
+and modesty, for such he knew me to be, to yield.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I confess the terrible pressure of my former misery, the memory of which
+lay heavy upon my mind, and the surprising kindness with which he had
+delivered me, and, withal, the expectations of what he might still do
+for me, were powerful things, and made me have scarce the power to deny
+him anything he would ask. However, I told him thus, with an air of
+tenderness too, that he had done so much for me that I thought I ought
+to deny him nothing; only I hoped and depended upon him that he would
+not take the advantage of the infinite obligations I was under to him,
+to desire anything of me the yielding to which would lay me lower in his
+esteem than I desired to be; that as I took him to be a man of honour,
+so I knew he could not like me better for doing anything that was below
+a woman of honesty and good manners to do.</p>
+
+<p>He told me that he had done all this for me, without so much as telling
+me what kindness or real affection he had for me, that I might not be
+under any necessity of yielding to him in anything for want of bread;
+and he would no more oppress my gratitude now than he would my necessity
+before, nor ask anything, supposing he would stop his favours or
+withdraw his kindness, if he was denied; it was true, he said, he might
+tell me more freely his mind now than before, seeing I had let him see
+that I accepted his assistance, and saw that he was sincere in his
+design<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> of serving me; that he had gone thus far to show me that he was
+kind to me, but that now he would tell me that he loved me, and yet
+would demonstrate that his love was both honourable, and that what he
+should desire was what he might honestly ask and I might honestly grant.</p>
+
+<p>I answered that, within those two limitations, I was sure I ought to
+deny him nothing, and I should think myself not ungrateful only, but
+very unjust, if I should; so he said no more, but I observed he kissed
+me more, and took me in his arms in a kind of familiar way, more than
+usual, and which once or twice put me in mind of my maid Amy's words;
+and yet, I must acknowledge, I was so overcome with his goodness to me
+in those many kind things he had done that I not only was easy at what
+he did and made no resistance, but was inclined to do the like, whatever
+he had offered to do. But he went no farther than what I have said, nor
+did he offer so much as to sit down on the bedside with me, but took his
+leave, said he loved me tenderly, and would convince me of it by such
+demonstrations as should be to my satisfaction. I told him I had a great
+deal of reason to believe him, that he was full master of the whole
+house and of me, as far as was within the bounds we had spoken of, which
+I believe he would not break, and asked him if he would not lodge there
+that night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He said he could not well stay that night, business requiring him in
+London, but added, smiling, that he would come the next day and take a
+night's lodging with me. I pressed him to stay that night, and told him
+I should be glad a friend so valuable should be under the same roof with
+me; and indeed I began at that time not only to be much obliged to him,
+but to love him too, and that in a manner that I had not been acquainted
+with myself.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! let no woman slight the temptation that being generously delivered
+from trouble is to any spirit furnished with gratitude and just
+principles. This gentleman had freely and voluntarily delivered me from
+misery, from poverty, and rags; he had made me what I was, and put me
+into a way to be even more than I ever was, namely, to live happy and
+pleased, and on his bounty I depended. What could I say to this
+gentleman when he pressed me to yield to him, and argued the lawfulness
+of it? But of that in its place.</p>
+
+<p>I pressed him again to stay that night, and told him it was the first
+completely happy night that I had ever had in the house in my life, and
+I should be very sorry to have it be without his company, who was the
+cause and foundation of it all; that we would be innocently merry, but
+that it could never be without him; and, in short, I courted him so,
+that he said he could not deny me, but he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> take his horse and go
+to London, do the business he had to do, which, it seems, was to pay a
+foreign bill that was due that night, and would else be protested, and
+that he would come back in three hours at farthest, and sup with me; but
+bade me get nothing there, for since I was resolved to be merry, which
+was what he desired above all things, he would send me something from
+London. "And we will make it a wedding supper, my dear," says he; and
+with that word took me in his arms, and kissed me so vehemently that I
+made no question but he intended to do everything else that Amy had
+talked of.</p>
+
+<p>I started a little at the word wedding. "What do ye mean, to call it by
+such a name?" says I; adding, "We will have a supper, but t' other is
+impossible, as well on your side as mine." He laughed. "Well," says he,
+"you shall call it what you will, but it may be the same thing, for I
+shall satisfy you it is not so impossible as you make it."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand you," said I. "Have not I a husband and you a wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," says he, "we will talk of that after supper;" so he rose
+up, gave me another kiss, and took his horse for London.</p>
+
+<p>This kind of discourse had fired my blood, I confess, and I knew not
+what to think of it. It was plain now that he intended to lie with me,
+but how he would reconcile it to a legal thing, like a mar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>riage, that I
+could not imagine. We had both of us used Amy with so much intimacy, and
+trusted her with everything, having such unexampled instances of her
+fidelity, that he made no scruple to kiss me and say all these things to
+me before her; nor had he cared one farthing, if I would have let him
+lie with me, to have had Amy there too all night. When he was gone,
+"Well, Amy," says I, "what will all this come to now? I am all in a
+sweat at him." "Come to, madam?" says Amy. "I see what it will come to;
+I must put you to bed to-night together." "Why, you would not be so
+impudent, you jade you," says I, "would you?" "Yes, I would," says she,
+"with all my heart, and think you both as honest as ever you were in
+your lives."</p>
+
+<p>"What ails the slut to talk so?" said I. "Honest! How can it be honest?"
+"Why, I'll tell you, madam," says Amy; "I sounded it as soon as I heard
+him speak, and it is very true too; he calls you widow, and such indeed
+you are; for, as my master has left you so many years, he is dead, to be
+sure; at least he is dead to you; he is no husband. You are, and ought
+to be, free to marry who you will; and his wife being gone from him, and
+refusing to lie with him, then he is a single man again as much as ever;
+and though you cannot bring the laws of the land to join you together,
+yet, one refusing to do the office of a wife, and the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> of a
+husband, you may certainly take one another fairly."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Amy," says I, "if I could take him fairly, you may be sure I'd
+take him above all the men in the world; it turned the very heart within
+me when I heard him say he loved me. How could it be otherwise, when you
+know what a condition I was in before, despised and trampled on by all
+the world? I could have took him in my arms and kissed him as freely as
+he did me, if it had not been for shame."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, and all the rest too," says Amy, "at the first word. I don't see
+how you can think of denying him anything. Has he not brought you out of
+the devil's clutches, brought you out of the blackest misery that ever
+poor lady was reduced to? Can a woman deny such a man anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I don't know what to do, Amy," says I. "I hope he won't desire
+anything of that kind of me; I hope he won't attempt it. If he does, I
+know not what to say to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not ask you!" says Amy. "Depend upon it, he will ask you, and you will
+grant it too. I am sure my mistress is no fool. Come, pray, madam, let
+me go air you a clean shift; don't let him find you in foul linen the
+wedding-night."</p>
+
+<p>"But that I know you to be a very honest girl, Amy," says I, "you would
+make me abhor you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> Why, you argue for the devil, as if you were one of
+his privy councillors."</p>
+
+<p>"It's no matter for that, madam, I say nothing but what I think. You own
+you love this gentleman, and he has given you sufficient testimony of
+his affection to you; your conditions are alike unhappy, and he is of
+opinion that he may take another woman, his first wife having broke her
+honour, and living from him; and that though the laws of the land will
+not allow him to marry formally, yet that he may take another woman into
+his arms, provided he keeps true to the other woman as a wife; nay, he
+says it is usual to do so, and allowed by the custom of the place, in
+several countries abroad. And, I must own, I am of the same mind; else
+it is in the power of a whore, after she has jilted and abandoned her
+husband, to confine him from the pleasure as well as convenience of a
+woman all the days of his life, which would be very unreasonable, and,
+as times go, not tolerable to all people; and the like on your side,
+madam."</p>
+
+<p>Had I now had my senses about me, and had my reason not been overcome by
+the powerful attraction of so kind, so beneficent a friend; had I
+consulted conscience and virtue, I should have repelled this Amy,
+however faithful and honest to me in other things, as a viper and engine
+of the devil. I ought to have remembered that neither he or I, either
+by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> the laws of God or man, could come together upon any other terms
+than that of notorious adultery. The ignorant jade's argument, that he
+had brought me out of the hands of the devil, by which she meant the
+devil of poverty and distress, should have been a powerful motive to me
+not to plunge myself into the jaws of hell, and into the power of the
+real devil, in recompense for that deliverance. I should have looked
+upon all the good this man had done for me to have been the particular
+work of the goodness of Heaven, and that goodness should have moved me
+to a return of duty and humble obedience. I should have received the
+mercy thankfully, and applied it soberly, to the praise and honour of my
+Maker; whereas, by this wicked course, all the bounty and kindness of
+this gentleman became a snare to me, was a mere bait to the devil's
+hook; I received his kindness at the dear expense of body and soul,
+mortgaging faith, religion, conscience, and modesty for (as I may call
+it) a morsel of bread; or, if you will, ruined my soul from a principle
+of gratitude, and gave myself up to the devil, to show myself grateful
+to my benefactor. I must do the gentleman that justice as to say I
+verily believe that he did nothing but what he thought was lawful; and I
+must do that justice upon myself as to say I did what my own conscience
+convinced me, at the very time I did it, was horribly unlawful,
+scandalous, and abominable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But poverty was my snare; dreadful poverty! The misery I had been in was
+great, such as would make the heart tremble at the apprehensions of its
+return; and I might appeal to any that has had any experience of the
+world, whether one so entirely destitute as I was of all manner of all
+helps or friends, either to support me or to assist me to support
+myself, could withstand the proposal; not that I plead this as a
+justification of my conduct, but that it may move the pity even of those
+that abhor the crime.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this, I was young, handsome, and, with all the mortifications I
+had met with, was vain, and that not a little; and, as it was a new
+thing, so it was a pleasant thing to be courted, caressed, embraced, and
+high professions of affection made to me, by a man so agreeable and so
+able to do me good.</p>
+
+<p>Add to this, that if I had ventured to disoblige this gentleman, I had
+no friend in the world to have recourse to; I had no prospect&mdash;no, not
+of a bit of bread; I had nothing before me but to fall back into the
+same misery that I had been in before.</p>
+
+<p>Amy had but too much rhetoric in this cause; she represented all those
+things in their proper colours; she argued them all with her utmost
+skill; and at last the merry jade, when she came to dress me, "Look ye,
+madam," said she, "if you won't consent, tell him you will do as Rachel
+did to Jacob,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> when she could have no children&mdash;put her maid to bed to
+him; tell him you cannot comply with him, but there's Amy, he may ask
+her the question; she has promised me she won't deny you."</p>
+
+<p>"And would you have me say so, Amy?" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"No, madam; but I would really have you do so. Besides, you are undone
+if you do not; and if my doing it would save you from being undone, as I
+said before, he shall, if he will; if he asks me, I won't deny him, not
+I; hang me if I do," says Amy.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I know not what to do," says I to Amy.</p>
+
+<p>"Do!" says Amy. "Your choice is fair and plain. Here you may have a
+handsome, charming gentleman, be rich, live pleasantly and in plenty, or
+refuse him, and want a dinner, go in rags, live in tears; in short, beg
+and starve. You know this is the case, madam," says Amy. "I wonder how
+you can say you know not what to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Amy," says I, "the case is as you say, and I think verily I must
+yield to him; but then," said I, moved by conscience, "don't talk any
+more of your cant of its being lawful that I ought to marry again, and
+that he ought to marry again, and such stuff as that; 'tis all
+nonsense," says I, "Amy, there's nothing in it; let me hear no more of
+that, for if I yield, 'tis in vain to mince the matter, I am a whore,
+Amy; neither better nor worse, I assure you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so, madam, by no means," says Amy. "I wonder how you can
+talk so;" and then she run on with her argument of the unreasonableness
+that a woman should be obliged to live single, or a man to live single,
+in such cases as before. "Well, Amy," said I, "come, let us dispute no
+more, for the longer I enter into that part, the greater my scruples
+will be; but if I let it alone, the necessity of my present
+circumstances is such that I believe I shall yield to him, if he should
+importune me much about it; but I should be glad he would not do it at
+all, but leave me as I am."</p>
+
+<p>"As to that, madam, you may depend," says Amy, "he expects to have you
+for his bedfellow to-night. I saw it plainly in his management all day;
+and at last he told you so too, as plain, I think, as he could." "Well,
+well, Amy," said I, "I don't know what to say; if he will he must, I
+think; I don't know how to resist such a man, that has done so much for
+me." "I don't know how you should," says Amy.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Amy and I canvassed the business between us; the jade prompted the
+crime which I had but too much inclination to commit, that is to say,
+not as a crime, for I had nothing of the vice in my constitution; my
+spirits were far from being high, my blood had no fire in it to kindle
+the flame of desire; but the kindness and good humour of the man and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+the dread of my own circumstances concurred to bring me to the point,
+and I even resolved, before he asked, to give up my virtue to him
+whenever he should put it to the question.</p>
+
+<p>In this I was a double offender, whatever he was, for I was resolved to
+commit the crime, knowing and owning it to be a crime; he, if it was
+true as he said, was fully persuaded it was lawful, and in that
+persuasion he took the measures and used all the circumlocutions which I
+am going to speak of.</p>
+
+<p>About two hours after he was gone, came a Leadenhall basket-woman, with
+a whole load of good things for the mouth (the particulars are not to
+the purpose), and brought orders to get supper by eight o'clock.
+However, I did not intend to begin to dress anything till I saw him; and
+he gave me time enough, for he came before seven, so that Amy, who had
+gotten one to help her, got everything ready in time.</p>
+
+<p>We sat down to supper about eight, and were indeed very merry. Amy made
+us some sport, for she was a girl of spirit and wit, and with her talk
+she made us laugh very often, and yet the jade managed her wit with all
+the good manners imaginable.</p>
+
+<p>But to shorten the story. After supper he took me up into his chamber,
+where Amy had made a good fire, and there he pulled out a great many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+papers, and spread them upon a little table, and then took me by the
+hand, and after kissing me very much, he entered into a discourse of his
+circumstances and of mine, how they agreed in several things exactly;
+for example, that I was abandoned of a husband in the prime of my youth
+and vigour, and he of a wife in his middle age; how the end of marriage
+was destroyed by the treatment we had either of us received, and it
+would be very hard that we should be tied by the formality of the
+contract where the essence of it was destroyed. I interrupted him, and
+told him there was a vast difference between our circumstances, and that
+in the most essential part, namely, that he was rich, and I was poor;
+that he was above the world, and I infinitely below it; that his
+circumstances were very easy, mine miserable, and this was an inequality
+the most essential that could be imagined. "As to that, my dear," says
+he, "I have taken such measures as shall make an equality still;" and
+with that he showed me a contract in writing, wherein he engaged himself
+to me to cohabit constantly with me, to provide for me in all respects
+as a wife, and repeating in the preamble a long account of the nature
+and reason of our living together, and an obligation in the penalty of
+&pound;7000 never to abandon me; and at last showed me a bond for &pound;500, to be
+paid to me, or to my assigns, within three months after his death.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He read over all these things to me, and then, in a most moving,
+affectionate manner, and in words not to be answered, he said, "Now, my
+dear, is this not sufficient? Can you object anything against it? If
+not, as I believe you will not, then let us debate this matter no
+longer." With that he pulled out a silk purse, which had threescore
+guineas in it, and threw them into my lap, and concluded all the rest of
+his discourse with kisses and protestations of his love, of which indeed
+I had abundant proof.</p>
+
+<p>Pity human frailty, you that read of a woman reduced in her youth and
+prime to the utmost misery and distress, and raised again, as above, by
+the unexpected and surprising bounty of a stranger; I say, pity her if
+she was not able, after all these things, to make any more resistance.</p>
+
+<p>However, I stood out a little longer still. I asked him how he could
+expect that I could come into a proposal of such consequence the very
+first time it was moved to me; and that I ought, if I consented to it,
+to capitulate with him that he should never upbraid me with easiness and
+consenting too soon. He said no; but, on the contrary, he would take it
+as a mark of the greatest kindness I could show him. Then he went on to
+give reasons why there was no occasion to use the ordinary ceremony of
+delay, or to wait a reasonable time of courtship, which was only to
+avoid scandal; but, as this was private, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> had nothing of that nature
+in it; that he had been courting me some time by the best of courtship,
+viz., doing acts of kindness to me; and that he had given testimonies of
+his sincere affection to me by deeds, not by flattering trifles and the
+usual courtship of words, which were often found to have very little
+meaning; that he took me, not as a mistress, but as his wife, and
+protested it was clear to him he might lawfully do it, and that I was
+perfectly at liberty, and assured me, by all that it was possible for an
+honest man to say, that he would treat me as his wife as long as he
+lived. In a word, he conquered all the little resistance I intended to
+make; he protested he loved me above all the world, and begged I would
+for once believe him; that he had never deceived me, and never would,
+but would make it his study to make my life comfortable and happy, and
+to make me forget the misery I had gone through. I stood still a while,
+and said nothing; but seeing him eager for my answer, I smiled, and
+looking up at him, "And must I, then," says I, "say yes at first asking?
+Must I depend upon your promise? Why, then," said I, "upon the faith of
+that promise, and in the sense of that inexpressible kindness you have
+shown me, you shall be obliged, and I will be wholly yours to the end of
+my life;" and with that I took his hand, which held me by the hand, and
+gave it a kiss.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And thus, in gratitude for the favours I received from a man, was all
+sense of religion and duty to God, all regard to virtue and honour,
+given up at once, and we were to call one another man and wife, who, in
+the sense of the laws both of God and our country, were no more than two
+adulterers; in short, a whore and a rogue. Nor, as I have said above,
+was my conscience silent in it, though it seems his was; for I sinned
+with open eyes, and thereby had a double guilt upon me. As I always
+said, his notions were of another kind, and he either was before of the
+opinion, or argued himself into it now, that we were both free and might
+lawfully marry.</p>
+
+<p>But I was quite of another side&mdash;nay, and my judgment was right, but my
+circumstances were my temptation; the terrors behind me looked blacker
+than the terrors before me; and the dreadful argument of wanting bread,
+and being run into the horrible distresses I was in before, mastered all
+my resolution, and I gave myself up as above.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the evening we spent very agreeably to me; he was perfectly
+good-humoured, and was at that time very merry. Then he made Amy dance
+with him, and I told him I would put Amy to bed to him. Amy said, with
+all her heart; she never had been a bride in her life. In short, he made
+the girl so merry that, had he not been to lie with me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> the same night,
+I believe he would have played the fool with Amy for half-an-hour, and
+the girl would no more have refused him than I intended to do. Yet
+before, I had always found her a very modest wench as any I ever saw in
+all my life; but, in short, the mirth of that night, and a few more such
+afterwards, ruined the girl's modesty for ever, as shall appear
+by-and-by, in its place.</p>
+
+<p>So far does fooling and toying sometimes go that I know nothing a young
+woman has to be more cautious of; so far had this innocent girl gone in
+jesting between her and I, and in talking that she would let him lie
+with her, if he would but be kinder to me, that at last she let him lie
+with her in earnest; and so empty was I now of all principle, that I
+encouraged the doing it almost before my face.</p>
+
+<p>I say but too justly that I was empty of principle, because, as above, I
+had yielded to him, not as deluded to believe it lawful, but as overcome
+by his kindness, and terrified at the fear of my own misery if he should
+leave me. So with my eyes open, and with my conscience, as I may say,
+awake, I sinned, knowing it to be a sin, but having no power to resist.
+When this had thus made a hole in my heart, and I was come to such a
+height as to transgress against the light of my own conscience, I was
+then fit for any wickedness, and conscience left off speaking where it
+found it could not be heard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But to return to our story. Having consented, as above, to his proposal,
+we had not much more to do. He gave me my writings, and the bond for my
+maintenance during his life, and for five hundred pounds after his
+death. And so far was he from abating his affection to me afterwards,
+that two years after we were thus, as he called it, married, he made his
+will, and gave me a thousand pounds more, and all my household stuff,
+plate, &amp;c., which was considerable too.</p>
+
+<p>Amy put us to bed, and my new friend&mdash;I cannot call him husband&mdash;was so
+well pleased with Amy for her fidelity and kindness to me that he paid
+her all the arrear of her wages that I owed her, and gave her five
+guineas over; and had it gone no farther, Amy had richly deserved what
+she had, for never was a maid so true to her mistress in such dreadful
+circumstances as I was in. Nor was what followed more her own fault than
+mine, who led her almost into it at first, and quite into it at last;
+and this may be a farther testimony what a hardness of crime I was now
+arrived to, which was owing to the conviction, that was from the
+beginning upon me, that I was a whore, not a wife; nor could I ever
+frame my mouth to call him husband or to say "my husband" when I was
+speaking of him.</p>
+
+<p>We lived, surely, the most agreeable life, the grand exception only
+excepted, that ever two lived together.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> He was the most obliging,
+gentlemanly man, and the most tender of me, that ever woman gave herself
+up to. Nor was there ever the least interruption to our mutual kindness,
+no, not to the last day of his life. But I must bring Amy's disaster in
+at once, that I may have done with her.</p>
+
+<p>Amy was dressing me one morning, for now I had two maids, and Amy was my
+chambermaid. "Dear madam," says Amy, "what! a'nt you with child yet?"
+"No, Amy," says I; "nor any sign of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Law, madam!" says Amy, "what have you been doing? Why, you have been
+married a year and a half. I warrant you master would have got me with
+child twice in that time." "It may be so, Amy," says I. "Let him try,
+can't you?" "No," says Amy; "you'll forbid it now. Before, I told you he
+should, with all my heart; but I won't now, now he's all your own."
+"Oh," says I, "Amy, I'll freely give you my consent. It will be nothing
+at all to me. Nay, I'll put you to bed to him myself one night or other,
+if you are willing." "No, madam, no," says Amy, "not now he's yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you fool you," says I, "don't I tell you I'll put you to bed to
+him myself?" "Nay, nay," says Amy, "if you put me to bed to him, that's
+another case; I believe I shall not rise again very soon." "I'll venture
+that, Amy," says I.</p>
+
+<p>After supper that night, and before we were risen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> from table, I said to
+him, Amy being by, "Hark ye, Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, do you know that you are to lie
+with Amy to-night?" "No, not I," says he; but turns to Amy, "Is it so,
+Amy?" says he. "No, sir," says she. "Nay, don't say no, you fool; did
+not I promise to put you to bed to him?" But the girl said "No," still,
+and it passed off.</p>
+
+<p>At night, when we came to go to bed, Amy came into the chamber to
+undress me, and her master slipped into bed first; then I began, and
+told him all that Amy had said about my not being with child, and of her
+being with child twice in that time. "Ay, Mrs. Amy," says he, "I believe
+so too. Come hither, and, we'll try." But Amy did not go. "Go, you
+fool," says I, "can't you? I freely give you both leave." But Amy would
+not go. "Nay, you whore," says I, "you said, if I would put you to bed,
+you would with all your heart." And with that I sat her down, pulled off
+her stockings and shoes, and all her clothes piece by piece, and led her
+to the bed to him. "Here," says I, "try what you can do with your maid
+Amy." She pulled back a little, would not let me pull off her clothes at
+first, but it was hot weather, and she had not many clothes on, and
+particularly no stays on; and at last, when she saw I was in earnest,
+she let me do what I would. So I fairly stripped her, and then I threw
+open the bed and thrust her in.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I need say no more. This is enough to convince anybody that I did not
+think him my husband, and that I had cast off all principle and all
+modesty, and had effectually stifled conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Amy, I dare say, began now to repent, and would fain have got out of bed
+again; but he said to her, "Nay, Amy, you see your mistress has put you
+to bed; 'tis all her doing; you must blame her." So he held her fast,
+and the wench being naked in the bed with him, it was too late to look
+back, so she lay still and let him do what he would with her.</p>
+
+<p>Had I looked upon myself as a wife, you cannot suppose I would have been
+willing to have let my husband lie with my maid, much less before my
+face, for I stood by all the while; but as I thought myself a whore, I
+cannot say but that it was something designed in my thoughts that my
+maid should be a whore too, and should not reproach me with it.</p>
+
+<p>Amy, however, less vicious than I, was grievously out of sorts the next
+morning, and cried and took on most vehemently, that she was ruined and
+undone, and there was no pacifying her; she was a whore, a slut, and she
+was undone! undone! and cried almost all day. I did all I could to
+pacify her. "A whore!" says I. "Well, and am not I a whore as well as
+you?" "No, no," says Amy; "no, you are not, for you are married." "Not
+I, Amy," says I; "I do not pretend to it. He may marry you to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>-morrow,
+if he will, for anything I could do to hinder it. I am not married. I do
+not look upon it as anything." Well, all did not pacify Amy, but she
+cried two or three days about it; but it wore off by degrees.</p>
+
+<p>But the case differed between Amy and her master exceedingly; for Amy
+retained the same kind temper she always had; but, on the contrary, he
+was quite altered, for he hated her heartily, and could, I believe, have
+killed her after it, and he told me so, for he thought this a vile
+action; whereas what he and I had done he was perfectly easy in, thought
+it just, and esteemed me as much his wife as if we had been married from
+our youth, and had neither of us known any other; nay, he loved me, I
+believe, as entirely as if I had been the wife of his youth. Nay, he
+told me it was true, in one sense, that he had two wives, but that I was
+the wife of his affection, the other the wife of his aversion.</p>
+
+<p>I was extremely concerned at the aversion he had taken to my maid Amy,
+and used my utmost skill to get it altered; for though he had, indeed,
+debauched the wench, I knew that I was the principal occasion of it; and
+as he was the best-humoured man in the world, I never gave him over till
+I prevailed with him to be easy with her, and as I was now become the
+devil's agent, to make others as wicked as myself, I brought him to lie
+with her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> again several times after that, till at last, as the poor girl
+said, so it happened, and she was really with child.</p>
+
+<p>She was terribly concerned at it, and so was he too. "Come, my dear,"
+says I, "when Rachel put her handmaid to bed to Jacob, she took the
+children as her own. Don't be uneasy; I'll take the child as my own. Had
+not I a hand in the frolic of putting her to bed to you? It was my fault
+as much as yours." So I called Amy, and encouraged her too, and told her
+that I would take care of the child and her too, and added the same
+argument to her. "For," says I, "Amy, it was all my fault. Did not I
+drag your clothes off your back, and put you to bed to him?" Thus I,
+that had, indeed, been the cause of all the wickedness between them,
+encouraged them both, when they had any remorse about it, and rather
+prompted them to go on with it than to repent it.</p>
+
+<p>When Amy grew big she went to a place I had provided for her, and the
+neighbours knew nothing but that Amy and I was parted. She had a fine
+child indeed, a daughter, and we had it nursed; and Amy came again in
+about half a year to live with her old mistress; but neither my
+gentleman, or Amy either, cared for playing that game over again; for,
+as he said, the jade might bring him a houseful of children to keep.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We lived as merrily and as happily after this as could be expected,
+considering our circumstances; I mean as to the pretended marriage, &amp;c.;
+and as to that, my gentleman had not the least concern about him for it.
+But as much as I was hardened, and that was as much as I believe ever
+any wicked creature was, yet I could not help it, there was and would be
+hours of intervals and of dark reflections which came involuntarily in,
+and thrust in sighs into the middle of all my songs; and there would be
+sometimes a heaviness of heart which intermingled itself with all my
+joy, and which would often fetch a tear from my eye. And let others
+pretend what they will, I believe it impossible to be otherwise with
+anybody. There can be no substantial satisfaction in a life of known
+wickedness; conscience will, and does often, break in upon them at
+particular times, let them do what they can to prevent it.</p>
+
+<p>But I am not to preach, but to relate; and whatever loose reflections
+were, and how often soever those dark intervals came on, I did my utmost
+to conceal them from him; ay, and to suppress and smother them too in
+myself; and, to outward appearance, we lived as cheerfully and agreeably
+as it was possible for any couple in the world to live.</p>
+
+<p>After I had thus lived with him something above two years, truly I found
+myself with child too. My gentleman was mightily pleased at it, and
+nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> could be kinder than he was in the preparations he made for me,
+and for my lying-in, which was, however, very private, because I cared
+for as little company as possible; nor had I kept up my neighbourly
+acquaintance, so that I had nobody to invite upon such an occasion.</p>
+
+<p>I was brought to bed very well (of a daughter too, as well as Amy), but
+the child died at about six weeks old, so all that work was to do over
+again&mdash;that is to say, the charge, the expense, the travail, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>The next year I made him amends, and brought him a son, to his great
+satisfaction. It was a charming child, and did very well. After this my
+husband, as he called himself, came to me one evening, and told me he
+had a very difficult thing happened to him, which he knew not what to do
+in, or how to resolve about, unless I would make him easy; this was,
+that his occasions required him to go over to France for about two
+months.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear," says I, "and how shall I make you easy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, by consenting to let me go," says he; "upon which condition, I'll
+tell you the occasion of my going, that you may judge of the necessity
+there is for it on my side." Then, to make me easy in his going, he told
+me he would make his will before he went, which should be to my full
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>I told him the last part was so kind that I could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> not decline the first
+part, unless he would give me leave to add that, if it was not for
+putting him to an extraordinary expense, I would go over along with him.</p>
+
+<p>He was so pleased with this offer that he told me he would give me full
+satisfaction for it, and accept of it too; so he took me to London with
+him the next day, and there he made his will, and showed it to me, and
+sealed it before proper witnesses, and then gave it to me to keep. In
+this will he gave a thousand pounds to a person that we both knew very
+well, in trust, to pay it, with the interest from the time of his
+decease, to me or my assigns; then he willed the payment of my jointure,
+as he called it, viz., his bond of five hundred pounds after his death;
+also, he gave me all my household stuff, plate, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>This was a most engaging thing for a man to do to one under my
+circumstances; and it would have been hard, as I told him, to deny him
+anything, or to refuse to go with him anywhere. So we settled everything
+as well as we could, left Amy in charge with the house, and for his
+other business, which was in jewels, he had two men he intrusted, who he
+had good security for, and who managed for him, and corresponded with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Things being thus concerted, we went away to France, arrived safe at
+Calais, and by easy journeys<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> came in eight days more to Paris, where we
+lodged in the house of an English merchant of his acquaintance, and was
+very courteously entertained.</p>
+
+<p>My gentleman's business was with some persons of the first rank, and to
+whom he had sold some jewels of very good value, and received a great
+sum of money in specie; and, as he told me privately, he gained three
+thousand pistoles by his bargain, but would not suffer the most intimate
+friend he had there to know what he had received; for it is not so safe
+a thing in Paris to have a great sum of money in keeping as it might be
+in London.</p>
+
+<p>We made this journey much longer than we intended, and my gentleman sent
+for one of his managers in London to come over to us in Paris with some
+diamonds, and sent him back to London again to fetch more. Then other
+business fell into his hands so unexpectedly that I began to think we
+should take up our constant residence there, which I was not very averse
+to, it being my native country, and I spoke the language perfectly well.
+So we took a good house in Paris, and lived very well there; and I sent
+for Amy to come over to me, for I lived gallantly, and my gentleman was
+two or three times going to keep me a coach, but I declined it,
+especially at Paris, but as they have those conveniences by the day
+there, at a certain rate, I had an equipage provided for me whenever I
+pleased, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> lived here in a very good figure, and might have lived
+higher if I pleased.</p>
+
+<p>But in the middle of all this felicity a dreadful disaster befell me,
+which entirely unhinged all my affairs, and threw me back into the same
+state of life that I was in before; with this one happy exception,
+however, that whereas before I was poor, even to misery, now I was not
+only provided for, but very rich.</p>
+
+<p>My gentleman had the name in Paris for a rich man, and indeed he was so,
+though not so immensely rich as people imagined; but that which was
+fatal to him was, that he generally carried a shagreen case in his
+pocket, especially when he went to court, or to the houses of any of the
+princes of the blood, in which he had jewels of very great value.</p>
+
+<p>It happened one day that, being to go to Versailles to wait upon the
+Prince of &mdash;&mdash;, he came up into my chamber in the morning, and laid out
+his jewel-case, because he was not going to show any jewels, but to get
+a foreign bill accepted, which he had received from Amsterdam; so, when
+he gave me the case, he said, "My dear, I think I need not carry this
+with me, because it may be I may not come back till night, and it is too
+much to venture." I returned, "Then, my dear, you shan't go." "Why?"
+says he. "Because, as they are too much for you, so you are too much for
+me to venture, and you shall not go,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> unless you will promise me not to
+stay so as to come back in the night."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope there's no danger," said he, "seeing that I have nothing about
+me of any value; and therefore, lest I should, take that too," says he,
+and gives me his gold watch and a rich diamond which he had in a ring,
+and always wore on his finger.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but, my dear," says I, "you make me more uneasy now than before;
+for if you apprehend no danger, why do you use this caution? and if you
+apprehend there is danger, why do you go at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no danger," says he, "if I do not stay late, and I do not
+design to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but promise me, then, that you won't," says I, "or else I cannot
+let you go."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't indeed, my dear," says he, "unless I am obliged to it. I assure
+you I do not intend it; but if I should, I am not worth robbing now, for
+I have nothing about me but about six pistoles in my little purse and
+that little ring," showing me a small diamond ring, worth about ten or
+twelve pistoles, which he put upon his finger, in the room of the rich
+one he usually wore.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/roxanavol1illo074.jpg" alt="" title="" />
+<span class="caption"><br />THE JEWELLER IS ABOUT TO LEAVE FOR VERSAILLES<br />
+
+And gives me his gold watch and a rich diamond which he had in a ring,
+and always wore on his finger</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>I still pressed him not to stay late, and he said he would not. "But if
+I am kept late," says he, "beyond my expectation, I'll stay all night,
+and come next morning." This seemed a very good caution; but still my
+mind was very uneasy about him, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> told him so, and entreated him
+not to go. I told him I did not know what might be the reason, but that
+I had a strange terror upon my mind about his going, and that if he did
+go, I was persuaded some harm would attend him. He smiled, and returned,
+"Well, my dear, if it should be so, you are now richly provided for; all
+that I have here I give to you." And with that he takes up the casket or
+case, "Here," says he, "hold your hand; there is a good estate for you
+in this case; if anything happens to me 'tis all your own. I give it
+you for yourself;" and with that he put the casket, the fine ring, and
+his gold watch all into my hands, and the key of his scrutoire besides,
+adding, "And in my scrutoire there is some money; it is all your own."</p>
+
+<p>I stared at him as if I was frighted, for I thought all his face looked
+like a death's-head; and then immediately I thought I perceived his head
+all bloody, and then his clothes looked bloody too, and immediately it
+all went off, and he looked as he really did. Immediately I fell
+a-crying, and hung about him. "My dear," said I, "I am frighted to
+death; you shall not go. Depend upon it some mischief will befall you."
+I did not tell him how my vapourish fancy had represented him to me;
+that, I thought, was not proper. Besides, he would only have laughed at
+me, and would have gone away with a jest about it; but I pressed him
+seriously not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> to go that day, or, if he did, to promise me to come home
+to Paris again by daylight. He looked a little graver then than he did
+before, told me he was not apprehensive of the least danger, but if
+there was, he would either take care to come in the day, or, as he had
+said before, would stay all night.</p>
+
+<p>But all these promises came to nothing, for he was set upon in the open
+day and robbed by three men on horseback, masked, as he went; and one of
+them, who, it seems, rifled him while the rest stood to stop the coach,
+stabbed him into the body with a sword, so that he died immediately. He
+had a footman behind the coach, who they knocked down with the stock or
+butt-end of a carbine. They were supposed to kill him because of the
+disappointment they met with in not getting his case or casket of
+diamonds, which they knew he carried about him; and this was supposed
+because, after they had killed him, they made the coachman drive out of
+the road a long way over the heath, till they came to a convenient
+place, where they pulled him out of the coach and searched his clothes
+more narrowly than they could do while he was alive. But they found
+nothing but his little ring, six pistoles, and the value of about seven
+livres in small moneys.</p>
+
+<p>This was a dreadful blow to me, though I cannot say I was so surprised
+as I should otherwise have been, for all the while he was gone my mind
+was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> oppressed with the weight of my own thoughts, and I was as sure
+that I should never see him any more that I think nothing could be like
+it. The impression was so strong that I think nothing could make so deep
+a wound that was imaginary; and I was so dejected and disconsolate that,
+when I received the news of his disaster, there was no room for any
+extraordinary alteration in me. I had cried all that day, ate nothing,
+and only waited, as I might say, to receive the dismal news, which I had
+brought to me about five o'clock in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>I was in a strange country, and, though I had a pretty many
+acquaintances, had but very few friends that I could consult on this
+occasion. All possible inquiry was made after the rogues that had been
+thus barbarous, but nothing could be heard of them; nor was it possible
+that the footman could make any discovery of them by his description,
+for they knocked him down immediately, so that he knew nothing of what
+was done afterwards. The coachman was the only man that could say
+anything, and all his account amounted to no more than this, that one of
+them had soldier's clothes, but he could not remember the particulars of
+his mounting, so as to know what regiment he belonged to; and as to
+their faces, that he could know nothing of, because they had all of them
+masks on.</p>
+
+<p>I had him buried as decently as the place would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> permit a Protestant
+stranger to be buried, and made some of the scruples and difficulties on
+that account easy by the help of money to a certain person, who went
+impudently to the curate of the parish of St. Sulpitius, in Paris, and
+told him that the gentleman that was killed was a Catholic; that the
+thieves had taken from him a cross of gold, set with diamonds, worth six
+thousand livres; that his widow was a Catholic, and had sent by him
+sixty crowns to the church of &mdash;&mdash;, for masses to be said for the repose
+of his soul. Upon all which, though not one word was true, he was buried
+with all the ceremonies of the Roman Church.</p>
+
+<p>I think I almost cried myself to death for him, for I abandoned myself
+to all the excesses of grief; and indeed I loved him to a degree
+inexpressible; and considering what kindness he had shown me at first,
+and how tenderly he had used me to the last, what could I do less?</p>
+
+<p>Then the manner of his death was terrible and frightful to me, and,
+above all, the strange notices I had of it. I had never pretended to the
+second-sight, or anything of that kind, but certainly, if any one ever
+had such a thing, I had it at this time, for I saw him as plainly in all
+those terrible shapes as above; first, as a skeleton, not dead only, but
+rotten and wasted; secondly, as killed, and his face bloody; and,
+thirdly, his clothes bloody, and all within the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> space of one minute, or
+indeed of a very few moments.</p>
+
+<p>These things amazed me, and I was a good while as one stupid. However,
+after some time I began to recover, and look into my affairs. I had the
+satisfaction not to be left in distress, or in danger of poverty. On the
+contrary, besides what he had put into my hands fairly in his lifetime,
+which amounted to a very considerable value, I found above seven hundred
+pistoles in gold in his scrutoire, of which he had given me the key; and
+I found foreign bills accepted for about twelve thousand livres; so
+that, in a word, I found myself possessed of almost ten thousand pounds
+sterling in a very few days after the disaster.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing I did upon this occasion was to send a letter to my
+maid, as I still called her, Amy, wherein I gave her an account of my
+disaster, how my husband, as she called him (for I never called him so),
+was murdered; and as I did not know how his relations, or his wife's
+friends might act upon that occasion, I ordered her to convey away all
+the plate, linen, and other things of value, and to secure them in a
+person's hands that I directed her to, and then to sell or dispose of
+the furniture of the house, if she could, and so, without acquainting
+anybody with the reason of her going, withdraw; sending notice to his
+head manager at London that the house was quitted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> by the tenant, and
+they might come and take possession of it for the executors. Amy was so
+dexterous, and did her work so nimbly, that she gutted the house, and
+sent the key to the said manager, almost as soon as he had notice of the
+misfortune that befell their master.</p>
+
+<p>Upon their receiving the surprising news of his death, the head manager
+came over to Paris, and came to the house. I made no scruple of calling
+myself Madame &mdash;&mdash;, the widow of Monsieur &mdash;&mdash;, the English jeweller.
+And as I spoke French naturally, I did not let him know but that I was
+his wife, married in France, and that I had not heard that he had any
+wife in England, but pretended to be surprised, and exclaim against him
+for so base an action; and that I had good friends in Poictou, where I
+was born, who would take care to have justice done me in England out of
+his estate.</p>
+
+<p>I should have observed that, as soon as the news was public of a man
+being murdered, and that he was a jeweller, fame did me the favour as to
+publish presently that he was robbed of his casket of jewels, which he
+always carried about him. I confirmed this, among my daily lamentations
+for his disaster, and added that he had with him a fine diamond ring,
+which he was known to wear frequently about him, valued at one hundred
+pistoles, a gold watch, and a great quantity of diamonds of inestimable
+value in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> his casket, which jewels he was carrying to the Prince of
+&mdash;&mdash;, to show some of them to him; and the prince owned that he had
+spoken to him to bring some such jewels, to let him see them. But I
+sorely repented this part afterward, as you shall hear.</p>
+
+<p>This rumour put an end to all inquiry after his jewels, his ring, or his
+watch; and as for the seven hundred pistoles, that I secured. For the
+bills which were in hand, I owned I had them, but that, as I said I
+brought my husband thirty thousand livres portion, I claimed the said
+bills, which came to not above twelve thousand livres, for my <i>amende</i>;
+and this, with the plate and the household stuff, was the principal of
+all his estate which they could come at. As to the foreign bill which he
+was going to Versailles to get accepted, it was really lost with him;
+but his manager, who had remitted the bill to him, by way of Amsterdam,
+bringing over the second bill, the money was saved, as they call it,
+which would otherwise have been also gone; the thieves who robbed and
+murdered him were, to be sure, afraid to send anybody to get the bill
+accepted, for that would undoubtedly have discovered them.</p>
+
+<p>By this time my maid Amy was arrived, and she gave me an account of her
+management, and how she had secured everything, and that she had quitted
+the house, and sent the key to the head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> manager of his business, and
+let me know how much she had made of everything very punctually and
+honestly.</p>
+
+<p>I should have observed, in the account of his dwelling with me so long
+at &mdash;&mdash;, that he never passed for anything there but a lodger in the
+house; and though he was landlord, that did not alter the case. So that
+at his death, Amy coming to quit the house and give them the key, there
+was no affinity between that and the case of their master who was newly
+killed.</p>
+
+<p>I got good advice at Paris from an eminent lawyer, a counsellor of the
+Parliament there, and laying my case before him, he directed me to make
+a process in dower upon the estate, for making good my new fortune upon
+matrimony, which accordingly I did; and, upon the whole, the manager
+went back to England well satisfied that he had gotten the unaccepted
+bill of exchange, which was for two thousand five hundred pounds, with
+some other things, which together amounted to seventeen thousand livres;
+and thus I got rid of him.</p>
+
+<p>I was visited with great civility on this sad occasion of the loss of my
+husband, as they thought him, by a great many ladies of quality. And the
+Prince of &mdash;&mdash;, to whom it was reported he was carrying the jewels, sent
+his gentleman with a very handsome compliment of condolence to me; and
+his gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>man, whether with or without order, hinted as if his Highness
+did intend to have visited me himself, but that some accident, which he
+made a long story of, had prevented him.</p>
+
+<p>By the concourse of ladies and others that thus came to visit me, I
+began to be much known; and as I did not forget to set myself out with
+all possible advantage, considering the dress of a widow, which in those
+days was a most frightful thing; I say, as I did thus from my own
+vanity, for I was not ignorant that I was very handsome; I say, on this
+account I was soon made very public, and was known by the name of <i>La
+belle veufeu de Poictou</i>, or the pretty widow of Poictou. As I was very
+well pleased to see myself thus handsomely used in my affliction, it
+soon dried up all my tears; and though I appeared as a widow, yet, as we
+say in England, it was of a widow comforted. I took care to let the
+ladies see that I knew how to receive them; that I was not at a loss how
+to behave to any of them; and, in short, I began to be very popular
+there. But I had an occasion afterwards which made me decline that kind
+of management, as you shall hear presently.</p>
+
+<p>About four days after I had received the compliments of condolence from
+the Prince &mdash;&mdash;, the same gentleman he had sent before came to tell me
+that his Highness was coming to give me a visit. I was indeed surprised
+at that, and perfectly at a loss how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> to behave. However, as there was
+no remedy, I prepared to receive him as well as I could. It was not many
+minutes after but he was at the door, and came in, introduced by his own
+gentleman, as above, and after by my woman Amy.</p>
+
+<p>He treated me with abundance of civility, and condoled handsomely on the
+loss of my husband, and likewise the manner of it. He told me he
+understood he was coming to Versailles to himself, to show him some
+jewels; that it was true that he had discoursed with him about jewels,
+but could not imagine how any villains should hear of his coming at that
+time with them; that he had not ordered him to attend with them at
+Versailles, but told him that he would come to Paris by such a day, so
+that he was no way accessory to the disaster. I told him gravely I knew
+very well that all his Highness had said of that part was true; that
+these villains knew his profession, and knew, no doubt, that he always
+carried a casket of jewels about him, and that he always wore a diamond
+ring on his finger worth a hundred pistoles, which report had magnified
+to five hundred; and that, if he had been going to any other place, it
+would have been the same thing. After this his Highness rose up to go,
+and told me he had resolved, however, to make me some reparation; and
+with these words put a silk purse into my hand with a hundred pistoles,
+and told me he would make me a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> farther compliment of a small pension,
+which his gentleman would inform me of.</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure I behaved with a due sense of so much goodness, and
+offered to kneel to kiss his hand; but he took me up and saluted me, and
+sat down again (though before he made as if he was going away), making
+me sit down by him.</p>
+
+<p>He then began to talk with me more familiarly; told me he hoped I was
+not left in bad circumstances; that Mr. &mdash;&mdash; was reputed to be very rich,
+and that he had gained lately great sums by some jewels, and he hoped,
+he said, that I had still a fortune agreeable to the condition I had
+lived in before.</p>
+
+<p>I replied, with some tears, which, I confess, were a little forced, that
+I believed, if Mr. &mdash;&mdash; had lived, we should have been out of danger of
+want, but that it was impossible to estimate the loss which I had
+sustained, besides that of the life of my husband; that, by the opinion
+of those that knew something of his affairs, and of what value the
+jewels were which he intended to have shown to his Highness, he could
+not have less about him than the value of a hundred thousand livres;
+that it was a fatal blow to me, and to his whole family, especially that
+they should be lost in such a manner.</p>
+
+<p>His Highness returned, with an air of concern, that he was very sorry
+for it; but he hoped, if I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> settled in Paris, I might find ways to
+restore my fortune; at the same time he complimented me upon my being
+very handsome, as he was pleased to call it, and that I could not fail
+of admirers. I stood up and humbly thanked his Highness, but told him I
+had no expectations of that kind; that I thought I should be obliged to
+go over to England, to look after my husband's effects there, which, I
+was told, were considerable, but that I did not know what justice a poor
+stranger would get among them; and as for Paris, my fortune being so
+impaired, I saw nothing before me but to go back to Poictou to my
+friends, where some of my relations, I hoped, might do something for me,
+and added that one of my brothers was an abbot at &mdash;&mdash;, near Poictiers.</p>
+
+<p>He stood up, and taking me by the hand, led me to a large looking-glass,
+which made up the pier in the front of the parlour. "Look there, madam,"
+said he; "is it fit that that face" (pointing to my figure in the glass)
+"should go back to Poictou? No, madam," says he; "stay and make some
+gentleman of quality happy, that may, in return, make you forget all
+your sorrows;" and with that he took me in his arms, and kissing me
+twice, told me he would see me again, but with less ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>Some little time after this, but the same day, his gentleman came to me
+again, and with great ceremony and respect, delivered me a black box
+tied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> with a scarlet riband and sealed with a noble coat-of-arms, which,
+I suppose, was the prince's.</p>
+
+<p>There was in it a grant from his Highness, or an assignment&mdash;I know not
+which to call it&mdash;with a warrant to his banker to pay me two thousand
+livres a year during my stay in Paris, as the widow of Monsieur &mdash;&mdash;,
+the jeweller, mentioning the horrid murder of my late husband as the
+occasion of it, as above.</p>
+
+<p>I received it with great submission, and expressions of being infinitely
+obliged to his master, and of my showing myself on all occasions his
+Highness's most obedient servant; and after giving my most humble duty
+to his Highness, with the utmost acknowledgments of the obligation, &amp;c.,
+I went to a little cabinet, and taking out some money, which made a
+little sound in taking it out, offered to give him five pistoles.</p>
+
+<p>He drew back, but with the greatest respect, and told me he humbly
+thanked me, but that he durst not take a farthing; that his Highness
+would take it so ill of him, he was sure he would never see his face
+more; but that he would not fail to acquaint his Highness what respect I
+had offered; and added, "I assure you, madam, you are more in the good
+graces of my master, the Prince of &mdash;&mdash;, than you are aware of; and I
+believe you will hear more of him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Now I began to understand him, and resolved, if his Highness did come
+again, he should see me under no disadvantages, if I could help it. I
+told him, if his Highness did me the honour to see me again, I hoped he
+would not let me be so surprised as I was before; that I would be glad
+to have some little notice of it, and would be obliged to him if he
+would procure it me. He told me he was very sure that when his Highness
+intended to visit me he should be sent before to give me notice of it,
+and that he would give me as much warning of it as possible.</p>
+
+<p>He came several times after this on the same errand, that is, about the
+settlement, the grant requiring several things yet to be done for making
+it payable without going every time to the prince again for a fresh
+warrant. The particulars of this part I did not understand; but as soon
+as it was finished, which was above two months, the gentleman came one
+afternoon, and said his Highness designed to visit me in the evening,
+but desired to be admitted without ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>I prepared not my rooms only, but myself; and when he came in there was
+nobody appeared in the house but his gentleman and my maid Amy; and of
+her I bid the gentleman acquaint his Highness that she was an
+Englishwoman, that she did not understand a word of French, and that she
+was one also that might be trusted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When he came into my room, I fell down at his feet before he could come
+to salute me, and with words that I had prepared, full of duty and
+respect, thanked him for his bounty and goodness to a poor, desolate
+woman, oppressed under the weight of so terrible a disaster; and refused
+to rise till he would allow me the honour to kiss his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Levez vous donc</i>," says the prince, taking me in his arms; "I design
+more favours for you than this trifle;" and going on, he added, "You
+shall for the future find a friend where you did not look for it, and I
+resolve to let you see how kind I can be to one who is to me the most
+agreeable creature on earth."</p>
+
+<p>I was dressed in a kind of half mourning, had turned off my weeds, and
+my head, though I had yet no ribands or lace, was so dressed as failed
+not to set me out with advantage enough, for I began to understand his
+meaning; and the prince professed I was the most beautiful creature on
+earth. "And where have I lived," says he, "and how ill have I been
+served, that I should never till now be showed the finest woman in
+France!"</p>
+
+<p>This was the way in all the world the most likely to break in upon my
+virtue, if I had been mistress of any; for I was now become the vainest
+creature upon earth, and particularly of my beauty, which as other
+people admired, so I became every day more foolishly in love with myself
+than before.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He said some very kind things to me after this, and sat down with me for
+an hour or more, when, getting up and calling his gentleman by his name,
+he threw open the door: "<i>Au boire</i>," says he; upon which his gentleman
+immediately brought up a little table covered with a fine damask cloth,
+the table no bigger than he could bring in his two hands, but upon it
+was set two decanters, one of champagne and the other of water, six
+silver plates, and a service of fine sweetmeats in fine china dishes, on
+a set of rings standing up about twenty inches high, one above another.
+Below was three roasted partridges and a quail. As soon as his gentleman
+had set it all down, he ordered him to withdraw. "Now," says the prince,
+"I intend to sup with you."</p>
+
+<p>When he sent away his gentleman, I stood up and offered to wait on his
+Highness while he ate; but he positively refused, and told me, "No;
+to-morrow you shall be the widow of Monsieur &mdash;&mdash;, the jeweller, but
+to-night you shall be my mistress; therefore sit here," says he, "and
+eat with me, or I will get up and serve."</p>
+
+<p>I would then have called up my woman Amy, but I thought that would not
+be proper neither; so I made my excuse, that since his Highness would
+not let his own servant wait, I would not presume to let my woman come
+up; but if he would please to let me wait, it would be my honour to fill
+his Highness's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> wine. But, as before, he would by no means allow me;
+so we sat and ate together.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/roxanavol1illo090.jpg" alt="" title="" />
+<span class="caption"><br />THE VISIT OF THE PRINCE<br />
+
+And refused to rise till he would allow me the honour to kiss his
+hand</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Now, madam," says the prince, "give me leave to lay aside my character;
+let us talk together with the freedom of equals. My quality sets me at a
+distance from you, and makes you ceremonious. Your beauty exalts you to
+more than an equality. I must, then, treat you as lovers do their
+mistresses, but I cannot speak the language; it is enough to tell you
+how agreeable you are to me, how I am surprised at your beauty, and
+resolve to make you happy, and to be happy with you."</p>
+
+<p>I knew not what to say to him a good while, but blushed, and looking up
+towards him, said I was already made happy in the favour of a person of
+such rank, and had nothing to ask of his Highness but that he would
+believe me infinitely obliged.</p>
+
+<p>After he had eaten, he poured the sweetmeats into my lap; and the wine
+being out, he called his gentleman again to take away the table, who, at
+first, only took the cloth and the remains of what was to eat away; and,
+laying another cloth, set the table on one side of the room with a noble
+service of plate upon it, worth at least two hundred pistoles. Then,
+having set the two decanters again upon the table, filled as before, he
+withdrew; for I found the fellow understood his business very well, and
+his lord's business too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>About half-an-hour after, the prince told me that I offered to wait a
+little before, that if I would now take the trouble he would give me
+leave to give him some wine; so I went to the table, filled a glass of
+wine, and brought it to him on a fine salver, which the glasses stood
+on, and brought the bottle or decanter for water in my other hand, to
+mix as he thought fit.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled, and bid me look on that salver, which I did, and admired it
+much, for it was a very fine one indeed. "You may see," says he, "I
+resolve to have more of your company, for my servant shall leave you
+that plate for my use." I told him I believed his Highness would not
+take it ill that I was not furnished fit to entertain a person of his
+rank, and that I would take great care of it, and value myself
+infinitely upon the honour of his Highness's visit.</p>
+
+<p>It now began to grow late, and he began to take notice of it. "But,"
+says he, "I cannot leave you; have you not a spare lodging for one
+night?" I told him I had but a homely lodging to entertain such a guest.
+He said something exceeding kind on that head, but not fit to repeat,
+adding that my company would make him amends.</p>
+
+<p>About midnight he sent his gentleman of an errand, after telling him
+aloud that he intended to stay here all night. In a little time his
+gentleman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> brought him a nightgown, slippers, two caps, a neckcloth, and
+shirt, which he gave me to carry into his chamber, and sent his man
+home; and then, turning to me, said I should do him the honour to be his
+chamberlain of the household, and his dresser also. I smiled, and told
+him I would do myself the honour to wait on him upon all occasions.</p>
+
+<p>About one in the morning, while his gentleman was yet with him, I begged
+leave to withdraw, supposing he would go to bed; but he took the hint,
+and said, "I'm not going to bed yet; pray let me see you again."</p>
+
+<p>I took this time to undress me, and to come in a new dress, which was,
+in a manner, <i>une dishabille</i>, but so fine, and all about me so clean
+and so agreeable, that he seemed surprised. "I thought," says he, "you
+could not have dressed to more advantage than you had done before; but
+now," says he, "you charm me a thousand times more, if that be
+possible."</p>
+
+<p>"It is only a loose habit, my lord," said I, "that I may the better wait
+on your Highness." He pulls me to him. "You are perfectly obliging,"
+says he; and, sitting on the bedside, says he, "Now you shall be a
+princess, and know what it is to oblige the gratefullest man alive;" and
+with that he took me in his arms.... I can go no farther in the
+particulars of what passed at that time, but it ended in this, that, in
+short, I lay with him all night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have given you the whole detail of this story to lay it down as a
+black scheme of the way how unhappy women are ruined by great men; for,
+though poverty and want is an irresistible temptation to the poor,
+vanity and great things are as irresistible to others. To be courted by
+a prince, and by a prince who was first a benefactor, then an admirer;
+to be called handsome, the finest woman in France, and to be treated as
+a woman fit for the bed of a prince&mdash;these are things a woman must have
+no vanity in her, nay, no corruption in her, that is not overcome by it;
+and my case was such that, as before, I had enough of both.</p>
+
+<p>I had now no poverty attending me; on the contrary, I was mistress of
+ten thousand pounds before the prince did anything for me. Had I been
+mistress of my resolution, had I been less obliging, and rejected the
+first attack, all had been safe; but my virtue was lost before, and the
+devil, who had found the way to break in upon me by one temptation,
+easily mastered me now by another; and I gave myself up to a person who,
+though a man of high dignity, was yet the most tempting and obliging
+that ever I met with in my life.</p>
+
+<p>I had the same particular to insist upon here with the prince that I had
+with my gentleman before. I hesitated much at consenting at first
+asking, but the prince told me princes did not court like other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> men;
+that they brought more powerful arguments; and he very prettily added
+that they were sooner repulsed than other men, and ought to be sooner
+complied with; intimating, though very genteely, that after a woman had
+positively refused him once, he could not, like other men, wait with
+importunities and stratagems, and laying long sieges; but as such men as
+he stormed warmly, so, if repulsed, they made no second attacks; and,
+indeed, it was but reasonable; for as it was below their rank to be long
+battering a woman's constancy, so they ran greater hazards in being
+exposed in their amours than other men did.</p>
+
+<p>I took this for a satisfactory answer, and told his Highness that I had
+the same thoughts in respect to the manner of his attacks; for that his
+person and his arguments were irresistible; that a person of his rank
+and a munificence so unbounded could not be withstood; that no virtue
+was proof against him, except such as was able, too, to suffer
+martyrdom; that I thought it impossible I could be overcome, but that
+now I found it was impossible I should not be overcome; that so much
+goodness, joined with so much greatness, would have conquered a saint;
+and that I confessed he had the victory over me, by a merit infinitely
+superior to the conquest he had made.</p>
+
+<p>He made me a most obliging answer; told me abundance of fine things,
+which still flattered my vanity, till at last I began to have pride
+enough to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> believe him, and fancied myself a fit mistress for a prince.</p>
+
+<p>As I had thus given the prince the last favour, and he had all the
+freedom with me that it was possible for me to grant, so he gave me
+leave to use as much freedom with him another way, and that was to have
+everything of him I thought fit to command; and yet I did not ask of him
+with an air of avarice, as if I was greedily making a penny of him, but
+I managed him with such art that he generally anticipated my demands. He
+only requested of me that I would not think of taking another house, as
+I had intimated to his Highness that I intended, not thinking it good
+enough to receive his visits in; but he said my house was the most
+convenient that could possibly be found in all Paris for an amour,
+especially for him, having a way out into three streets, and not
+overlooked by any neighbours, so that he could pass and repass without
+observation; for one of the back-ways opened into a narrow dark alley,
+which alley was a thoroughfare or passage out of one street into
+another; and any person that went in or out by the door had no more to
+do but to see that there was nobody following him in the alley before he
+went in at the door. This request, I knew, was reasonable, and therefore
+I assured him I would not change my dwelling, seeing his Highness did
+not think it too mean for me to receive him in.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He also desired me that I would not take any more servants or set up any
+equipage, at least for the present; for that it would then be
+immediately concluded I had been left very rich, and then I should be
+thronged with the impertinence of admirers, who would be attracted by
+the money, as well as by the beauty of a young widow, and he should be
+frequently interrupted in his visits; or that the world would conclude I
+was maintained by somebody, and would be indefatigable to find out the
+person; so that he should have spies peeping at him every time he went
+out or in, which it would be impossible to disappoint; and that he
+should presently have it talked over all the toilets in Paris that the
+Prince de &mdash;&mdash; had got the jeweller's widow for a mistress.</p>
+
+<p>This was too just to oppose, and I made no scruple to tell his Highness
+that, since he had stooped so low as to make me his own, he ought to
+have all the satisfaction in the world that I was all his own; that I
+would take all the measures he should please to direct me to avoid the
+impertinent attacks of others; and that, if he thought fit, I would be
+wholly within doors, and have it given out that I was obliged to go to
+England to solicit my affairs there, after my husband's misfortune, and
+that I was not expected there again for at least a year or two. This he
+liked very well; only he said that he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> by no means have me
+confined; that it would injure my health, and that I should then take a
+country-house in some village, a good way off of the city, where it
+should not be known who I was, and that he should be there sometimes to
+divert me.</p>
+
+<p>I made no scruple of the confinement, and told his Highness no place
+could be a confinement where I had such a visitor, and so I put off the
+country-house, which would have been to remove myself farther from him
+and have less of his company; so I made the house be, as it were, shut
+up. Amy, indeed, appeared, and when any of the neighbours and servants
+inquired, she answered, in broken French, that I was gone to England to
+look after my affairs, which presently went current through the streets
+about us. For you are to note that the people of Paris, especially the
+women, are the most busy and impertinent inquirers into the conduct of
+their neighbours, especially that of a single woman, that are in the
+world, though there are no greater intriguers in the universe than
+themselves; and perhaps that may be the reason of it, for it is an old
+but a sure rule, that</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">"When deep intrigues are close and shy,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The guilty are the first that spy."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Thus his Highness had the most easy, and yet the most undiscoverable,
+access to me imaginable, and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> seldom failed to come two or three
+nights in a week, and sometimes stayed two or three nights together.
+Once he told me he was resolved I should be weary of his company, and
+that he would learn to know what it was to be a prisoner; so he gave out
+among his servants that he was gone to &mdash;&mdash;, where he often went
+a-hunting, and that he should not return under a fortnight; and that
+fortnight he stayed wholly with me, and never went out of my doors.</p>
+
+<p>Never woman in such a station lived a fortnight in so complete a fulness
+of human delight; for to have the entire possession of one of the most
+accomplished princes in the world, and of the politest, best-bred man;
+to converse with him all day, and, as he professed, charm him all night,
+what could be more inexpressibly pleasing, and especially to a woman of
+a vast deal of pride, as I was?</p>
+
+<p>To finish the felicity of this part, I must not forget that the devil
+had played a new game with me, and prevailed with me to satisfy myself
+with this amour, as a lawful thing; that a prince of such grandeur and
+majesty, so infinitely superior to me, and one who had made such an
+introduction by an unparalleled bounty, I could not resist; and,
+therefore, that it was very lawful for me to do it, being at that time
+perfectly single, and unengaged to any other man, as I was, most
+certainly, by the unac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>countable absence of my first husband, and the
+murder of my gentleman who went for my second.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be doubted but that I was the easier to persuade myself of the
+truth of such a doctrine as this when it was so much for my ease and for
+the repose of my mind to have it be so:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">"In things we wish, 'tis easy to deceive;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">What we would have, we willingly believe."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Besides, I had no casuists to resolve this doubt; the same devil that
+put this into my head bade me go to any of the Romish clergy, and, under
+the pretence of confession, state the case exactly, and I should see
+they would either resolve it to be no sin at all or absolve me upon the
+easiest penance. This I had a strong inclination to try, but I know not
+what scruple put me off of it, for I could never bring myself to like
+having to do with those priests. And though it was strange that I, who
+had thus prostituted my chastity and given up all sense of virtue in two
+such particular cases, living a life of open adultery, should scruple
+anything, yet so it was. I argued with myself that I could not be a
+cheat in anything that was esteemed sacred; that I could not be of one
+opinion, and then pretend myself to be of another; nor could I go to
+confession, who knew nothing of the manner of it, and should betray
+myself to the priest to be a Huguenot, and then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> might come into
+trouble; but, in short, though I was a whore, yet I was a Protestant
+whore, and could not act as if I was popish, upon any account
+whatsoever.</p>
+
+<p>But, I say, I satisfied myself with the surprising occasion, that as it
+was all irresistible, so it was all lawful; for that Heaven would not
+suffer us to be punished for that which it was not possible for us to
+avoid; and with these absurdities I kept conscience from giving me any
+considerable disturbance in all this matter; and I was as perfectly easy
+as to the lawfulness of it as if I had been married to the prince and
+had had no other husband; so possible is it for us to roll ourselves up
+in wickedness, till we grow invulnerable by conscience; and that
+sentinel, once dozed, sleeps fast, not to be awakened while the tide of
+pleasure continues to flow, or till something dark and dreadful brings
+us to ourselves again.</p>
+
+<p>I have, I confess, wondered at the stupidity that my intellectual part
+was under all that while; what lethargic fumes dozed the soul; and how
+was it possible that I, who in the case before, where the temptation was
+many ways more forcible and the arguments stronger and more
+irresistible, was yet under a continued inquietude on account of the
+wicked life I led, could now live in the most profound tranquillity and
+with an uninterrupted peace, nay, even rising up to satisfaction and
+joy, and yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> in a more palpable state of adultery than before; for
+before, my gentleman, who called me wife, had the pretence of his wife
+being parted from him, refusing to do the duty of her office as a wife
+to him. As for me, my circumstances were the same; but as for the
+prince, as he had a fine and extraordinary lady, or princess, of his
+own, so he had had two or three mistresses more besides me, and made no
+scruple of it at all.</p>
+
+<p>However, I say, as to my own part, I enjoyed myself in perfect
+tranquillity; and as the prince was the only deity I worshipped, so I
+was really his idol; and however it was with his princess, I assure you
+his other mistresses found a sensible difference, and though they could
+never find me out, yet I had good intelligence that they guessed very
+well that their lord had got some new favourite that robbed them of his
+company, and, perhaps, of some of his usual bounty too. And now I must
+mention the sacrifices he made to his idol, and they were not a few, I
+assure you.</p>
+
+<p>As he loved like a prince, so he rewarded like a prince; for though he
+declined my making a figure, as above, he let me see that he was above
+doing it for the saving the expense of it, and so he told me, and that
+he would make it up in other things. First of all, he sent me a toilet,
+with all the appurtenances of silver, even so much as the frame of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+table; and then for the house, he gave me the table, or sideboard of
+plate, I mentioned above, with all things belonging to it of massy
+silver; so that, in short, I could not for my life study to ask him for
+anything of plate which I had not.</p>
+
+<p>He could, then, accommodate me in nothing more but jewels and clothes,
+or money for clothes. He sent his gentleman to the mercer's, and bought
+me a suit, or whole piece, of the finest brocaded silk, figured with
+gold, and another with silver, and another of crimson; so that I had
+three suits of clothes, such as the Queen of France would not have
+disdained to have worn at that time. Yet I went out nowhere; but as
+those were for me to put on when I went out of mourning, I dressed
+myself in them, one after another, always when his Highness came to see
+me.</p>
+
+<p>I had no less than five several morning dresses besides these, so that I
+need never be seen twice in the same dress; to these he added several
+parcels of fine linen and of lace, so much that I had no room to ask for
+more, or, indeed, for so much.</p>
+
+<p>I took the liberty once, in our freedoms, to tell him he was too
+bountiful, and that I was too chargeable to him for a mistress, and that
+I would be his faithful servant at less expense to him; and that he not
+only left me no room to ask him for anything, but that he supplied me
+with such a profusion of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> good things that I could scarce wear them, or
+use them, unless I kept a great equipage, which, he knew, was no way
+convenient for him or for me. He smiled, and took me in his arms, and
+told me he was resolved, while I was his, I should never be able to ask
+him for anything, but that he would be daily asking new favours of me.</p>
+
+<p>After we were up (for this conference was in bed), he desired I would
+dress me in the best suit of clothes I had. It was a day or two after
+the three suits were made and brought home. I told him, if he pleased, I
+would rather dress me in that suit which I knew he liked best. He asked
+me how I could know which he would like best before he had seen them. I
+told him I would presume for once to guess at his fancy by my own; so I
+went away and dressed me in the second suit, brocaded with silver, and
+returned in full dress, with a suit of lace upon my head, which would
+have been worth in England two hundred pounds sterling; and I was every
+way set out as well as Amy could dress me, who was a very genteel
+dresser too. In this figure I came to him, out of my dressing-room,
+which opened with folding-doors into his bedchamber.</p>
+
+<p>He sat as one astonished a good while, looking at me, without speaking a
+word, till I came quite up to him, kneeled on one knee to him, and
+almost, whether he would or no, kissed his hand. He took me up,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> and
+stood up himself, but was surprised when, taking me in his arms, he
+perceived tears to run down my cheeks. "My dear," says he aloud, "what
+mean these tears?" "My lord," said I, after some little check, for I
+could not speak presently, "I beseech you to believe me, they are not
+tears of sorrow, but tears of joy. It is impossible for me to see myself
+snatched from the misery I was fallen into, and at once to be in the
+arms of a prince of such goodness, such immense bounty, and be treated
+in such a manner; it is not possible, my lord," said I, "to contain the
+satisfaction of it; and it will break out in an excess in some measure
+proportioned to your immense bounty, and to the affection which your
+Highness treats me with, who am so infinitely below you."</p>
+
+<p>It would look a little too much like a romance here to repeat all the
+kind things he said to me on that occasion, but I can't omit one
+passage. As he saw the tears drop down my cheek, he pulls out a fine
+cambric handkerchief, and was going to wipe the tears off, but checked
+his hand, as if he was afraid to deface something; I say, he checked his
+hand, and tossed the handkerchief to me to do it myself. I took the hint
+immediately, and with a kind of pleasant disdain, "How, my lord," said
+I, "have you kissed me so often, and don't you know whether I am painted
+or not? Pray let your Highness satisfy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> yourself that you have no cheats
+put upon you; for once let me be vain enough to say I have not deceived
+you with false colours." With this I put a handkerchief into his hand,
+and taking his hand into mine, I made him wipe my face so hard that he
+was unwilling to do it, for fear of hurting me.</p>
+
+<p>He appeared surprised more than ever, and swore, which was the first
+time that I had heard him swear from my first knowing him, that he could
+not have believed there was any such skin without paint in the world.
+"Well, my lord," said I, "your Highness shall have a further
+demonstration than this, as to that which you are pleased to accept for
+beauty, that it is the mere work of nature;" and with that I stepped to
+the door and rung a little bell for my woman Amy, and bade her bring me
+a cup full of hot water, which she did; and when it was come, I desired
+his Highness to feel if it was warm, which he did, and I immediately
+washed my face all over with it before him. This was, indeed, more than
+satisfaction, that is to say, than believing, for it was an undeniable
+demonstration, and he kissed my cheeks and breasts a thousand times,
+with expressions of the greatest surprise imaginable.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was I a very indifferent figure as to shape; though I had had two
+children by my gentleman, and six by my true husband, I say I was no
+despisable shape; and my prince (I must be allowed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> vanity to call
+him so) was taking his view of me as I walked from one end of the room
+to the other. At last he leads me to the darkest part of the room, and
+standing behind me, bade me hold up my head, when, putting both his
+hands round my neck, as if he was spanning my neck to see how small it
+was, for it was long and small, he held my neck so long and so hard in
+his hand that I complained he hurt me a little. What he did it for I
+knew not, nor had I the least suspicion but that he was spanning my
+neck; but when I said he hurt me, he seemed to let go, and in half a
+minute more led me to a pier-glass, and behold I saw my neck clasped
+with a fine necklace of diamonds; whereas I felt no more what he was
+doing than if he had really done nothing at all, nor did I suspect it in
+the least. If I had an ounce of blood in me that did not fly up into my
+face, neck, and breasts, it must be from some interruption in the
+vessels. I was all on fire with the sight, and began to wonder what it
+was that was coming to me.</p>
+
+<p>However, to let him see that I was not unqualified to receive benefits,
+I turned about: "My lord," says I, "your Highness is resolved to
+conquer, by your bounty, the very gratitude of your servants; you will
+leave no room for anything but thanks, and make those thanks useless
+too, by their bearing no proportion to the occasion."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I love, child," says he, "to see everything suitable. A fine gown and
+petticoat, a fine laced head, a fine face and neck, and no necklace,
+would not have made the object perfect. But why that blush, my dear?"
+says the prince. "My lord," said I, "all your gifts call for blushes,
+but, above all, I blush to receive what I am so ill able to merit, and
+may become so ill also."</p>
+
+<p>Thus far I am a standing mark of the weakness of great men in their
+vice, that value not squandering away immense wealth upon the most
+worthless creatures; or, to sum it up in a word, they raise the value of
+the object which they pretend to pitch upon by their fancy; I say, raise
+the value of it at their own expense; give vast presents for a ruinous
+favour, which is so far from being equal to the price that nothing will
+at last prove more absurd than the cost men are at to purchase their own
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p>I could not, in the height of all this fine doings&mdash;I say, I could not
+be without some just reflection, though conscience was, as I said, dumb,
+as to any disturbance it gave me in my wickedness. My vanity was fed up
+to such a height that I had no room to give way to such reflections. But
+I could not but sometimes look back with astonishment at the folly of
+men of quality, who, immense in their bounty as in their wealth, give to
+a profusion and without bounds to the most scandalous of our sex,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> for
+granting them the liberty of abusing themselves and ruining both.</p>
+
+<p>I, that knew what this carcase of mine had been but a few years before;
+how overwhelmed with grief, drowned in tears, frightened with the
+prospect of beggary, and surrounded with rags and fatherless children;
+that was pawning and selling the rags that covered me for a dinner, and
+sat on the ground despairing of help and expecting to be starved, till
+my children were snatched from me to be kept by the parish; I, that was
+after this a whore for bread, and, abandoning conscience and virtue,
+lived with another woman's husband; I, that was despised by all my
+relations, and my husband's too; I, that was left so entirely desolate,
+friendless, and helpless that I knew not how to get the least help to
+keep me from starving,&mdash;that I should be caressed by a prince, for the
+honour of having the scandalous use of my prostituted body, common
+before to his inferiors, and perhaps would not have denied one of his
+footmen but a little while before, if I could have got my bread by it.</p>
+
+<p>I say, I could not but reflect upon the brutality and blindness of
+mankind; that because nature had given me a good skin and some agreeable
+features, should suffer that beauty to be such a bait to appetite as to
+do such sordid, unaccountable things to obtain the possession of it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is for this reason that I have so largely set down the particulars of
+the caresses I was treated with by the jeweller, and also by this
+prince; not to make the story an incentive to the vice, which I am now
+such a sorrowful penitent for being guilty of (God forbid any should
+make so vile a use of so good a design), but to draw the just picture of
+a man enslaved to the rage of his vicious appetite; how he defaces the
+image of God in his soul, dethrones his reason, causes conscience to
+abdicate the possession, and exalts sense into the vacant throne; how he
+deposes the man and exalts the brute.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! could we hear the reproaches this great man afterwards loaded
+himself with when he grew weary of this admired creature, and became
+sick of his vice, how profitable would the report of them be to the
+reader of this story! But had he himself also known the dirty history of
+my actings upon the stage of life that little time I had been in the
+world, how much more severe would those reproaches have been upon
+himself! But I shall come to this again.</p>
+
+<p>I lived in this gay sort of retirement almost three years, in which time
+no amour of such a kind, sure, was ever carried up so high. The prince
+knew no bounds to his munificence; he could give me nothing, either for
+my wearing, or using, or eating, or drinking, more than he had done from
+the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>His presents were after that in gold, and very fre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>quent and large,
+often a hundred pistoles, never less than fifty at a time; and I must do
+myself the justice that I seemed rather backward to receive than craving
+and encroaching. Not that I had not an avaricious temper, nor was it
+that I did not foresee that this was my harvest, in which I was to
+gather up, and that it would not last long; but it was that really his
+bounty always anticipated my expectations, and even my wishes; and he
+gave me money so fast that he rather poured it in upon me than left me
+room to ask it; so that, before I could spend fifty pistoles, I had
+always a hundred to make it up.</p>
+
+<p>After I had been near a year and a half in his arms as above, or
+thereabouts, I proved with child. I did not take any notice of it to him
+till I was satisfied that I was not deceived; when one morning early,
+when we were in bed together, I said to him, "My lord, I doubt your
+Highness never gives yourself leave to think what the case should be if
+I should have the honour to be with child by you." "Why, my dear," says
+he, "we are able to keep it if such a thing should happen; I hope you
+are not concerned about that." "No, my lord," said I; "I should think
+myself very happy if I could bring your Highness a son; I should hope to
+see him a lieutenant-general of the king's armies by the interest of his
+father, and by his own merit." "Assure yourself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> child," says he, "if
+it should be so, I will not refuse owning him for my son, though it be,
+as they call it, a natural son; and shall never slight or neglect him,
+for the sake of his mother." Then he began to importune me to know if it
+was so, but I positively denied it so long, till at last I was able to
+give him the satisfaction of knowing it himself by the motion of the
+child within me.</p>
+
+<p>He professed himself overjoyed at the discovery, but told me that now it
+was absolutely necessary for me to quit the confinement which, he said,
+I had suffered for his sake, and to take a house somewhere in the
+country, in order for health as well as for privacy, against my
+lying-in. This was quite out of my way; but the prince, who was a man of
+pleasure, had, it seems, several retreats of this kind, which he had
+made use of, I suppose, upon like occasions. And so, leaving it, as it
+were, to his gentleman, he provided a very convenient house, about four
+miles south of Paris, at the village of &mdash;&mdash;, where I had very agreeable
+lodgings, good gardens, and all things very easy to my content. But one
+thing did not please me at all, viz., that an old woman was provided,
+and put into the house to furnish everything necessary to my lying-in,
+and to assist at my travail.</p>
+
+<p>I did not like this old woman at all; she looked so like a spy upon me,
+or (as sometimes I was frighted to imagine) like one set privately to
+de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>spatch me out of the world, as might best suit with the circumstance
+of my lying-in. And when his Highness came the next time to see me,
+which was not many days, I expostulated a little on the subject of the
+old woman; and by the management of my tongue, as well as by the
+strength of reasoning, I convinced him that it would not be at all
+convenient; that it would be the greater risk on his side; and at first
+or last it would certainly expose him and me also. I assured him that my
+servant, being an Englishwoman, never knew to that hour who his Highness
+was; that I always called him the Count de Clerac, and that she knew
+nothing else of him, nor ever should; that if he would give me leave to
+choose proper persons for my use, it should be so ordered that not one
+of them should know who he was, or perhaps ever see his face; and that,
+for the reality of the child that should be born, his Highness, who had
+alone been at the first of it, should, if he pleased, be present in the
+room all the time, so that he would need no witnesses on that account.</p>
+
+<p>This discourse fully satisfied him, so that he ordered his gentleman to
+dismiss the old woman the same day; and without any difficulty I sent my
+maid Amy to Calais, and thence to Dover, where she got an English
+midwife and an English nurse to come over on purpose to attend an
+English lady of quality, as they styled me, for four months certain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The midwife, Amy had agreed to pay a hundred guineas to, and bear her
+charges to Paris, and back again to Dover. The poor woman that was to be
+my nurse had twenty pounds, and the same terms for charges as the other.</p>
+
+<p>I was very easy when Amy returned, and the more because she brought with
+the midwife a good motherly sort of woman, who was to be her assistant,
+and would be very helpful on occasion; and bespoke a man midwife at
+Paris too, if there should be any necessity for his help. Having thus
+made provision for everything, the Count, for so we all called him in
+public, came as often to see me as I could expect, and continued
+exceeding kind, as he had always been. One day, conversing together upon
+the subject of my being with child, I told him how all things were in
+order, but that I had a strange apprehension that I should die with that
+child. He smiled. "So all the ladies say, my dear," says he, "when they
+are with child." "Well, however, my lord," said I, "it is but just that
+care should be taken that what you have bestowed in your excess of
+bounty upon me should not be lost;" and upon this I pulled a paper out
+of my bosom, folded up, but not sealed, and I read it to him, wherein I
+had left order that all the plate and jewels and fine furniture which
+his Highness had given me should be restored to him by my women, and the
+keys be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> immediately delivered to his gentleman in case of disaster.</p>
+
+<p>Then I recommended my woman, Amy, to his favour for a hundred pistoles,
+on condition she gave the keys up as above to his gentleman, and his
+gentleman's receipt for them. When he saw this, "My dear child," said
+he, and took me in his arms, "what! have you been making your will and
+disposing of your effects? Pray, who do you make your universal heir?"
+"So far as to do justice to your Highness, in case of mortality, I have,
+my lord," said I, "and who should I dispose the valuable things to,
+which I have had from your hand as pledges of your favour and
+testimonies of your bounty, but to the giver of them? If the child
+should live, your Highness will, I don't question, act like yourself in
+that part, and I shall have the utmost satisfaction that it will be well
+used by your direction."</p>
+
+<p>I could see he took this very well. "I have forsaken all the ladies in
+Paris," says he, "for you, and I have lived every day since I knew you
+to see that you know how to merit all that a man of honour can do for
+you. Be easy, child; I hope you shall not die, and all you have is your
+own, to do what with it you please."</p>
+
+<p>I was then within about two months of my time, and that soon wore off.
+When I found my time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> was come, it fell out very happily that he was in
+the house, and I entreated he would continue a few hours in the house,
+which he agreed to. They called his Highness to come into the room, if
+he pleased, as I had offered and as I desired him; and I sent word I
+would make as few cries as possible to prevent disturbing him. He came
+into the room once, and called to me to be of good courage, it would
+soon be over, and then he withdrew again; and in about half-an-hour more
+Amy carried him the news that I was delivered, and had brought him a
+charming boy. He gave her ten pistoles for her news, stayed till they
+had adjusted things about me, and then came into the room again, cheered
+me and spoke kindly to me, and looked on the child, then withdrew, and
+came again the next day to visit me.</p>
+
+<p>Since this, and when I have looked back upon these things with eyes
+unpossessed with crime, when the wicked part has appeared in its clearer
+light and I have seen it in its own natural colours, when no more
+blinded with the glittering appearances which at that time deluded me,
+and as in like cases, if I may guess at others by myself, too much
+possessed the mind; I say, since this I have often wondered with what
+pleasure or satisfaction the prince could look upon the poor innocent
+infant, which, though his own, and that he might that way have some
+attachment in his affections to it, yet must always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> afterwards be a
+remembrancer to him of his most early crime, and, which was worse, must
+bear upon itself, unmerited, an eternal mark of infamy, which should be
+spoken of, upon all occasions, to its reproach, from the folly of its
+father and wickedness of its mother.</p>
+
+<p>Great men are indeed delivered from the burthen of their natural
+children, or bastards, as to their maintenance. This is the main
+affliction in other cases, where there is not substance sufficient
+without breaking into the fortunes of the family. In those cases either
+a man's legitimate children suffer, which is very unnatural, or the
+unfortunate mother of that illegitimate birth has a dreadful affliction,
+either of being turned off with her child, and be left to starve, &amp;c.,
+or of seeing the poor infant packed off with a piece of money to those
+she-butchers who take children off their hands, as 'tis called, that is
+to say, starve them, and, in a word, murder them.</p>
+
+<p>Great men, I say, are delivered from this burthen, because they are
+always furnished to supply the expense of their out-of-the-way
+offspring, by making little assignments upon the Bank of Lyons or the
+townhouse of Paris, and settling those sums, to be received for the
+maintenance of such expense as they see cause.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, in the case of this child of mine, while he and I conversed, there
+was no need to make any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> appointment as an appanage or maintenance for
+the child or its nurse, for he supplied me more than sufficiently for
+all those things; but afterwards, when time, and a particular
+circumstance, put an end to our conversing together (as such things
+always meet with a period, and generally break off abruptly), I say,
+after that, I found he appointed the children a settled allowance, by an
+assignment of annual rent upon the Bank of Lyons, which was sufficient
+for bringing them handsomely, though privately, up in the world, and
+that not in a manner unworthy of their father's blood, though I came to
+be sunk and forgotten in the case; nor did the children ever know
+anything of their mother to this day, other than as you may have an
+account hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>But to look back to the particular observation I was making, which I
+hope may be of use to those who read my story, I say it was something
+wonderful to me to see this person so exceedingly delighted at the birth
+of this child, and so pleased with it; for he would sit and look at it,
+and with an air of seriousness sometimes a great while together, and
+particularly, I observed, he loved to look at it when it was asleep.</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed a lovely, charming child, and had a certain vivacity in
+its countenance that is far from being common to all children so young;
+and he would often say to me that he believed there was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> something
+extraordinary in the child, and he did not doubt but he would come to be
+a great man.</p>
+
+<p>I could never hear him say so, but though secretly it pleased me, yet it
+so closely touched me another way that I could not refrain sighing, and
+sometimes tears; and one time in particular it so affected me that I
+could not conceal it from him; but when he saw tears run down my face,
+there was no concealing the occasion from him; he was too importunate to
+be denied in a thing of that moment; so I frankly answered, "It sensibly
+affects me, my lord," said I, "that, whatever the merit of this little
+creature may be, he must always have a bend on his arms. The disaster of
+his birth will be always, not a blot only to his honour, but a bar to
+his fortunes in the world. Our affection will be ever his affliction,
+and his mother's crime be the son's reproach. The blot can never be
+wiped out by the most glorious action; nay, if it lives to raise a
+family," said I, "the infamy must descend even to its innocent
+posterity."</p>
+
+<p>He took the thought, and sometimes told me afterwards that it made a
+deeper impression on him than he discovered to me at that time; but for
+the present he put it off with telling me these things could not be
+helped; that they served for a spur to the spirits of brave men,
+inspired them with the principles of gallantry, and prompted them to
+brave actions; that though it might be true that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> mention of
+illegitimacy might attend the name, yet that personal virtue placed a
+man of honour above the reproach of his birth; that, as he had no share
+in the offence, he would have no concern at the blot; when, having by
+his own merit placed himself out of the reach of scandal, his fame
+should drown the memory of his beginning; that as it was usual for men
+of quality to make such little escapes, so the number of their natural
+children were so great, and they generally took such good care of their
+education, that some of the greatest men in the world had a bend in
+their coats-of-arms, and that it was of no consequence to them,
+especially when their fame began to rise upon the basis of their
+acquired merit; and upon this he began to reckon up to me some of the
+greatest families in France and in England also.</p>
+
+<p>This carried off our discourse for a time; but I went farther with him
+once, removing the discourse from the part attending our children to the
+reproach which those children would be apt to throw upon us, their
+originals; and when speaking a little too feelingly on the subject, he
+began to receive the impression a little deeper than I wished he had
+done. At last he told me I had almost acted the confessor to him; that I
+might, perhaps, preach a more dangerous doctrine to him than we should
+either of us like, or than I was aware of. "For, my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> dear," says he, "if
+once we come to talk of repentance we must talk of parting."</p>
+
+<p>If tears were in my eyes before, they flowed too fast now to be
+restrained, and I gave him but too much satisfaction by my looks that I
+had yet no reflections upon my mind strong enough to go that length, and
+that I could no more think of parting than he could.</p>
+
+<p>He said a great many kind things, which were great, like himself, and,
+extenuating our crime, intimated to me that he could no more part with
+me than I could with him; so we both, as I may say, even against our
+light and against our conviction, concluded to sin on; indeed, his
+affection to the child was one great tie to him, for he was extremely
+fond of it.</p>
+
+<p>The child lived to be a considerable man. He was first an officer of the
+<i>Garde du Corps</i> of France, and afterwards colonel of a regiment of
+dragoons in Italy, and on many extraordinary occasions showed that he
+was not unworthy such a father, but many ways deserving a legitimate
+birth and a better mother; of which hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>I think I may say now that I lived indeed like a queen; or, if you will
+have me confess that my condition had still the reproach of a whore, I
+may say I was, sure, the queen of whores; for no woman was ever more
+valued or more caressed by a person<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> of such quality only in the station
+of a mistress. I had, indeed, one deficiency which women in such
+circumstances seldom are chargeable with, namely, I craved nothing of
+him, I never asked him for anything in my life, nor suffered myself to
+be made use of, as is too much the custom of mistresses, to ask favours
+for others. His bounty always prevented me in the first, and my strict
+concealing myself in the last, which was no less to my convenience than
+his.</p>
+
+<p>The only favour I ever asked of him was for his gentleman, who he had
+all along entrusted with the secret of our affair, and who had once so
+much offended him by some omissions in his duty that he found it very
+hard to make his peace. He came and laid his case before my woman Amy,
+and begged her to speak to me to intercede for him, which I did, and on
+my account he was received again and pardoned, for which the grateful
+dog requited me by getting to bed to his benefactress, Amy, at which I
+was very angry. But Amy generously acknowledged that it was her fault as
+much as his; that she loved the fellow so much that she believed if he
+had not asked her she should have asked him. I say, this pacified me,
+and I only obtained of her that she should not let him know that I knew
+it.</p>
+
+<p>I might have interspersed this part of my story with a great many
+pleasant parts and discourses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> which happened between my maid Amy and I,
+but I omit them on account of my own story, which has been so
+extraordinary. However, I must mention something as to Amy and her
+gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>I inquired of Amy upon what terms they came to be so intimate, but Amy
+seemed backward to explain herself. I did not care to press her upon a
+question of that nature, knowing that she might have answered my
+question with a question, and have said, "Why, how did I and the prince
+come to be so intimate?" So I left off farther inquiring into it, till,
+after some time, she told it me all freely of her own accord, which, to
+cut it short, amounted to no more than this, that, like mistress like
+maid, as they had many leisure hours together below, while they waited
+respectively when his lord and I were together above; I say, they could
+hardly avoid the usual question one to another, namely, why might not
+they do the same thing below that we did above?</p>
+
+<p>On that account, indeed, as I said above, I could not find in my heart
+to be angry with Amy. I was, indeed, afraid the girl would have been
+with child too, but that did not happen, and so there was no hurt done;
+for Amy had been hanselled before, as well as her mistress, and by the
+same party too, as you have heard.</p>
+
+<p>After I was up again, and my child provided with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> a good nurse, and,
+withal, winter coming on, it was proper to think of coming to Paris
+again, which I did; but as I had now a coach and horses, and some
+servants to attend me, by my lord's allowance, I took the liberty to
+have them come to Paris sometimes, and so to take a tour into the garden
+of the Tuileries and the other pleasant places of the city. It happened
+one day that my prince (if I may call him so) had a mind to give me some
+diversion, and to take the air with me; but, that he might do it and not
+be publicly known, he comes to me in a coach of the Count de &mdash;&mdash;, a
+great officer of the court, attended by his liveries also; so that, in a
+word, it was impossible to guess by the equipage who I was or who I
+belonged to; also, that I might be the more effectually concealed, he
+ordered me to be taken up at a mantua-maker's house, where he sometimes
+came, whether upon other amours or not was no business of mine to
+inquire. I knew nothing whither he intended to carry me; but when he was
+in the coach with me, he told me he had ordered his servants to go to
+court with me, and he would show me some of the <i>beau monde</i>. I told him
+I cared not where I went while I had the honour to have him with me. So
+he carried me to the fine palace of Meudon, where the Dauphin then was,
+and where he had some particular intimacy with one of the Dauphin's
+domestics, who procured a retreat for me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> in his lodgings while we
+stayed there, which was three or four days.</p>
+
+<p>While I was there the king happened to come thither from Versailles, and
+making but a short stay, visited Madame the Dauphiness, who was then
+living. The prince was here incognito, only because of his being with
+me, and therefore, when he heard that the king was in the gardens, he
+kept close within the lodgings; but the gentleman in whose lodgings we
+were, with his lady and several others, went out to see the king, and I
+had the honour to be asked to go with them.</p>
+
+<p>After we had seen the king, who did not stay long in the gardens, we
+walked up the broad terrace, and crossing the hall towards the great
+staircase, I had a sight which confounded me at once, as I doubt not it
+would have done to any woman in the world. The horse guards, or what
+they call there the <i>gens d'armes</i>, had, upon some occasion, been either
+upon duty or been reviewed, or something (I did not understand that
+part) was the matter that occasioned their being there, I know not what;
+but, walking in the guard-chamber, and with his jack-boots on, and the
+whole habit of the troop, as it is worn when our horse guards are upon
+duty, as they call it, at St. James's Park; I say, there, to my
+inexpressible confusion, I saw Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, my first husband, the brewer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I could not be deceived; I passed so near him that I almost brushed him
+with my clothes, and looked him full in the face, but having my fan
+before my face, so that he could not know me. However, I knew him
+perfectly well, and I heard him speak, which was a second way of knowing
+him. Besides being, you may be sure, astonished and surprised at such a
+sight, I turned about after I had passed him some steps, and pretending
+to ask the lady that was with me some questions, I stood as if I had
+viewed the great hall, the outer guard-chamber, and some things; but I
+did it to take a full view of his dress, that I might farther inform
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>While I stood thus amusing the lady that was with me with questions, he
+walked, talking with another man of the same cloth, back again, just by
+me; and to my particular satisfaction, or dissatisfaction&mdash;take it which
+way you will&mdash;I heard him speak English, the other being, it seems, an
+Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>I then asked the lady some other questions. "Pray, madam," says I, "what
+are these troopers here? Are they the king's guards?" "No," says she;
+"they are the <i>gens d'armes</i>; a small detachment of them, I suppose,
+attended the king to-day, but they are not his Majesty's ordinary
+guard." Another lady that was with her said, "No, madam, it seems that
+is not the case, for I heard them say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>ing the <i>gens d'armes</i> were here
+to-day by special order, some of them being to march towards the Rhine,
+and these attend for orders; but they go back to-morrow to Orleans,
+where they are expected."</p>
+
+<p>This satisfied me in part, but I found means after this to inquire whose
+particular troop it was that the gentlemen that were here belonged to;
+and with that I heard they would all be at Paris the week after.</p>
+
+<p>Two days after this we returned for Paris, when I took occasion to speak
+to my lord, that I heard the <i>gens d'armes</i> were to be in the city the
+next week, and that I should be charmed with seeing them march if they
+came in a body. He was so obliging in such things that I need but just
+name a thing of that kind and it was done; so he ordered his gentleman
+(I should now call him Amy's gentleman) to get me a place in a certain
+house, where I might see them march.</p>
+
+<p>As he did not appear with me on this occasion, so I had the liberty of
+taking my woman Amy with me, and stood where we were very well
+accommodated for the observation which I was to make. I told Amy what I
+had seen, and she was as forward to make the discovery as I was to have
+her, and almost as much surprised at the thing itself. In a word, the
+<i>gens d'armes</i> entered the city, as was expected, and made a most
+glorious show indeed, being new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> clothed and armed, and being to have
+their standards blessed by the Archbishop of Paris. On this occasion
+they indeed looked very gay; and as they marched very leisurely, I had
+time to take as critical a view and make as nice a search among them as
+I pleased. Here, in a particular rank, eminent for one monstrous-sized
+man on the right; here, I say, I saw my gentleman again, and a very
+handsome, jolly fellow he was, as any in the troop, though not so
+monstrous large as that great one I speak of, who, it seems, was,
+however, a gentleman of a good family in Gascony, and was called the
+giant of Gascony.</p>
+
+<p>It was a kind of a good fortune to us, among the other circumstances of
+it, that something caused the troops to halt in their march a little
+before that particular rank came right against that window which I stood
+in, so that then we had occasion to take our full view of him at a small
+distance, and so as not to doubt of his being the same person.</p>
+
+<p>Amy, who thought she might, on many accounts, venture with more safety
+to be particular than I could, asked her gentleman how a particular man,
+who she saw there among the <i>gens d'armes</i>, might be inquired after and
+found out; she having seen an Englishman riding there which was supposed
+to be dead in England for several years before she came out of London
+and that his wife had married again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> It was a question the gentleman
+did not well understand how to answer; but another person that stood by
+told her, if she would tell him the gentleman's name, he would endeavour
+to find him out for her, and asked jestingly if he was her lover. Amy
+put that off with a laugh, but still continued her inquiry, and in such
+a manner as the gentleman easily perceived she was in earnest; so he
+left bantering, and asked her in what part of the troop he rode. She
+foolishly told him his name, which she should not have done; and
+pointing to the cornet that troop carried, which was not then quite out
+of sight, she let him easily know whereabouts he rode, only she could
+not name the captain. However, he gave her such directions afterwards
+that, in short, Amy, who was an indefatigable girl, found him out. It
+seems he had not changed his name, not supposing any inquiry would be
+made after him here; but, I say, Amy found him out, and went boldly to
+his quarters, asked for him, and he came out to her immediately.</p>
+
+<p>I believe I was not more confounded at my first seeing him at Meudon
+than he was at seeing Amy. He started and turned pale as death. Amy
+believed if he had seen her at first, in any convenient place for so
+villainous a purpose, he would have murdered her.</p>
+
+<p>But he started, as I say above, and asked in English, with an
+admiration, "What are you?" "Sir,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> says she, "don't you know me?"
+"Yes," says he, "I knew you when you were alive; but what are you
+now?&mdash;whether ghost or substance I know not." "Be not afraid, sir, of
+that," says Amy; "I am the same Amy that I was in your service, and do
+not speak to you now for any hurt, but that I saw you accidentally
+yesterday ride among the soldiers; I thought you might be glad to hear
+from your friends at London." "Well, Amy," says he then (having a little
+recovered himself), "how does everybody do? What! is your mistress
+here?" Thus they begun:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Amy.</i> My mistress, sir, alas! not the mistress you mean; poor
+gentlewoman, you left her in a sad condition.</p>
+
+<p><i>Gent.</i> Why, that's true, Amy; but it could not be helped; I was in a
+sad condition myself.</p>
+
+<p><i>Amy.</i> I believe so, indeed, sir, or else you had not gone away as you
+did; for it was a very terrible condition you left them all in, that I
+must say.</p>
+
+<p><i>Gent.</i> What did they do after I was gone?</p>
+
+<p><i>Amy.</i> Do, sir! Very miserably, you may be sure. How could it be
+otherwise?</p>
+
+<p><i>Gent.</i> Well, that's true indeed; but you may tell me, Amy, what became
+of them, if you please; for though I went so away, it was not because I
+did not love them all very well, but because I could not bear to see the
+poverty that was coming upon them, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> which it was not in my power to
+help. What could I do?</p>
+
+<p><i>Amy.</i> Nay, I believe so indeed; and I have heard my mistress say many
+times she did not doubt but your affliction was as great as hers,
+almost, wherever you were.</p>
+
+<p><i>Gent.</i> Why, did she believe I was alive, then?</p>
+
+<p><i>Amy.</i> Yes, sir; she always said she believed you were alive, because
+she thought she should have heard something of you if you had been dead.</p>
+
+<p><i>Gent.</i> Ay, ay; my perplexity was very great indeed, or else I had never
+gone away.</p>
+
+<p><i>Amy.</i> It was very cruel, though, to the poor lady, sir, my mistress;
+she almost broke her heart for you at first, for fear of what might
+befall you, and at last because she could not hear from you.</p>
+
+<p><i>Gent.</i> Alas, Amy! what could I do? Things were driven to the last
+extremity before I went. I could have done nothing but help starve them
+all if I had stayed; and, besides, I could not bear to see it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Amy.</i> You know, sir, I can say little to what passed before, but I am a
+melancholy witness to the sad distresses of my poor mistress as long as
+I stayed with her, and which would grieve your heart to hear them.</p>
+
+<p>[Here she tells my whole story to the time that the parish took off one
+of my children, and which she perceived very much affected him; and he
+shook<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> his head, and said some things very bitter when he heard of the
+cruelty of his own relations to me.]</p>
+
+<p><i>Gent.</i> Well, Amy, I have heard enough so far. What did she do
+afterwards?</p>
+
+<p><i>Amy.</i> I can't give you any farther account, sir; my mistress would not
+let me stay with her any longer. She said she could neither pay me or
+subsist me. I told her I would serve her without any wages, but I could
+not live without victuals, you know; so I was forced to leave her, poor
+lady, sore against my will; and I heard afterwards that the landlord
+seized her goods, so she was, I suppose, turned out of doors; for as I
+went by the door, about a month after, I saw the house shut up; and,
+about a fortnight after that, I found there were workmen at work,
+fitting it up, as I suppose, for a new tenant. But none of the
+neighbours could tell me what was become of my poor mistress, only that
+they said she was so poor that it was next to begging; that some of the
+neighbouring gentlefolks had relieved her, or that else she must have
+starved.</p>
+
+<p>Then she went on, and told him that after that they never heard any more
+of (me) her mistress, but that she had been seen once or twice in the
+city very shabby and poor in clothes, and it was thought she worked with
+her needle for her bread.</p>
+
+<p>All this the jade said with so much cunning, and managed and humoured it
+so well, and wiped her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> eyes and cried so artificially, that he took it
+all as it was intended he should, and once or twice she saw tears in his
+eyes too. He told her it was a moving, melancholy story, and it had
+almost broke his heart at first, but that he was driven to the last
+extremity, and could do nothing but stay and see them all starve, which
+he could not bear the thoughts of, but should have pistolled himself if
+any such thing had happened while he was there; that he left (me) his
+wife all the money he had in the world but &pound;25, which was as little as
+he could take with him to seek his fortune in the world. He could not
+doubt but that his relations, seeing they were all rich, would have
+taken the poor children off, and not let them come to the parish; and
+that his wife was young and handsome, and, he thought, might marry
+again, perhaps, to her advantage, and for that very reason he never
+wrote to her or let her know he was alive, that she might in a
+reasonable term of years marry, and perhaps mend her fortunes; that he
+resolved never to claim her, because he should rejoice to hear that she
+had settled to her mind; and that he wished there had been a law made to
+empower a woman to marry if her husband was not heard of in so long a
+time, which time, he thought, should not be above four years, which was
+long enough to send word in to a wife or family from any part of the
+world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Amy said she could say nothing to that but this, that she was satisfied
+her mistress would marry nobody unless she had certain intelligence that
+he had been dead from somebody that saw him buried. "But, alas!" says
+Amy, "my mistress was reduced to such dismal circumstances that nobody
+would be so foolish to think of her, unless it had been somebody to go
+a-begging with her."</p>
+
+<p>Amy then, seeing him so perfectly deluded, made a long and lamentable
+outcry how she had been deluded away to marry a poor footman. "For he is
+no worse or better," says she, "though he calls himself a lord's
+gentleman. And here," says Amy, "he has dragged me over into a strange
+country to make a beggar of me;" and then she falls a-howling again, and
+snivelling, which, by the way, was all hypocrisy, but acted so to the
+life as perfectly deceived him, and he gave entire credit to every word
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Amy," says he, "you are very well dressed; you don't look as if
+you were in danger of being a beggar." "Ay, hang 'em!" says Amy, "they
+love to have fine clothes here, if they have never a smock under them.
+But I love to have money in cash, rather than a chestful of fine
+clothes. Besides, sir," says she, "most of the clothes I have were given
+me in the last place I had, when I went away from my mistress."</p>
+
+<p>Upon the whole of the discourse, Amy got out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> him what condition he
+was in and how he lived, upon her promise to him that if ever she came
+to England, and should see her old mistress, she should not let her know
+that he was alive. "Alas, sir!" says Amy, "I may never come to see
+England again as long as I live; and if I should, it would be ten
+thousand to one whether I shall see my old mistress, for how should I
+know which way to look for her, or what part of England she may be
+in?&mdash;not I," says she. "I don't so much as know how to inquire for her;
+and if I should," says Amy, "ever be so happy as to see her, I would not
+do her so much mischief as to tell her where you were, sir, unless she
+was in a condition to help herself and you too." This farther deluded
+him, and made him entirely open in his conversing with her. As to his
+own circumstances, he told her she saw him in the highest preferment he
+had arrived to, or was ever like to arrive to; for, having no friends or
+acquaintance in France, and, which was worse, no money, he never
+expected to rise; that he could have been made a lieutenant to a troop
+of light horse but the week before, by the favour of an officer in the
+<i>gens d'armes</i> who was his friend, but that he must have found eight
+thousand livres to have paid for it to the gentleman who possessed it,
+and had leave given him to sell. "But where could I get eight thousand
+livres," says he, "that have never been master of five hundred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> livres
+ready money at a time since I came into France?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear, sir!" says Amy, "I am very sorry to hear you say so. I fancy
+if you once got up to some preferment, you would think of my old
+mistress again, and do something for her. Poor lady," says Amy, "she
+wants it, to be sure;" and then she falls a-crying again. "It is a sad
+thing indeed," says she, "that you should be so hard put to it for
+money, when you had got a friend to recommend you, and should lose it
+for want of money." "Ay, so it was, Amy, indeed," says he; "but what can
+a stranger do that has neither money or friends?" Here Amy puts in again
+on my account. "Well," says she, "my poor mistress has had the loss,
+though she knows nothing of it. Oh dear! how happy it would have been!
+To be sure, sir, you would have helped her all you could." "Ay," says
+he, "Amy, so I would with all my heart; and even as I am, I would send
+her some relief, if I thought she wanted it, only that then letting her
+know I was alive might do her some prejudice, in case of her settling,
+or marrying anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas," says Amy, "marry! Who will marry her in the poor condition she
+is in?" And so their discourse ended for that time.</p>
+
+<p>All this was mere talk on both sides, and words of course; for on
+farther inquiry, Amy found that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> he had no such offer of a lieutenant's
+commission, or anything like it; and that he rambled in his discourse
+from one thing to another; but of that in its place.</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure that this discourse, as Amy at first related it, was
+moving to the last degree upon me, and I was once going to have sent him
+the eight thousand livres to purchase the commission he had spoken of;
+but as I knew his character better than anybody, I was willing to search
+a little farther into it, and so I set Amy to inquire of some other of
+the troop, to see what character he had, and whether there was anything
+in the story of a lieutenant's commission or no.</p>
+
+<p>But Amy soon came to a better understanding of him, for she presently
+learnt that he had a most scoundrel character; that there was nothing of
+weight in anything he said; but that he was, in short, a mere sharper,
+one that would stick at nothing to get money, and that there was no
+depending on anything he said; and that more especially about the
+lieutenant's commission, she understood that there was nothing at all in
+it, but they told her how he had often made use of that sham to borrow
+money, and move gentlemen to pity him and lend him money, in hopes to
+get him preferment; that he had reported that he had a wife and five
+children in England, who he maintained out of his pay, and by these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+shifts had run into debt in several places; and upon several complaints
+for such things, he had been threatened to be turned out of the <i>gens
+d'armes</i>; and that, in short, he was not to be believed in anything he
+said, or trusted on any account.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this information, Amy began to cool in her farther meddling with
+him, and told me it was not safe for me to attempt doing him any good,
+unless I resolved to put him upon suspicions and inquiries which might
+be to my ruin, in the condition I was now in.</p>
+
+<p>I was soon confirmed in this part of his character, for the next time
+that Amy came to talk with him, he discovered himself more effectually;
+for, while she had put him in hopes of procuring one to advance the
+money for the lieutenant's commission for him upon easy conditions, he
+by degrees dropped the discourse, then pretended it was too late, and
+that he could not get it, and then descended to ask poor Amy to lend him
+five hundred pistoles.</p>
+
+<p>Amy pretended poverty, that her circumstances were but mean, and that
+she could not raise such a sum; and this she did to try him to the
+utmost. He descended to three hundred, then to one hundred, then to
+fifty, and then to a pistole, which she lent him, and he, never
+intending to pay it, played out of her sight as much as he could. And
+thus being satisfied that he was the same worthless thing he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> ever
+been, I threw off all thoughts of him; whereas, had he been a man of any
+sense and of any principle of honour, I had it in my thoughts to retire
+to England again, send for him over, and have lived honestly with him.
+But as a fool is the worst of husbands to do a woman good, so a fool is
+the worst husband a woman can do good to. I would willingly have done
+him good, but he was not qualified to receive it or make the best use of
+it. Had I sent him ten thousand crowns instead of eight thousand livres,
+and sent it with express condition that he should immediately have
+bought himself the commission he talked of with part of the money, and
+have sent some of it to relieve the necessities of his poor miserable
+wife at London, and to prevent his children to be kept by the parish, it
+was evident he would have been still but a private trooper, and his wife
+and children should still have starved at London, or been kept of mere
+charity, as, for aught he knew, they then were.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing, therefore, no remedy, I was obliged to withdraw my hand from
+him, that had been my first destroyer, and reserve the assistance that I
+intended to have given him for another more desirable opportunity. All
+that I had now to do was to keep myself out of his sight, which was not
+very difficult for me to do, considering in what station he lived.</p>
+
+<p>Amy and I had several consultations then upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> the main question,
+namely, how to be sure never to chop upon him again by chance, and to be
+surprised into a discovery, which would have been a fatal discovery
+indeed. Amy proposed that we should always take care to know where the
+<i>gens d'armes</i> were quartered, and thereby effectually avoid them; and
+this was one way.</p>
+
+<p>But this was not so as to be fully to my satisfaction; no ordinary way
+of inquiring where the <i>gens d'armes</i> were quartered was sufficient to
+me; but I found out a fellow who was completely qualified for the work
+of a spy (for France has plenty of such people). This man I employed to
+be a constant and particular attendant upon his person and motions; and
+he was especially employed and ordered to haunt him as a ghost, that he
+should scarce let him be ever out of his sight. He performed this to a
+nicety, and failed not to give me a perfect journal of all his motions
+from day to day, and, whether for his pleasure or his business, was
+always at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>This was somewhat expensive, and such a fellow merited to be well paid,
+but he did his business so exquisitely punctual that this poor man
+scarce went out of the house without my knowing the way he went, the
+company he kept, when he went abroad, and when he stayed at home.</p>
+
+<p>By this extraordinary conduct I made myself safe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> and so went out in
+public or stayed at home as I found he was or was not in a possibility
+of being at Paris, at Versailles, or any place I had occasion to be at.
+This, though it was very chargeable, yet as I found it absolutely
+necessary, so I took no thought about the expense of it, for I knew I
+could not purchase my safety too dear.</p>
+
+<p>By this management I found an opportunity to see what a most
+insignificant, unthinking life the poor, indolent wretch, who, by his
+unactive temper, had at first been my ruin, now lived; how he only rose
+in the morning to go to bed at night; that, saving the necessary motion
+of the troops, which he was obliged to attend, he was a mere motionless
+animal, of no consequence in the world; that he seemed to be one who,
+though he was indeed alive, had no manner of business in life but to
+stay to be called out of it. He neither kept any company, minded any
+sport, played at any game, or indeed did anything of moment; but, in
+short, sauntered about like one that it was not two livres value whether
+he was dead or alive; that when he was gone, would leave no remembrance
+behind him that ever he was here; that if ever he did anything in the
+world to be talked of, it was only to get five beggars and starve his
+wife. The journal of his life, which I had constantly sent me every
+week, was the least significant of anything of its kind that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> was ever
+seen, as it had really nothing of earnest in it, so it would make no
+jest to relate it. It was not important enough so much as to make the
+reader merry withal, and for that reason I omit it.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this nothing-doing wretch was I obliged to watch and guard against,
+as against the only thing that was capable of doing me hurt in the
+world. I was to shun him as we would shun a spectre, or even the devil,
+if he was actually in our way; and it cost me after the rate of a
+hundred and fifty livres a month, and very cheap too, to have this
+creature constantly kept in view. That is to say, my spy undertook never
+to let him be out of his sight an hour, but so as that he could give an
+account of him, which was much the easier for to be done considering his
+way of living; for he was sure that, for whole weeks together, he would
+be ten hours of the day half asleep on a bench at the tavern-door where
+he quartered, or drunk within the house. Though this wicked life he led
+sometimes moved me to pity him, and to wonder how so well-bred,
+gentlemanly a man as he once was could degenerate into such a useless
+thing as he now appeared, yet at the same time it gave me most
+contemptible thoughts of him, and made me often say I was a warning for
+all the ladies of Europe against marrying of fools. A man of sense falls
+in the world and gets up again, and a woman has some chance for herself;
+but with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> a fool, once fall, and ever undone; once in the ditch, and die
+in the ditch; once poor, and sure to starve.</p>
+
+<p>But it is time to have done with him. Once I had nothing to hope for but
+to see him again; now my only felicity was, if possible, never to see
+him, and, above all, to keep him from seeing me, which, as above, I took
+effectual care of.</p>
+
+<p>I was now returned to Paris. My little son of honour, as I called him,
+was left at &mdash;&mdash;, where my last country-seat then was, and I came to
+Paris at the prince's request. Thither he came to me as soon as I
+arrived, and told me he came to give me joy of my return, and to make
+his acknowledgments for that I had given him a son. I thought, indeed,
+he had been going to give me a present, and so he did the next day, but
+in what he said then he only jested with me. He gave me his company all
+the evening, supped with me about midnight, and did me the honour, as I
+then called it, to lodge me in his arms all the night, telling me, in
+jest, that the best thanks for a son born was giving the pledge for
+another.</p>
+
+<p>But as I hinted, so it was; the next morning he laid me down on my
+toilet a purse with three hundred pistoles. I saw him lay it down, and
+understood what he meant, but I took no notice of it till I came to it,
+as it were, casually; then I gave a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> great cry out, and fell a-scolding
+in my way, for he gave me all possible freedom of speech on such
+occasions. I told him he was unkind, that he would never give me an
+opportunity to ask for anything, and that he forced me to blush by being
+too much obliged, and the like; all which I knew was very agreeable to
+him, for as he was bountiful beyond measure, so he was infinitely
+obliged by my being so backward to ask any favours; and I was even with
+him, for I never asked him for a farthing in my life.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this rallying him, he told me I had either perfectly studied the
+art of humour, or else what was the greatest difficulty to others was
+natural to me, adding that nothing could be more obliging to a man of
+honour than not to be soliciting and craving.</p>
+
+<p>I told him nothing could be craving upon him, that he left no room for
+it; that I hoped he did not give merely to avoid the trouble of being
+importuned. I told him he might depend upon it that I should be reduced
+very low indeed before I offered to disturb him that way.</p>
+
+<p>He said a man of honour ought always to know what he ought to do; and as
+he did nothing but what he knew was reasonable, he gave me leave to be
+free with him if I wanted anything; that he had too much value for me to
+deny me anything if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> I asked, but that it was infinitely agreeable to
+him to hear me say that what he did was to my satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>We strained compliments thus a great while, and as he had me in his arms
+most part of the time, so upon all my expressions of his bounty to me he
+put a stop to me with his kisses, and would admit me to go on no
+farther.</p>
+
+<p>I should in this place mention that this prince was not a subject of
+France, though at that time he resided at Paris and was much at court,
+where, I suppose, he had or expected some considerable employment. But I
+mention it on this account, that a few days after this he came to me and
+told me he was come to bring me not the most welcome news that ever I
+heard from him in his life. I looked at him a little surprised; but he
+returned, "Do not be uneasy; it is as unpleasant to me as to you, but I
+come to consult with you about it and see if it cannot be made a little
+easy to us both."</p>
+
+<p>I seemed still more concerned and surprised. At last he said it was that
+he believed he should be obliged to go into Italy, which, though
+otherwise it was very agreeable to him, yet his parting with me made it
+a very dull thing but to think of.</p>
+
+<p>I sat mute, as one thunderstruck, for a good while; and it presently
+occurred to me that I was going to lose him, which, indeed, I could but
+ill bear the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> thoughts of; and as he told me I turned pale. "What's the
+matter?" said he hastily. "I have surprised you indeed," and stepping to
+the sideboard fills a dram of cordial water, which was of his own
+bringing, and comes to me. "Be not surprised," said he; "I'll go nowhere
+without you;" adding several other things so kind as nothing could
+exceed it.</p>
+
+<p>I might indeed turn pale, for I was very much surprised at first,
+believing that this was, as it often happens in such cases, only a
+project to drop me, and break off an amour which he had now carried on
+so long; and a thousand thoughts whirled about my head in the few
+moments while I was kept in suspense, for they were but a few. I say, I
+was indeed surprised, and might, perhaps, look pale, but I was not in
+any danger of fainting that I knew of.</p>
+
+<p>However, it not a little pleased me to see him so concerned and anxious
+about me, but I stopped a little when he put the cordial to my mouth,
+and taking the glass in my hand, I said, "My lord, your words are
+infinitely more of a cordial to me than this citron; for as nothing can
+be a greater affliction than to lose you, so nothing can be a greater
+satisfaction than the assurance that I shall not have that misfortune."</p>
+
+<p>He made me sit down, and sat down by me, and after saying a thousand
+kind things to me, he turns<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> upon me with a smile: "Why, will you
+venture yourself to Italy with me?" says he. I stopped a while, and then
+answered that I wondered he would ask me that question, for I would go
+anywhere in the world, or all over the world, wherever he should desire
+me, and give me the felicity of his company.</p>
+
+<p>Then he entered into a long account of the occasion of his journey, and
+how the king had engaged him to go, and some other circumstances which
+are not proper to enter into here; it being by no means proper to say
+anything that might lead the reader into the least guess at the person.</p>
+
+<p>But to cut short this part of the story, and the history of our journey
+and stay abroad, which would almost fill up a volume of itself, I say we
+spent all that evening in cheerful consultations about the manner of our
+travelling, the equipage and figure he should go in, and in what manner
+I should go. Several ways were proposed, but none seemed feasible, till
+at last I told him I thought it would be so troublesome, so expensive,
+and so public that it would be many ways inconvenient to him; and though
+it was a kind of death to me to lose him, yet that, rather than so very
+much perplex his affairs, I would submit to anything.</p>
+
+<p>At the next visit I filled his head with the same difficulties, and then
+at last came over him with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> proposal that I would stay in Paris, or
+where else he should direct; and when I heard of his safe arrival, would
+come away by myself, and place myself as near him as I could.</p>
+
+<p>This gave him no satisfaction at all, nor would he hear any more of it;
+but if I durst venture myself, as he called it, such a journey, he would
+not lose the satisfaction of my company; and as for the expense, that
+was not to be named; neither, indeed, was there room to name it, for I
+found that he travelled at the king's expense, as well for himself as
+for all his equipage, being upon a piece of secret service of the last
+importance.</p>
+
+<p>But after several debates between ourselves, he came to this resolution,
+viz., that he would travel incognito, and so he should avoid all public
+notice either of himself or of who went with him; and that then he
+should not only carry me with him, but have a perfect leisure of
+enjoying my agreeable company (as he was pleased to call it) all the
+way.</p>
+
+<p>This was so obliging that nothing could be more so. Upon this foot he
+immediately set to work to prepare things for his journey, and, by his
+directions, so did I too. But now I had a terrible difficulty upon me,
+and which way to get over it I knew not; and that was, in what manner to
+take care of what I had to leave behind me. I was rich, as I have said,
+very rich, and what to do with it I knew not;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> nor who to leave in trust
+I knew not. I had nobody but Amy in the world, and to travel without Amy
+was very uncomfortable, or to leave all I had in the world with her,
+and, if she miscarried, be ruined at once, was still a frightful
+thought; for Amy might die, and whose hands things might fall into I
+knew not. This gave me great uneasiness, and I knew not what to do; for
+I could not mention it to the prince, lest he should see that I was
+richer than he thought I was.</p>
+
+<p>But the prince made all this easy to me; for in concerting measures for
+our journey he started the thing himself, and asked me merrily one
+evening who I would trust with all my wealth in my absence.</p>
+
+<p>"My wealth, my lord," said I, "except what I owe to your goodness is but
+small, but yet that little I have, I confess, causes some
+thoughtfulness, because I have no acquaintance in Paris that I dare
+trust with it, nor anybody but my woman to leave in the house; and how
+to do without her upon the road I do not well know."</p>
+
+<p>"As to the road, be not concerned," says the prince; "I'll provide you
+servants to your mind; and as for your woman, if you can trust her,
+leave her here, and I'll put you in a way how to secure things as well
+as if you were at home." I bowed, and told him I could not be put into
+better hands than his own, and that, therefore, I would govern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> all my
+measures by his directions; so we talked no more of it that night.</p>
+
+<p>The next day he sent me in a great iron chest, so large that it was as
+much as six lusty fellows could get up the steps into the house; and in
+this I put, indeed, all my wealth; and for my safety he ordered a good,
+honest, ancient man and his wife to be in the house with her, to keep
+her company, and a maid-servant and boy; so that there was a good
+family, and Amy was madam, the mistress of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Things being thus secured, we set out incog., as he called it; but we
+had two coaches and six horses, two chaises, and about eight
+men-servants on horseback, all very well armed.</p>
+
+<p>Never was woman better used in this world that went upon no other
+account than I did. I had three women-servants to wait on me, one
+whereof was an old Madame &mdash;&mdash;, who thoroughly understood her business,
+and managed everything as if she had been major-domo; so I had no
+trouble. They had one coach to themselves, and the prince and I in the
+other; only that sometimes, where he knew it necessary, I went into
+their coach, and one particular gentleman of the retinue rode with him.</p>
+
+<p>I shall say no more of the journey than that when we came to those
+frightful mountains, the Alps, there was no travelling in our coaches,
+so he ordered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> a horse-litter, but carried by mules, to be provided for
+me, and himself went on horseback. The coaches went some other way back
+to Lyons. Then we had coaches hired at Turin, which met us at Suza; so
+that we were accommodated again, and went by easy journeys afterwards to
+Rome, where his business, whatever it was, called him to stay some time,
+and from thence to Venice.</p>
+
+<p>He was as good as his word, indeed; for I had the pleasure of his
+company, and, in a word, engrossed his conversation almost all the way.
+He took delight in showing me everything that was to be seen, and
+particularly in telling me something of the history of everything he
+showed me.</p>
+
+<p>What valuable pains were here thrown away upon one who he was sure, at
+last, to abandon with regret! How below himself did a man of quality and
+of a thousand accomplishments behave in all this! It is one of my
+reasons for entering into this part, which otherwise would not be worth
+relating. Had I been a daughter or a wife, of whom it might be said that
+he had a just concern in their instruction or improvement, it had been
+an admirable step; but all this to a whore; to one who he carried with
+him upon no account that could be rationally agreeable, and none but to
+gratify the meanest of human frailties&mdash;this was the wonder of it. But
+such is the power of a vicious inclination. Whoring was,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> in a word, his
+darling crime, the worst excursion he made, for he was otherwise one of
+the most excellent persons in the world. No passions, no furious
+excursions, no ostentatious pride; the most humble, courteous, affable
+person in the world. Not an oath, not an indecent word, or the least
+blemish in behaviour was to be seen in all his conversation, except as
+before excepted; and it has given me occasion for many dark reflections
+since, to look back and think that I should be the snare of such a
+person's life; that I should influence him to so much wickedness, and
+that I should be the instrument in the hand of the devil to do him so
+much prejudice.</p>
+
+<p>We were near two years upon this grand tour, as it may be called, during
+most of which I resided at Rome or at Venice, having only been twice at
+Florence and once at Naples. I made some very diverting and useful
+observations in all these places, and particularly of the conduct of the
+ladies; for I had opportunity to converse very much among them, by the
+help of the old witch that travelled with us. She had been at Naples and
+at Venice, and had lived in the former several years, where, as I found,
+she had lived but a loose life, as indeed the women of Naples generally
+do; and, in short, I found she was fully acquainted with all the
+intriguing arts of that part of the world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Here my lord bought me a little female Turkish slave, who, being taken
+at sea by a Maltese man-of-war, was brought in there, and of her I
+learnt the Turkish language, their way of dressing and dancing, and some
+Turkish, or rather Moorish, songs, of which I made use to my advantage
+on an extraordinary occasion some years after, as you shall hear in its
+place. I need not say I learnt Italian too, for I got pretty well
+mistress of that before I had been there a year; and as I had leisure
+enough and loved the language, I read all the Italian books I could come
+at.</p>
+
+<p>I began to be so in love with Italy, especially with Naples and Venice,
+that I could have been very well satisfied to have sent for Amy and have
+taken up my residence there for life.</p>
+
+<p>As to Rome, I did not like it at all. The swarms of ecclesiastics of all
+kinds on one side, and the scoundrel rabbles of the common people on the
+other, make Rome the unpleasantest place in the world to live in. The
+innumerable number of valets, lackeys, and other servants is such that
+they used to say that there are very few of the common people in Rome
+but what have been footmen, or porters, or grooms to cardinals or
+foreign ambassadors. In a word, they have an air of sharping and
+cozening, quarrelling and scolding, upon their general behaviour; and
+when I was there the footmen made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> such a broil between two great
+families in Rome, about which of their coaches (the ladies being in the
+coaches on either side) should give way to the other, that there was
+about thirty people wounded on both sides, five or six killed outside,
+and both the ladies frighted almost to death.</p>
+
+<p>But I have no mind to write the history of my travels on this side of
+the world, at least not now; it would be too full of variety.</p>
+
+<p>I must not, however, omit that the prince continued in all this journey
+the most kind, obliging person to me in the world, and so constant that,
+though we were in a country where it is well known all manner of
+liberties are taken, I am yet well assured he neither took the liberty
+he knew he might have, or so much as desired it.</p>
+
+<p>I have often thought of this noble person on that account. Had he been
+but half so true, so faithful and constant, to the best lady in the
+world&mdash;I mean his princess&mdash;how glorious a virtue had it been in him!
+And how free had he been from those just reflections which touched him
+in her behalf when it was too late!</p>
+
+<p>We had some very agreeable conversations upon this subject, and once he
+told me, with a kind of more than ordinary concern upon his thoughts,
+that he was greatly beholden to me for taking this hazardous and
+difficult journey, for that I had kept him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> honest. I looked up in his
+face, and coloured as red as fire. "Well, well," says he, "do not let
+that surprise you, I do say you have kept me honest." "My lord," said I,
+"'tis not for me to explain your words, but I wish I could turn them my
+own way. I hope," says I, "and believe we are both as honest as we can
+be in our circumstances." "Ay, ay," says he; "and honester than I doubt
+I should have been if you had not been with me. I cannot say but if you
+had not been here I should have wandered among the gay world here, in
+Naples, and in Venice too, for 'tis not such a crime here as 'tis in
+other places. But I protest," says he, "I have not touched a woman in
+Italy but yourself; and more than that, I have not so much as had any
+desire to it. So that, I say, you have kept me honest."</p>
+
+<p>I was silent, and was glad that he interrupted me, or kept me from
+speaking, with kissing me, for really I knew not what to say. I was once
+going to say that if his lady, the princess, had been with him, she
+would doubtless have had the same influence upon his virtue, with
+infinitely more advantage to him; but I considered this might give him
+offence; and, besides, such things might have been dangerous to the
+circumstance I stood in, so it passed off. But I must confess I saw that
+he was quite another man as to women than I understood he had always
+been before, and it was a particular satisfaction to me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> that I was
+thereby convinced that what he said was true, and that he was, as I may
+say, all my own.</p>
+
+<p>I was with child again in this journey, and lay in at Venice, but was
+not so happy as before. I brought him another son, and a very fine boy
+it was, but it lived not above two months; nor, after the first touches
+of affection (which are usual, I believe, to all mothers) were over, was
+I sorry the child did not live, the necessary difficulties attending it
+in our travelling being considered.</p>
+
+<p>After these several perambulations, my lord told me his business began
+to close, and we would think of returning to France, which I was very
+glad of, but principally on account of my treasure I had there, which,
+as you have heard, was very considerable. It is true I had letters very
+frequently from my maid Amy, with accounts that everything was very
+safe, and that was very much to my satisfaction. However, as the
+prince's negotiations were at an end, and he was obliged to return, I
+was very glad to go; so we returned from Venice to Turin, and in the way
+I saw the famous city of Milan. From Turin we went over the mountains
+again, as before, and our coaches met us at Pont &agrave; Voisin, between
+Chambery and Lyons; and so, by easy journeys, we arrived safely at
+Paris, having been absent two years, wanting about eleven days, as
+above.</p>
+
+<p>I found the little family we left just as we left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> them, and Amy cried
+for joy when she saw me, and I almost did the same.</p>
+
+<p>The prince took his leave of me the night before, for, as he told me, he
+knew he should be met upon the road by several persons of quality, and
+perhaps by the princess herself; so we lay at two different inns that
+night, lest some should come quite to the place, as indeed it happened.</p>
+
+<p>After this I saw him not for above twenty days, being taken up in his
+family, and also with business; but he sent me his gentleman to tell me
+the reason of it, and bid me not be uneasy, and that satisfied me
+effectually.</p>
+
+<p>In all this affluence of my good fortune I did not forget that I had
+been rich and poor once already alternately, and that I ought to know
+that the circumstances I was now in were not to be expected to last
+always; that I had one child, and expected another; and if I had bred
+often, it would something impair me in the great article that supported
+my interest&mdash;I mean, what he called beauty; that as that declined, I
+might expect the fire would abate, and the warmth with which I was now
+so caressed would cool, and in time, like the other mistresses of great
+men, I might be dropped again; and that therefore it was my business to
+take care that I should fall as softly as I could.</p>
+
+<p>I say, I did not forget, therefore, to make as good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> provision for
+myself as if I had had nothing to have subsisted on but what I now
+gained; whereas I had not less than ten thousand pounds, as I said
+above, which I had amassed, or secured rather, out of the ruins of my
+faithful friend the jeweller, and which he, little thinking of what was
+so near him when he went out, told me, though in a kind of a jest, was
+all my own, if he was knocked on the head, and which, upon that title, I
+took care to preserve.</p>
+
+<p>My greatest difficulty now was how to secure my wealth and to keep what
+I had got; for I had greatly added to this wealth by the generous bounty
+of the Prince &mdash;&mdash;, and the more by the private, retired mode of living,
+which he rather desired for privacy than parsimony; for he supplied me
+for a more magnificent way of life than I desired, if it had been
+proper.</p>
+
+<p>I shall cut short the history of this prosperous wickedness with telling
+you I brought him a third son, within little more than eleven months
+after our return from Italy; that now I lived a little more openly, and
+went by a particular name which he gave me abroad, but which I must
+omit, viz., the Countess de &mdash;&mdash;; and had coaches and servants, suitable
+to the quality he had given me the appearance of; and, which is more
+than usually happens in such cases, this held eight years from the
+beginning, during which time, as I had been very faithful to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> him, so I
+must say, as above, that I believe he was so separated to me, that
+whereas he usually had two or three women, which he kept privately, he
+had not in all that time meddled with any of them, but that I had so
+perfectly engrossed him that he dropped them all. Not, perhaps, that he
+saved much by it, for I was a very chargeable mistress to him, that I
+must acknowledge, but it was all owing to his particular affection to
+me, not to my extravagance, for, as I said, he never gave me leave to
+ask him for anything, but poured in his favours and presents faster than
+I expected, and so fast as I could not have the assurance to make the
+least mention of desiring more. Nor do I speak this of my own guess, I
+mean about his constancy to me and his quitting all other women; but the
+old harridan, as I may call her, whom he made the guide of our
+travelling, and who was a strange old creature, told me a thousand
+stories of his gallantry, as she called it, and how, as he had no less
+than three mistresses at one time, and, as I found, all of her
+procuring, he had of a sudden dropped them all, and that he was entirely
+lost to both her and them; that they did believe he had fallen into some
+new hands, but she could never hear who, or where, till he sent for her
+to go this journey; and then the old hag complimented me upon his
+choice; that she did not wonder I had so engrossed him; so much beauty,
+&amp;c.; and there she stopped.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Upon the whole, I found by her what was, you may be sure, to my
+particular satisfaction, viz., that, as above, I had him all my own. But
+the highest tide has its ebb; and in all things of this kind there is a
+reflux which sometimes, also, is more impetuously violent than the first
+aggression. My prince was a man of a vast fortune, though no sovereign,
+and therefore there was no probability that the expense of keeping a
+mistress could be injurious to him, as to his estate. He had also
+several employments, both out of France as well as in it; for, as above,
+I say he was not a subject of France, though he lived in that court. He
+had a princess, a wife with whom he had lived several years, and a woman
+(so the voice of fame reported) the most valuable of her sex, of birth
+equal to him, if not superior, and of fortune proportionable; but in
+beauty, wit, and a thousand good qualities superior, not to most women,
+but even to all her sex; and as to her virtue, the character which was
+justly her due was that of, not only the best of princesses, but even
+the best of women.</p>
+
+<p>They lived in the utmost harmony, as with such a princess it was
+impossible to be otherwise. But yet the princess was not insensible that
+her lord had his foibles, that he did make some excursions, and
+particularly that he had one favourite mistress, which sometimes
+engrossed him more than she (the princess)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> could wish, or be easily
+satisfied with. However, she was so good, so generous, so truly kind a
+wife, that she never gave him any uneasiness on this account; except so
+much as must arise from his sense of her bearing the affront of it with
+such patience, and such a profound respect for him as was in itself
+enough to have reformed him, and did sometimes shock his generous mind,
+so as to keep him at home, as I may call it, a great while together. And
+it was not long before I not only perceived it by his absence, but
+really got a knowledge of the reason of it, and once or twice he even
+acknowledged it to me.</p>
+
+<p>It was a point that lay not in me to manage. I made a kind of motion
+once or twice to him to leave me, and keep himself to her, as he ought
+by the laws and rites of matrimony to do, and argued the generosity of
+the princess to him, to persuade him; but I was a hypocrite, for had I
+prevailed with him really to be honest, I had lost him, which I could
+not bear the thoughts of; and he might easily see I was not in earnest.
+One time in particular, when I took upon me to talk at this rate, I
+found, when I argued so much for the virtue and honour, the birth, and,
+above all, the generous usage he found in the person of the princess
+with respect to his private amours, and how it should prevail upon him,
+&amp;c., I found it began to affect him, and he returned, "And do you
+indeed," says he, "persuade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> me to leave you? Would you have me think
+you sincere?" I looked up in his face, smiling. "Not for any other
+favourite, my lord," says I; "that would break my heart; but for madam
+the princess!" said I; and then I could say no more. Tears followed, and
+I sat silent a while. "Well," said he, "if ever I do leave you, it shall
+be on the virtuous account; it shall be for the princess; I assure you
+it shall be for no other woman." "That's enough, my lord," said I;
+"there I ought to submit; and while I am assured it shall be for no
+other mistress, I promise your Highness I will not repine; or that, if I
+do, it shall be a silent grief; it shall not interrupt your felicity."</p>
+
+<p>All this while I said I knew not what, and said what I was no more able
+to do than he was able to leave me; which, at that time, he owned he
+could not do&mdash;no, not for the princess herself.</p>
+
+<p>But another turn of affairs determined this matter, for the princess was
+taken very ill, and, in the opinion of all her physicians, very
+dangerously so. In her sickness she desired to speak with her lord, and
+to take her leave of him. At this grievous parting she said so many
+passionate, kind things to him, lamented that she had left him no
+children (she had had three, but they were dead); hinted to him that it
+was one of the chief things which gave her satisfaction in death, as to
+this world, that she should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> leave him room to have heirs to his family,
+by some princess that should supply her place; with all humility, but
+with a Christian earnestness, recommended to him to do justice to such
+princess, whoever it should be, from whom, to be sure, he would expect
+justice; that is to say, to keep to her singly, according to the
+solemnest part of the marriage covenant; humbly asked his Highness's
+pardon if she had any way offended him; and appealing to Heaven, before
+whose tribunal she was to appear, that she had never violated her honour
+or her duty to him, and praying to Jesus and the blessed Virgin for his
+Highness; and thus, with the most moving and most passionate expressions
+of her affection to him, took her last leave of him, and died the next
+day.</p>
+
+<p>This discourse, from a princess so valuable in herself and so dear to
+him, and the loss of her following so immediately after, made such deep
+impressions on him that he looked back with detestation upon the former
+part of his life, grew melancholy and reserved, changed his society and
+much of the general conduct of his life, resolved on a life regulated
+most strictly by the rules of virtue and piety, and, in a word, was
+quite another man.</p>
+
+<p>The first part of his reformation was a storm upon me; for, about ten
+days after the princess's funeral, he sent a message to me by his
+gentleman,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> intimating, though in very civil terms, and with a short
+preamble or introduction, that he desired I would not take it ill that
+he was obliged to let me know that he could see me no more. His
+gentleman told me a long story of the new regulation of life his lord
+had taken up; and that he had been so afflicted for the loss of his
+princess that he thought it would either shorten his life or he would
+retire into some religious house, to end his days in solitude.</p>
+
+<p>I need not direct anybody to suppose how I received this news. I was
+indeed exceedingly surprised at it, and had much ado to support myself
+when the first part of it was delivered, though the gentleman delivered
+his errand with great respect, and with all the regard to me that he was
+able, and with a great deal of ceremony, also telling me how much he was
+concerned to bring me such a message.</p>
+
+<p>But when I heard the particulars of the story at large, and especially
+that of the lady's discourse to the prince a little before her death, I
+was fully satisfied. I knew very well he had done nothing but what any
+man must do that had a true sense upon him of the justice of the
+princess's discourse to him, and of the necessity there was of his
+altering his course of life, if he intended to be either a Christian or
+an honest man. I say, when I heard this I was perfectly easy. I confess
+it was a cir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>cumstance that it might be reasonably expected should have
+wrought something also upon me; I that had so much to reflect upon more
+than the prince; that had now no more temptation of poverty, or of the
+powerful motive which Amy used with me&mdash;namely, comply and live, deny
+and starve; I say, I that had no poverty to introduce vice, but was
+grown not only well supplied, but rich; and not only rich, but was very
+rich; in a word, richer than I knew how to think of, for the truth of it
+was, that thinking of it sometimes almost distracted me, for want of
+knowing how to dispose of it, and for fear of losing it all again by
+some cheat or trick, not knowing anybody that I could commit the trust
+of it to.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, I should add, at the close of this affair, that the prince did
+not, as I may say, turn me off rudely and with disgust, but with all the
+decency and goodness peculiar to himself, and that could consist with a
+man reformed and struck with the sense of his having abused so good a
+lady as his late princess had been. Nor did he send me away empty, but
+did everything like himself; and, in particular, ordered his gentleman
+to pay the rent of the house and all the expense of his two sons, and to
+tell me how they were taken care of, and where, and also that I might at
+all times inspect the usage they had, and if I disliked anything it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+should be rectified; and having thus finished everything, he retired
+into Lorraine, or somewhere that way, where he had an estate, and I
+never heard of him more&mdash;I mean, not as a mistress.</p>
+
+<p>Now I was at liberty to go to any part of the world, and take care of my
+money myself. The first thing that I resolved to do was to go directly
+to England, for there, I thought, being among my country-folks&mdash;for I
+esteemed myself an Englishwoman, though I was born in France&mdash;there, I
+say, I thought I could better manage things than in France; at least,
+that I would be in less danger of being circumvented and deceived; but
+how to get away with such a treasure as I had with me was a difficult
+point, and what I was greatly at a loss about.</p>
+
+<p>There was a Dutch merchant in Paris, that was a person of great
+reputation for a man of substance and of honesty, but I had no manner of
+acquaintance with him, nor did I know how to get acquainted with him, so
+as to discover my circumstances to him; but at last I employed my maid
+Amy (such I must be allowed to call her, notwithstanding what has been
+said of her, because she was in the place of a maid-servant); I say, I
+employed my maid Amy to go to him, and she got a recommendation to him
+from somebody else, I knew not who, so that she got access to him well
+enough.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But now was my case as bad as before, for when I came to him what could
+I do? I had money and jewels to a vast value, and I might leave all
+those with him; that I might indeed do; and so I might with several
+other merchants in Paris, who would give me bills for it, payable at
+London; but then I ran a hazard of my money, and I had nobody at London
+to send the bills to, and so to stay till I had an account that they
+were accepted; for I had not one friend in London that I could have
+recourse to, so that indeed I knew not what to do.</p>
+
+<p>In this case I had no remedy but that I must trust somebody, so I sent
+Amy to this Dutch merchant, as I said above. He was a little surprised
+when Amy came to him and talked to him of remitting a sum of about
+twelve thousand pistoles to England, and began to think she came to put
+some cheat upon him; but when he found that Amy was but a servant, and
+that I came to him myself, the case was altered presently.</p>
+
+<p>When I came to him myself, I presently saw such a plainness in his
+dealing and such honesty in his countenance that I made no scruple to
+tell him my whole story, viz., that I was a widow, that I had some
+jewels to dispose of, and also some money which I had a mind to send to
+England, and to follow there myself; but being but a woman, and having
+no correspondence in London, or anywhere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> else, I knew not what to do,
+or how to secure my effects.</p>
+
+<p>He dealt very candidly with me, but advised me, when he knew my case so
+particularly, to take bills upon Amsterdam, and to go that way to
+England; for that I might lodge my treasure in the bank there, in the
+most secure manner in the world, and that there he could recommend me to
+a man who perfectly understood jewels, and would deal faithfully with me
+in the disposing them.</p>
+
+<p>I thanked him, but scrupled very much the travelling so far in a strange
+country, and especially with such a treasure about me; that, whether
+known or concealed, I did not know how to venture with it. Then he told
+me he would try to dispose of them there, that is, at Paris, and convert
+them into money, and so get me bills for the whole; and in a few days he
+brought a Jew to me, who pretended to buy the jewels. As soon as the Jew
+saw the jewels I saw my folly, and it was ten thousand to one but I had
+been ruined, and perhaps put to death in as cruel a manner as possible;
+and I was put in such a fright by it that I was once upon the point of
+flying for my life, and leaving the jewels and money too in the hands of
+the Dutchman, without any bills or anything else. The case was thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the Jew saw the jewels he falls a-jab<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>bering, in Dutch or
+Portuguese, to the merchant; and I could presently perceive that they
+were in some great surprise, both of them. The Jew held up his hands,
+looked at me with some horror, then talked Dutch again, and put himself
+into a thousand shapes, twisting his body and wringing up his face this
+way and that way in his discourse, stamping with his feet, and throwing
+abroad his hands, as if he was not in a rage only, but in a mere fury.
+Then he would turn and give a look at me like the devil. I thought I
+never saw anything so frightful in my life.</p>
+
+<p>At length I put in a word. "Sir," says I to the Dutch merchant, "what is
+all this discourse to my business? What is this gentleman in all these
+passions about? I wish, if he is to treat with me, he would speak that I
+may understand him; or if you have business of your own between you that
+is to be done first, let me withdraw, and I'll come again when you are
+at leisure."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, madam," says the Dutchman very kindly, "you must not go; all
+our discourse is about you and your jewels, and you shall hear it
+presently; it concerns you very much, I assure you." "Concern me!" says
+I. "What can it concern me so much as to put this gentleman into such
+agonies, and what makes him give me such devil's looks as he does? Why,
+he looks as if he would devour me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Jew understood me presently, continuing in a kind of rage, and spoke
+in French: "Yes, madam, it does concern you much, very much, very much,"
+repeating the words, shaking his head; and then turning to the Dutchman,
+"Sir," says he, "pray tell her what is the case." "No," says the
+merchant, "not yet; let us talk a little farther of it by ourselves;"
+upon which they withdrew into another room, where still they talked very
+high, but in a language I did not understand. I began to be a little
+surprised at what the Jew had said, you may be sure, and eager to know
+what he meant, and was very impatient till the Dutch merchant came back,
+and that so impatient that I called one of his servants to let him know
+I desired to speak with him. When he came in I asked his pardon for
+being so impatient, but told him I could not be easy till he had told me
+what the meaning of all this was. "Why, madam," says the Dutch merchant,
+"in short, the meaning is what I am surprised at too. This man is a Jew,
+and understands jewels perfectly well, and that was the reason I sent
+for him, to dispose of them to him for you; but as soon as he saw them,
+he knew the jewels very distinctly, and flying out in a passion, as you
+see he did, told me, in short, that they were the very parcel of jewels
+which the English jeweller had about him who was robbed going to
+Versailles, about eight years ago, to show them the Prince de &mdash;&mdash;,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> and
+that it was for these very jewels that the poor gentleman was murdered;
+and he is in all this agony to make me ask you how you came by them; and
+he says you ought to be charged with the robbery and murder, and put to
+the question to discover who were the persons that did it, that they
+might be brought to justice." While he said this the Jew came impudently
+back into the room without calling, which a little surprised me again.</p>
+
+<p>The Dutch merchant spoke pretty good English, and he knew that the Jew
+did not understand English at all, so he told me the latter part, when
+he came into the room, in English, at which I smiled, which put the Jew
+into his mad fit again, and shaking his head and making his devil's
+faces again, he seemed to threaten me for laughing, saying, in French,
+this was an affair I should have little reason to laugh at, and the
+like. At this I laughed again, and flouted him, letting him see that I
+scorned him, and turning to the Dutch merchant, "Sir," says I, "that
+those jewels were belonging to Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, the English jeweller" (naming
+his name readily), "in that," says I, "this person is right; but that I
+should be questioned how I came to have them is a token of his
+ignorance, which, however, he might have managed with a little more good
+manners, till I told him who I am, and both he and you too will be more
+easy in that part when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> I should tell you that I am the unhappy widow of
+that Mr. &mdash;&mdash; who was so barbarously murdered going to Versailles, and
+that he was not robbed of those jewels, but of others, Mr. &mdash;&mdash; having
+left those behind him with me, lest he should be robbed. Had I, sir,
+come otherwise by them, I should not have been weak enough to have
+exposed them to sale here, where the thing was done, but have carried
+them farther off."</p>
+
+<p>This was an agreeable surprise to the Dutch merchant, who, being an
+honest man himself, believed everything I said, which, indeed, being all
+really and literally true, except the deficiency of my marriage, I spoke
+with such an unconcerned easiness that it might plainly be seen that I
+had no guilt upon me, as the Jew suggested.</p>
+
+<p>The Jew was confounded when he heard that I was the jeweller's wife. But
+as I had raised his passion with saying he looked at me with the devil's
+face, he studied mischief in his heart, and answered, that should not
+serve my turn; so called the Dutchman out again, when he told him that
+he resolved to prosecute this matter farther.</p>
+
+<p>There was one kind chance in this affair, which, indeed, was my
+deliverance, and that was, that the fool could not restrain his passion,
+but must let it fly to the Dutch merchant, to whom, when they withdrew a
+second time, as above, he told that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> would bring a process against me
+for the murder, and that it should cost me dear for using him at that
+rate; and away he went, desiring the Dutch merchant to tell him when I
+would be there again. Had he suspected that the Dutchman would have
+communicated the particulars to me, he would never have been so foolish
+as to have mentioned that part to him.</p>
+
+<p>But the malice of his thoughts anticipated him, and the Dutch merchant
+was so good as to give me an account of his design, which, indeed, was
+wicked enough in its nature; but to me it would have been worse than
+otherwise it would to another, for, upon examination, I could not have
+proved myself to be the wife of the jeweller, so the suspicion might
+have been carried on with the better face; and then I should also have
+brought all his relations in England upon me, who, finding by the
+proceedings that I was not his wife, but a mistress, or, in English, a
+whore, would immediately have laid claim to the jewels, as I had owned
+them to be his.</p>
+
+<p>This thought immediately rushed into my head as soon as the Dutch
+merchant had told me what wicked things were in the head of that cursed
+Jew; and the villain (for so I must call him) convinced the Dutch
+merchant that he was in earnest by an expression which showed the rest
+of his design, and that was, a plot to get the rest of the jewels into
+his hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When first he hinted to the Dutchman that the jewels were such a man's
+(meaning my husband's), he made wonderful exclamations on account of
+their having been concealed so long. Where must they have lain? And what
+was the woman that brought them? And that she (meaning me) ought to be
+immediately apprehended and put into the hands of justice. And this was
+the time that, as I said, he made such horrid gestures and looked at me
+so like a devil.</p>
+
+<p>The merchant, hearing him talk at that rate, and seeing him in earnest,
+said to him, "Hold your tongue a little; this is a thing of consequence.
+If it be so, let you and I go into the next room and consider of it
+there;" and so they withdrew, and left me.</p>
+
+<p>Here, as before, I was uneasy, and called him out, and, having heard how
+it was, gave him that answer, that I was his wife, or widow, which the
+malicious Jew said should not serve my turn. And then it was that the
+Dutchman called him out again; and in this time of his withdrawing, the
+merchant, finding, as above, that he was really in earnest,
+counterfeited a little to be of his mind, and entered into proposals
+with him for the thing itself.</p>
+
+<p>In this they agreed to go to an advocate, or counsel, for directions how
+to proceed, and to meet again the next day, against which time the
+merchant was to appoint me to come again with the jewels,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> in order to
+sell them. "No," says the merchant, "I will go farther with her than so;
+I will desire her to leave the jewels with me, to show to another
+person, in order to get the better price for them." "That's right," says
+the Jew; "and I'll engage she shall never be mistress of them again;
+they shall either be seized by us," says he, "in the king's name, or she
+shall be glad to give them up to us to prevent her being put to the
+torture."</p>
+
+<p>The merchant said "Yes" to everything he offered, and they agreed to
+meet the next morning about it, and I was to be persuaded to leave the
+jewels with him, and come to them the next day at four o'clock in order
+to make a good bargain for them; and on these conditions they parted.
+But the honest Dutchman, filled with indignation at the barbarous
+design, came directly to me and told me the whole story. "And now,
+madam," says he, "you are to consider immediately what you have to do."</p>
+
+<p>I told him, if I was sure to have justice, I would not fear all that
+such a rogue could do to me; but how such things were carried on in
+France I knew not. I told him the greatest difficulty would be to prove
+our marriage, for that it was done in England, and in a remote part of
+England too; and, which was worse, it would be hard to produce authentic
+vouchers of it, because we were married in private. "But as to the death
+of your husband,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> madam, what can be said to that?" said he. "Nay," said
+I, "what can they say to it? In England," added I, "if they would offer
+such an injury to any one, they must prove the fact or give just reason
+for their suspicions. That my husband was murdered, that every one
+knows; but that he was robbed, or of what, or how much, that none
+knows&mdash;no, not myself; and why was I not questioned for it then? I have
+lived in Paris ever since, lived publicly, and no man had yet the
+impudence to suggest such a thing of me."</p>
+
+<p>"I am fully satisfied of that," says the merchant; "but as this is a
+rogue who will stick at nothing, what can we say? And who knows what he
+may swear? Suppose he should swear that he knows your husband had those
+particular jewels with him the morning when he went out, and that he
+showed them to him to consider their value, and what price he should ask
+the Prince de &mdash;&mdash; for them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, by the same rule," said I, "he may swear that I murdered my
+husband, if he finds it for his turn." "That's true," said he; "and if
+he should, I do not see what could save you;" but added, "I have found
+out his more immediate design. His design is to have you carried to the
+Ch&acirc;telet, that the suspicion may appear just, and then to get the jewels
+out of your hands if possible; then, at last, to drop the prosecution on
+your consenting to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> quit the jewels to him; and how you will do to avoid
+this is the question which I would have you consider of."</p>
+
+<p>"My misfortune, sir," said I, "is that I have no time to consider, and I
+have no person to consider with or advise about it. I find that
+innocence may be oppressed by such an impudent fellow as this; he that
+does not value perjury has any man's life at his mercy. But, sir," said
+I, "is the justice such here that, while I may be in the hands of the
+public and under prosecution, he may get hold of my effects and get my
+jewels into his hands?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," says he, "what may be done in that case; but if not he,
+if the court of justice should get hold of them I do not know but you
+may find it as difficult to get them out of their hands again, and, at
+least, it may cost you half as much as they are worth; so I think it
+would be a much better way to prevent their coming at them at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But what course can I take to do that," says I, "now they have got
+notice that I have them? If they get me into their hands they will
+oblige me to produce them, or perhaps sentence me to prison till I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," says he, "as this brute says, too, put you to the question&mdash;that
+is, to the torture, on pretence of making you confess who were the
+murderers of your husband."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Confess!" said I. "How can I confess what I know nothing of?"</p>
+
+<p>"If they come to have you to the rack," said he, "they will make you
+confess you did it yourself, whether you did it or no, and then you are
+cast."</p>
+
+<p>The very word rack frighted me to death almost, and I had no spirit left
+in me. "Did it myself!" said I. "That's impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, madam," says he, "'tis far from impossible. The most innocent
+people in the world have been forced to confess themselves guilty of
+what they never heard of, much less had any hand in."</p>
+
+<p>"What, then, must I do?" said I. "What would you advise me to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," says he, "I would advise you to be gone. You intended to go away
+in four or five days, and you may as well go in two days; and if you can
+do so, I shall manage it so that he shall not suspect your being gone
+for several days after." Then he told me how the rogue would have me
+ordered to bring the jewels the next day for sale, and that then he
+would have me apprehended; how he had made the Jew believe he would join
+with him in his design, and that he (the merchant) would get the jewels
+into his hands. "Now," says the merchant, "I shall give you bills for
+the money you desired, immediately, and such as shall not fail of being
+paid. Take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> your jewels with you, and go this very evening to St.
+Germain-en-Laye; I'll send a man thither with you, and from thence he
+shall guide you to-morrow to Rouen, where there lies a ship of mine,
+just ready to sail for Rotterdam; you shall have your passage in that
+ship on my account, and I will send orders for him to sail as soon as
+you are on board, and a letter to my friend at Rotterdam to entertain
+and take care of you."</p>
+
+<p>This was too kind an offer for me, as things stood, not to be accepted,
+and be thankful for; and as to going away, I had prepared everything for
+parting, so that I had little to do but to go back, take two or three
+boxes and bundles, and such things, and my maid Amy, and be gone.</p>
+
+<p>Then the merchant told me the measures he had resolved to take to delude
+the Jew while I made my escape, which was very well contrived indeed.
+"First," said he, "when he comes to-morrow I shall tell him that I
+proposed to you to leave the jewels with me, as we agreed, but that you
+said you would come and bring them in the afternoon, so that we must
+stay for you till four o'clock; but then, at that time, I will show a
+letter from you, as if just come in, wherein you shall excuse your not
+coming, for that some company came to visit you, and prevented you; but
+that you desire me to take care that the gentleman be ready to buy your
+jewels, and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> you will come to-morrow at the same hour, without
+fail.</p>
+
+<p>"When to-morrow is come, we shall wait at the time, but you not
+appearing, I shall seem most dissatisfied, and wonder what can be the
+reason; and so we shall agree to go the next day to get out a process
+against you. But the next day, in the morning, I'll send to give him
+notice that you have been at my house, but he not being there, have made
+another appointment, and that I desire to speak with him. When he comes,
+I'll tell him you appear perfectly blind as to your danger, and that you
+appeared much disappointed that he did not come, though you could not
+meet the night before; and obliged me to have him here to-morrow at
+three o'clock. When to-morrow comes," says he, "you shall send word that
+you are taken so ill that you cannot come out for that day, but that you
+will not fail the next day; and the next day you shall neither come or
+send, nor let us ever hear any more of you; for by that time you shall
+be in Holland, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>I could not but approve all his measures, seeing they were so well
+contrived, and in so friendly a manner, for my benefit; and as he seemed
+to be so very sincere, I resolved to put my life in his hands.
+Immediately I went to my lodgings, and sent away Amy with such bundles
+as I had prepared for my travelling. I also sent several parcels of my
+fine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> furniture to the merchant's house to be laid up for me, and
+bringing the key of the lodgings with me, I came back to his house. Here
+we finished our matters of money, and I delivered into his hands seven
+thousand eight hundred pistoles in bills and money, a copy of an
+assignment on the townhouse of Paris for four thousand pistoles, at
+three per cent. interest, attested, and a procuration for receiving the
+interest half-yearly; but the original I kept myself.</p>
+
+<p>I could have trusted all I had with him, for he was perfectly honest,
+and had not the least view of doing me any wrong. Indeed, after it was
+so apparent that he had, as it were, saved my life, or at least saved me
+from being exposed and ruined&mdash;I say, after this, how could I doubt him
+in anything?</p>
+
+<p>When I came to him, he had everything ready as I wanted, and as he had
+proposed. As to my money, he gave me first of all an accepted bill,
+payable at Rotterdam, for four thousand pistoles, and drawn from Genoa
+upon a merchant at Rotterdam, payable to a merchant at Paris, and
+endorsed by him to my merchant; this, he assured me, would be punctually
+paid; and so it was, to a day. The rest I had in other bills of
+exchange, drawn by himself upon other merchants in Holland. Having
+secured my jewels too, as well as I could, he sent me away the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+evening in a friend's coach, which he had procured for me, to St.
+Germain, and the next morning to Rouen. He also sent a servant of his
+own on horseback with me, who provided everything for me, and who
+carried his orders to the captain of the ship, which lay about three
+miles below Rouen, in the river, and by his directions I went
+immediately on board. The third day after I was on board the ship went
+away, and we were out at sea the next day after that; and thus I took my
+leave of France, and got clear of an ugly business, which, had it gone
+on, might have ruined me, and sent me back as naked to England as I was
+a little before I left it.</p>
+
+<p>And now Amy and I were at leisure to look upon the mischiefs that we had
+escaped; and had I had any religion or any sense of a Supreme Power,
+managing, directing, and governing in both causes and events in this
+world, such a case as this would have given anybody room to have been
+very thankful to the Power who had not only put such a treasure into my
+hand, but given me such an escape from the ruin that threatened me; but
+I had none of those things about me. I had, indeed, a grateful sense
+upon my mind of the generous friendship of my deliverer, the Dutch
+merchant, by whom I was so faithfully served, and by whom, as far as
+relates to second causes, I was preserved from destruction.</p>
+
+<p>I say, I had a grateful sense upon my mind of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> kindness and
+faithfulness to me, and I resolved to show him some testimony of it as
+soon as I came to the end of my rambles, for I was yet but in a state of
+uncertainty, and sometimes that gave me a little uneasiness too. I had
+paper indeed for my money, and he had showed himself very good to me in
+conveying me away, as above; but I had not seen the end of things yet,
+for unless the bills were paid, I might still be a great loser by my
+Dutchman, and he might, perhaps, have contrived all that affair of the
+Jew to put me into a fright and get me to run away, and that as if it
+were to save my life; that if the bills should be refused, I was cheated
+with a witness, and the like. But these were but surmises, and, indeed,
+were perfectly without cause, for the honest man acted as honest men
+always do, with an upright and disinterested principle, and with a
+sincerity not often to be found in the world. What gain he made by the
+exchange was just, and was nothing but what was his due, and was in the
+way of his business; but otherwise he made no advantage of me at all.</p>
+
+<p>When I passed in the ship between Dover and Calais and saw beloved
+England once more under my view&mdash;England, which I counted my native
+country, being the place I was bred up in, though not born there&mdash;a
+strange kind of joy possessed my mind, and I had such a longing desire
+to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> there that I would have given the master of the ship twenty
+pistoles to have stood over and set me on shore in the Downs; and when
+he told me he could not do it&mdash;that is, that he durst not do it if I
+would have given him a hundred pistoles&mdash;I secretly wished that a storm
+would rise that might drive the ship over to the coast of England,
+whether they would or not, that I might be set on shore anywhere upon
+English ground.</p>
+
+<p>This wicked wish had not been out of my thoughts above two or three
+hours, but the master steering away to the north, as was his course to
+do, we lost sight of land on that side, and only had the Flemish shore
+in view on our right hand, or, as the seamen call it, the starboard
+side; and then, with the loss of the sight, the wish for landing in
+England abated, and I considered how foolish it was to wish myself out
+of the way of my business; that if I had been on shore in England, I
+must go back to Holland on account of my bills, which were so
+considerable, and I having no correspondence there, that I could not
+have managed it without going myself. But we had not been out of sight
+of England many hours before the weather began to change; the winds
+whistled and made a noise, and the seamen said to one another that it
+would blow hard at night. It was then about two hours before sunset, and
+we were passed by Dunkirk, and I think they said we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> were in sight of
+Ostend; but then the wind grew high and the sea swelled, and all things
+looked terrible, especially to us that understood nothing but just what
+we saw before us; in short, night came on, and very dark it was; the
+wind freshened and blew harder and harder, and about two hours within
+night it blew a terrible storm.</p>
+
+<p>I was not quite a stranger to the sea, having come from Rochelle to
+England when I was a child, and gone from London, by the River Thames,
+to France afterward, as I have said. But I began to be alarmed a little
+with the terrible clamour of the men over my head, for I had never been
+in a storm, and so had never seen the like, or heard it; and once
+offering to look out at the door of the steerage, as they called it, it
+struck me with such horror (the darkness, the fierceness of the wind,
+the dreadful height of the waves, and the hurry the Dutch sailors were
+in, whose language I did not understand one word of, neither when they
+cursed or when they prayed); I say, all these things together filled me
+with terror, and, in short, I began to be very much frighted.</p>
+
+<p>When I was come back into the great cabin, there sat Amy, who was very
+sea-sick, and I had a little before given her a sup of cordial waters to
+help her stomach. When Amy saw me come back and sit down without
+speaking, for so I did, she looked two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> or three times up at me; at last
+she came running to me. "Dear madam," says she, "what is the matter?
+What makes you look so pale? Why, you an't well; what is the matter?" I
+said nothing still, but held up my hands two or three times. Amy doubled
+her importunities; upon that I said no more but, "Step to the
+steerage-door, and look out, as I did;" so she went away immediately,
+and looked too, as I had bidden her; but the poor girl came back again
+in the greatest amazement and horror that ever I saw any poor creature
+in, wringing her hands and crying out she was undone! she was undone!
+she should be drowned! they were all lost! Thus she ran about the cabin
+like a mad thing, and as perfectly out of her senses as any one in such
+a case could be supposed to be. I was frighted myself, but when I saw
+the girl in such a terrible agony, it brought me a little to myself, and
+I began to talk to her and put her in a little hope. I told her there
+was many a ship in a storm that was not cast away, and I hoped we should
+not be drowned; that it was true the storm was very dreadful, but I did
+not see that the seamen were so much concerned as we were. And so I
+talked to her as well as I could, though my heart was full enough of it,
+as well as Amy's; and death began to stare in my face; ay, and something
+else too&mdash;that is to say, conscience, and my mind was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> very much
+disturbed; but I had nobody to comfort me.</p>
+
+<p>But Amy being in so much worse a condition&mdash;that is to say, so much more
+terrified at the storm than I was&mdash;I had something to do to comfort her.
+She was, as I have said, like one distracted, and went raving about the
+cabin, crying out she was undone! undone! she should be drowned! and the
+like. And at last, the ship giving a jerk, by the force, I suppose, of
+some violent wave, it threw poor Amy quite down, for she was weak enough
+before with being sea-sick, and as it threw her forward, the poor girl
+struck her head against the bulk-head, as the seamen call it, of the
+cabin, and laid her as dead as a stone upon the floor or deck; that is
+to say, she was so to all appearance.</p>
+
+<p>I cried out for help, but it had been all one to have cried out on the
+top of a mountain where nobody had been within five miles of me, for the
+seamen were so engaged and made so much noise that nobody heard me or
+came near me. I opened the great cabin door, and looked into the
+steerage to cry for help, but there, to increase my fright, was two
+seamen on their knees at prayers, and only one man who steered, and he
+made a groaning noise too, which I took to be saying his prayers, but it
+seems it was answering to those above, when they called to him to tell
+him which way to steer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Here was no help for me, or for poor Amy, and there she lay still so,
+and in such a condition, that I did not know whether she was dead or
+alive. In this fright I went to her, and lifted her a little way up,
+setting her on the deck, with her back to the boards of the bulk-head;
+and I got a little bottle out of my pocket, and I held it to her nose,
+and rubbed her temples and what else I could do, but still Amy showed no
+signs of life, till I felt for her pulse, but could hardly distinguish
+her to be alive. However, after a great while, she began to revive, and
+in about half-an-hour she came to herself, but remembered nothing at
+first of what had happened to her for a good while more.</p>
+
+<p>When she recovered more fully, she asked me where she was. I told her
+she was in the ship yet, but God knows how long it might be. "Why,
+madam," says she, "is not the storm over?" "No, no," says I, "Amy."
+"Why, madam," says she, "it was calm just now" (meaning when she was in
+the swooning fit occasioned by her fall). "Calm, Amy!" says I. "'Tis far
+from calm. It may be it will be calm by-and-by, when we are all drowned
+and gone to heaven."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven, madam!" says she. "What makes you talk so? Heaven! I go to
+heaven! No, no; if I am drowned I am damned! Don't you know what a
+wicked creature I have been? I have been a whore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> to two men, and have
+lived a wretched, abominable life of vice and wickedness for fourteen
+years. Oh, madam! you know it, and God knows it, and now I am to die&mdash;to
+be drowned! Oh! what will become of me? I am undone for ever!&mdash;ay,
+madam, for ever! to all eternity! Oh! I am lost! I am lost! If I am
+drowned, I am lost for ever!"</p>
+
+<p>All these, you will easily suppose, must be so many stabs into the very
+soul of one in my own case. It immediately occurred to me, "Poor Amy!
+what art thou that I am not? What hast thou been that I have not been?
+Nay, I am guilty of my own sin and thine too." Then it came to my
+remembrance that I had not only been the same with Amy, but that I had
+been the devil's instrument to make her wicked; that I had stripped her,
+and prostituted her to the very man that I had been naught with myself;
+that she had but followed me, I had been her wicked example; and I had
+led her into all; and that, as we had sinned together, now we were
+likely to sink together.</p>
+
+<p>All this repeated itself to my thoughts at that very moment, and every
+one of Amy's cries sounded thus in my ears: "I am the wicked cause of it
+all! I have been thy ruin, Amy! I have brought thee to this, and now
+thou art to suffer for the sin I have enticed thee to! And if thou art
+lost for ever, what must I be? what must be my portion?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is true this difference was between us, that I said all these things
+within myself, and sighed and mourned inwardly; but Amy, as her temper
+was more violent, spoke aloud, and cried, and called out aloud, like one
+in agony.</p>
+
+<p>I had but small encouragement to give her, and indeed could say but very
+little, but I got her to compose herself a little, and not let any of
+the people of the ship understand what she meant or what she said; but
+even in her greatest composure she continued to express herself with the
+utmost dread and terror on account of the wicked life she had lived,
+crying out she should be damned, and the like, which was very terrible
+to me, who knew what condition I was in myself.</p>
+
+<p>Upon these serious considerations, I was very penitent too for my former
+sins, and cried out, though softly, two or three times, "Lord, have
+mercy upon me!" To this I added abundance of resolutions of what a life
+I would live if it should please God but to spare my life but this one
+time; how I would live a single and a virtuous life, and spend a great
+deal of what I had thus wickedly got in acts of charity and doing good.</p>
+
+<p>Under these dreadful apprehensions I looked back on the life I had led
+with the utmost contempt and abhorrence. I blushed, and wondered at
+myself how I could act thus, how I could divest myself of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> modesty and
+honour, and prostitute myself for gain; and I thought, if ever it should
+please God to spare me this one time from death, it would not be
+possible that I should be the same creature again.</p>
+
+<p>Amy went farther; she prayed, she resolved, she vowed to lead a new
+life, if God would spare her but this time. It now began to be daylight,
+for the storm held all night long, and it was some comfort to see the
+light of another day, which none of us expected; but the sea went
+mountains high, and the noise of the water was as frightful to us as the
+sight of the waves; nor was any land to be seen, nor did the seamen know
+whereabout they were. At last, to our great joy, they made land, which
+was in England, and on the coast of Suffolk; and the ship being in the
+utmost distress, they ran for the shore at all hazards, and with great
+difficulty got into Harwich, where they were safe, as to the danger of
+death; but the ship was so full of water and so much damaged that if
+they had not laid her on shore the same day she would have sunk before
+night, according to the opinion of the seamen, and of the workmen on
+shore too who were hired to assist them in stopping their leaks.</p>
+
+<p>Amy was revived as soon as she heard they had espied land, and went out
+upon the deck; but she soon came in again to me. "Oh, madam!" says she,
+"there's the land indeed to be seen. It looks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> like a ridge of clouds,
+and may be all a cloud for aught I know; but if it be land, 'tis a
+great way off, and the sea is in such a combustion, we shall all perish
+before we can reach it. 'Tis the dreadfullest sight to look at the
+waves that ever was seen. Why, they are as high as mountains; we shall
+certainly be all swallowed up, for all the land is so near."</p>
+
+<p>I had conceived some hope that, if they saw land, we should be
+delivered; and I told her she did not understand things of that nature;
+that she might be sure if they saw land they would go directly towards
+it, and would make into some harbour; but it was, as Amy said, a
+frightful distance to it. The land looked like clouds, and the sea went
+as high as mountains, so that no hope appeared in the seeing the land,
+but we were in fear of foundering before we could reach it. This made
+Amy so desponding still; but as the wind, which blew from the east, or
+that way, drove us furiously towards the land, so when, about
+half-an-hour after, I stepped to the steerage-door and looked out, I saw
+the land much nearer than Amy represented it; so I went in and
+encouraged Amy again, and indeed was encouraged myself.</p>
+
+<p>In about an hour, or something more, we saw, to our infinite
+satisfaction, the open harbour of Harwich, and the vessel standing
+directly towards it, and in a few minutes more the ship was in smooth
+water,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> to our inexpressible comfort; and thus I had, though against my
+will and contrary to my true interest, what I wished for, to be driven
+away to England, though it was by a storm.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did this incident do either Amy or me much service, for, the danger
+being over, the fears of death vanished with it; ay, and our fear of
+what was beyond death also. Our sense of the life we had lived went off,
+and with our return to life our wicked taste of life returned, and we
+were both the same as before, if not worse. So certain is it that the
+repentance which is brought about by the mere apprehensions of death
+wears off as those apprehensions wear off, and deathbed repentance, or
+storm repentance, which is much the same, is seldom true.</p>
+
+<p>However, I do not tell you that this was all at once neither; the fright
+we had at sea lasted a little while afterwards; at least the impression
+was not quite blown off as soon as the storm; especially poor Amy. As
+soon as she set her foot on shore she fell flat upon the ground and
+kissed it, and gave God thanks for her deliverance from the sea; and
+turning to me when she got up, "I hope, madam," says she, "you will
+never go upon the sea again."</p>
+
+<p>I know not what ailed me, not I; but Amy was much more penitent at sea,
+and much more sensible of her deliverance when she landed and was safe,
+than I was. I was in a kind of stupidity, I know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> not well what to call
+it; I had a mind full of horror in the time of the storm, and saw death
+before me as plainly as Amy, but my thoughts got no vent, as Amy's did.
+I had a silent, sullen kind of grief, which could not break out either
+in words or tears, and which was therefore much the worse to bear.</p>
+
+<p>I had a terror upon me for my wicked life past, and firmly believed I
+was going to the bottom, launching into death, where I was to give an
+account of all my past actions; and in this state, and on that account,
+I looked back upon my wickedness with abhorrence, as I have said above,
+but I had no sense of repentance from the true motive of repentance; I
+saw nothing of the corruption of nature, the sin of my life, as an
+offence against God, as a thing odious to the holiness of His being, as
+abusing His mercy and despising His goodness. In short, I had no
+thorough effectual repentance, no sight of my sins in their proper
+shape, no view of a Redeemer, or hope in Him. I had only such a
+repentance as a criminal has at the place of execution, who is sorry,
+not that he has committed the crime, as it is a crime, but sorry that he
+is to be hanged for it.</p>
+
+<p>It is true Amy's repentance wore off too, as well as mine, but not so
+soon. However, we were both very grave for a time.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as we could get a boat from the town we went on shore, and
+immediately went to a public-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>house in the town of Harwich, where we
+were to consider seriously what was to be done, and whether we should go
+up to London or stay till the ship was refitted, which, they said, would
+be a fortnight, and then go for Holland, as we intended, and as business
+required.</p>
+
+<p>Reason directed that I should go to Holland, for there I had all my
+money to receive, and there I had persons of good reputation and
+character to apply to, having letters to them from the honest Dutch
+merchant at Paris, and they might perhaps give me a recommendation again
+to merchants in London, and so I should get acquaintance with some
+people of figure, which was what I loved; whereas now I knew not one
+creature in the whole city of London, or anywhere else, that I could go
+and make myself known to. Upon these considerations, I resolved to go to
+Holland, whatever came of it.</p>
+
+<p>But Amy cried and trembled, and was ready to fall into fits, when I did
+but mention going upon the sea again, and begged of me not to go, or if
+I would go, that I would leave her behind, though I was to send her
+a-begging. The people in the inn laughed at her, and jested with her,
+asked her if she had any sins to confess that she was ashamed should be
+heard of, and that she was troubled with an evil conscience; told her,
+if she came to sea, and to be in a storm, if she had lain with her
+master,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> she would certainly tell her mistress of it, and that it was a
+common thing for poor maids to confess all the young men they had lain
+with; that there was one poor girl that went over with her mistress,
+whose husband was a ......r, in ......, in the city of London, who
+confessed, in the terror of a storm, that she had lain with her master,
+and all the apprentices, so often, and in such-and-such places, and made
+the poor mistress, when she returned to London, fly at her husband, and
+make such a stir as was indeed the ruin of the whole family. Amy could
+bear all that well enough, for though she had indeed lain with her
+master, it was with her mistress's knowledge and consent, and, which was
+worse, was her mistress's own doing. I record it to the reproach of my
+own vice, and to expose the excesses of such wickedness as they deserve
+to be exposed.</p>
+
+<p>I thought Amy's fear would have been over by that time the ship would be
+gotten ready, but I found the girl was rather worse and worse; and when
+I came to the point that we must go on board or lose the passage, Amy
+was so terrified that she fell into fits; so the ship went away without
+us.</p>
+
+<p>But my going being absolutely necessary, as above, I was obliged to go
+in the packet-boat some time after, and leave Amy behind at Harwich, but
+with directions to go to London and stay there to receive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> letters and
+orders from me what to do. Now I was become, from a lady of pleasure, a
+woman of business, and of great business too, I assure you.</p>
+
+<p>I got me a servant at Harwich to go over with me, who had been at
+Rotterdam, knew the place, and spoke the language, which was a great
+help to me, and away I went. I had a very quick passage and pleasant
+weather, and, coming to Rotterdam, soon found out the merchant to whom I
+was recommended, who received me with extraordinary respect. And first
+he acknowledged the accepted bill for four thousand pistoles, which he
+afterwards paid punctually; other bills that I had also payable at
+Amsterdam he procured to be received for me; and whereas one of the
+bills for one thousand two hundred crowns was protested at Amsterdam, he
+paid it me himself, for the honour of the indorser, as he called it,
+which was my friend the merchant at Paris.</p>
+
+<p>There I entered into a negotiation by his means for my jewels, and he
+brought me several jewellers to look on them, and particularly one to
+value them, and to tell me what every particular was worth. This was a
+man who had great skill in jewels, but did not trade at that time, and
+he was desired by the gentleman that I was with to see that I might not
+be imposed upon.</p>
+
+<p>All this work took me up near half a year, and by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> managing my business
+thus myself, and having large sums to do with, I became as expert in it
+as any she-merchant of them all. I had credit in the bank for a large
+sum of money, and bills and notes for much more.</p>
+
+<p>After I had been here about three months, my maid Amy writes me word
+that she had received a letter from her friend, as she called him. That,
+by the way, was the prince's gentleman, that had been Amy's
+extraordinary friend indeed, for Amy owned to me he had lain with her a
+hundred times, that is to say, as often as he pleased, and perhaps in
+the eight years which that affair lasted it might be a great deal
+oftener. This was what she called her friend, who she corresponded with
+upon this particular subject, and, among other things, sent her this
+particular news, that my extraordinary friend, my real husband, who rode
+in the <i>gens d'armes</i>, was dead, that he was killed in a rencounter, as
+they call it, or accidental scuffle among the troopers; and so the jade
+congratulated me upon my being now a real free woman. "And now, madam,"
+says she at the end of her letter, "you have nothing to do but to come
+hither and set up a coach and a good equipage, and if beauty and a good
+fortune won't make you a duchess, nothing will." But I had not fixed my
+measures yet. I had no inclination to be a wife again. I had had such
+bad luck with my first hus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>band, I hated the thoughts of it. I found
+that a wife is treated with indifference, a mistress with a strong
+passion; a wife is looked upon as but an upper servant, a mistress is a
+sovereign; a wife must give up all she has, have every reserve she makes
+for herself be thought hard of, and be upbraided with her very
+pin-money, whereas a mistress makes the saying true, that what the man
+has is hers, and what she has is her own; the wife bears a thousand
+insults, and is forced to sit still and bear it, or part, and be undone;
+a mistress insulted helps herself immediately, and takes another.</p>
+
+<p>These were my wicked arguments for whoring, for I never set against them
+the difference another way&mdash;I may say, every other way; how that, first,
+a wife appears boldly and honourably with her husband, lives at home,
+and possesses his house, his servants, his equipages, and has a right to
+them all, and to call them her own; entertains his friends, owns his
+children, and has the return of duty and affection from them, as they
+are here her own, and claims upon his estate, by the custom of England,
+if he dies and leaves her a widow.</p>
+
+<p>The whore skulks about in lodgings, is visited in the dark, disowned
+upon all occasions before God and man; is maintained, indeed, for a
+time, but is certainly condemned to be abandoned at last, and left to
+the miseries of fate and her own just disaster.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> If she has any
+children, her endeavour is to get rid of them, and not maintain them;
+and if she lives, she is certain to see them all hate her, and be
+ashamed of her. While the vice rages, and the man is in the devil's
+hand, she has him; and while she has him, she makes a prey of him; but
+if he happens to fall sick, if any disaster befalls him, the cause of
+all lies upon her. He is sure to lay all his misfortunes at her door;
+and if once he comes to repentance, or makes but one step towards a
+reformation, he begins with her&mdash;leaves her, uses her as she deserves,
+hates her, abhors her, and sees her no more; and that with this
+never-failing addition, namely, that the more sincere and unfeigned his
+repentance is, the more earnestly he looks up, and the more effectually
+he looks in, the more his aversion to her increases, and he curses her
+from the bottom of his soul; nay, it must be a kind of excess of charity
+if he so much as wishes God may forgive her.</p>
+
+<p>The opposite circumstances of a wife and whore are such and so many, and
+I have since seen the difference with such eyes, as I could dwell upon
+the subject a great while; but my business is history. I had a long
+scene of folly yet to run over. Perhaps the moral of all my story may
+bring me back again to this part, and if it does I shall speak of it
+fully.</p>
+
+<p>While I continued in Holland I received several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> letters from my friend
+(so I had good reason to call him) the merchant in Paris, in which he
+gave me a farther account of the conduct of that rogue the Jew, and how
+he acted after I was gone; how impatient he was while the said merchant
+kept him in suspense, expecting me to come again; and how he raged when
+he found I came no more.</p>
+
+<p>It seems, after he found I did not come, he found out by his unwearied
+inquiry where I had lived, and that I had been kept as a mistress by
+some great person; but he could never learn by who, except that he
+learnt the colour of his livery. In pursuit of this inquiry he guessed
+at the right person, but could not make it out, or offer any positive
+proof of it; but he found out the prince's gentleman, and talked so
+saucily to him of it that the gentleman treated him, as the French call
+it, <i>&agrave; coup de baton</i>&mdash;that is to say, caned him very severely, as he
+deserved; and that not satisfying him, or curing his insolence, he was
+met one night late upon the Pont Neuf, in Paris, by two men, who,
+muffling him up in a great cloak, carried him into a more private place
+and cut off both his ears, telling him it was for talking impudently of
+his superiors; adding that he should take care to govern his tongue
+better and behave with more manners, or the next time they would cut his
+tongue out of his head.</p>
+
+<p>This put a check to his sauciness that way; but he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> comes back to the
+merchant and threatened to begin a process against him for corresponding
+with me, and being accessory to the murder of the jeweller, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>The merchant found by his discourse that he supposed I was protected by
+the said Prince de &mdash;&mdash;; nay, the rogue said he was sure I was in his
+lodgings at Versailles, for he never had so much as the least intimation
+of the way I was really gone; but that I was there he was certain, and
+certain that the merchant was privy to it. The merchant bade him
+defiance. However, he gave him a great deal of trouble and put him to a
+great charge, and had like to have brought him in for a party to my
+escape; in which case he would have been obliged to have produced me,
+and that in the penalty of some capital sum of money.</p>
+
+<p>But the merchant was too many for him another way, for he brought an
+information against him for a cheat; wherein laying down the whole fact,
+how he intended falsely to accuse the widow of the jeweller for the
+supposed murder of her husband; that he did it purely to get the jewels
+from her; and that he offered to bring him (the merchant) in, to be
+confederate with him, and to share the jewels between them; proving also
+his design to get the jewels into his hands, and then to have dropped
+the prosecution upon condition of my quitting the jewels to him. Upon
+this charge he got him laid by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> heels; so he was sent to the
+Conciergerie&mdash;that is to say, to Bridewell&mdash;and the merchant cleared. He
+got out of jail in a little while, though not without the help of money,
+and continued teasing the merchant a long while, and at last threatening
+to assassinate and murder him. So the merchant, who, having buried his
+wife about two months before, was now a single man, and not knowing what
+such a villain might do, thought fit to quit Paris, and came away to
+Holland also.</p>
+
+<p>It is most certain that, speaking of originals, I was the source and
+spring of all that trouble and vexation to this honest gentleman; and as
+it was afterwards in my power to have made him full satisfaction, and
+did not, I cannot say but I added ingratitude to all the rest of my
+follies; but of that I shall give a fuller account presently.</p>
+
+<p>I was surprised one morning, when, being at the merchant's house who he
+had recommended me to in Rotterdam, and being busy in his
+counting-house, managing my bills, and preparing to write a letter to
+him to Paris, I heard a noise of horses at the door, which is not very
+common in a city where everybody passes by water; but he had, it seems,
+ferried over the Maas from Willemstadt, and so came to the very door,
+and I, looking towards the door upon hearing the horses, saw a gentleman
+alight and come in at the gate. I knew nothing, and expected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> nothing,
+to be sure, of the person; but, as I say, was surprised, and indeed more
+than ordinarily surprised, when, coming nearer to me, I saw it was my
+merchant of Paris, my benefactor, and indeed my deliverer.</p>
+
+<p>I confess it was an agreeable surprise to me, and I was exceeding glad
+to see him, who was so honourable and so kind to me, and who indeed had
+saved my life. As soon as he saw me he ran to me, took me in his arms,
+and kissed me with a freedom that he never offered to take with me
+before. "Dear Madam &mdash;&mdash;," says he, "I am glad to see you safe in this
+country; if you had stayed two days longer in Paris you had been
+undone." I was so glad to see him that I could not speak a good while,
+and I burst out into tears without speaking a word for a minute; but I
+recovered that disorder, and said, "The more, sir, is my obligation to
+you that saved my life;" and added, "I am glad to see you here, that I
+may consider how to balance an account in which I am so much your
+debtor." "You and I will adjust that matter easily," says he, "now we
+are so near together. Pray where do you lodge?" says he.</p>
+
+<p>"In a very honest, good house," said I, "where that gentleman, your
+friend, recommended me," pointing to the merchant in whose house we then
+were.</p>
+
+<p>"And where you may lodge too, sir," says the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> gentleman, "if it suits
+with your business and your other conveniency."</p>
+
+<p>"With all my heart," says he. "Then, madam," adds he, turning to me, "I
+shall be near you, and have time to tell you a story which will be very
+long, and yet many ways very pleasant to you; how troublesome that
+devilish fellow, the Jew, has been to me on your account, and what a
+hellish snare he had laid for you, if he could have found you."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have leisure too, sir," said I, "to tell you all my adventures
+since that, which have not been a few, I assure you."</p>
+
+<p>In short, he took up his lodgings in the same house where I lodged, and
+the room he lay in opened, as he was wishing it would, just opposite to
+my lodging-room, so we could almost call out of bed to one another; and
+I was not at all shy of him on that score, for I believed him perfectly
+honest, and so indeed he was; and if he had not, that article was at
+present no part of my concern.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till two or three days, and after his first hurries of
+business were over, that we began to enter into the history of our
+affairs on every side, but when we began, it took up all our
+conversation for almost a fortnight. First, I gave him a particular
+account of everything that happened material upon my voyage, and how we
+were driven into Harwich by a very terrible storm; how I had left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> my
+woman behind me, so frighted with the danger she had been in that she
+durst not venture to set her foot into a ship again any more, and that I
+had not come myself if the bills I had of him had not been payable in
+Holland; but that money, he might see, would make a woman go anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to laugh at all our womanish fears upon the occasion of the
+storm, telling me it was nothing but what was very ordinary in those
+seas, but that they had harbours on every coast so near that they were
+seldom in danger of being lost indeed. "For," says he, "if they cannot
+fetch one coast, they can always stand away for another, and run afore
+it," as he called it, "for one side or other." But when I came to tell
+him what a crazy ship it was, and how, even when they got into Harwich,
+and into smooth water, they were fain to run the ship on shore, or she
+would have sunk in the very harbour; and when I told him that when I
+looked out at the cabin-door I saw the Dutchmen, one upon his knees
+here, and another there, at their prayers, then indeed he acknowledged I
+had reason to be alarmed; but, smiling, he added, "But you, madam," says
+he, "are so good a lady, and so pious, you would but have gone to heaven
+a little the sooner; the difference had not been much to you."</p>
+
+<p>I confess when he said this it made all the blood turn in my veins, and
+I thought I should have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> fainted. "Poor gentleman," thought I, "you know
+little of me. What would I give to be really what you really think me to
+be!" He perceived the disorder, but said nothing till I spoke; when,
+shaking my head, "Oh, sir!" said I, "death in any shape has some terror
+in it, but in the frightful figure of a storm at sea and a sinking ship,
+it comes with a double, a treble, and indeed an inexpressible horror;
+and if I were that saint you think me to be (which God knows I am not),
+it is still very dismal. I desire to die in a calm, if I can." He said a
+great many good things, and very prettily ordered his discourse between
+serious reflection and compliment, but I had too much guilt to relish it
+as it was meant, so I turned it off to something else, and talked of the
+necessity I had on me to come to Holland, but I wished myself safe on
+shore in England again.</p>
+
+<p>He told me he was glad I had such an obligation upon me to come over
+into Holland, however, but hinted that he was so interested in my
+welfare, and, besides, had such further designs upon me, that if I had
+not so happily been found in Holland he was resolved to have gone to
+England to see me, and that it was one of the principal reasons of his
+leaving Paris.</p>
+
+<p>I told him I was extremely obliged to him for so far interesting himself
+in my affairs, but that I had been so far his debtor before that I knew
+not how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> anything could increase the debt; for I owed my life to him
+already, and I could not be in debt for anything more valuable than
+that. He answered in the most obliging manner possible, that he would
+put it in my power to pay that debt, and all the obligations besides
+that ever he had, or should be able to lay upon me.</p>
+
+<p>I began to understand him now, and to see plainly that he resolved to
+make love to me, but I would by no means seem to take the hint; and,
+besides, I knew that he had a wife with him in Paris; and I had, just
+then at least, no gust to any more intriguing. However, he surprised me
+into a sudden notice of the thing a little while after by saying
+something in his discourse that he did, as he said, in his wife's days.
+I started at that word, "What mean you by that, sir?" said I. "Have you
+not a wife at Paris?" "No, madam, indeed," said he; "my wife died the
+beginning of September last," which, it seems, was but a little after I
+came away.</p>
+
+<p>We lived in the same house all this while, and as we lodged not far off
+of one another, opportunities were not wanting of as near an
+acquaintance as we might desire; nor have such opportunities the least
+agency in vicious minds to bring to pass even what they might not intend
+at first.</p>
+
+<p>However, though he courted so much at a distance, yet his pretensions
+were very honourable; and as I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> had before found him a most
+disinterested friend, and perfectly honest in his dealings, even when I
+trusted him with all I had, so now I found him strictly virtuous, till I
+made him otherwise myself, even almost whether he would or no, as you
+shall hear.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long after our former discourse, when he repeated what he had
+insinuated before, namely, that he had yet a design to lay before me,
+which, if I would agree to his proposals, would more than balance all
+accounts between us. I told him I could not reasonably deny him
+anything; and except one thing, which I hoped and believed he would not
+think of, I should think myself very ungrateful if I did not do
+everything for him that lay in my power.</p>
+
+<p>He told me what he should desire of me would be fully in my power to
+grant, or else he should be very unfriendly to offer it; and still all
+this while he declined making the proposal, as he called it, and so for
+that time we ended our discourse, turning it off to other things. So
+that, in short, I began to think he might have met with some disaster in
+his business, and might have come away from Paris in some discredit, or
+had had some blow on his affairs in general; and as really I had
+kindness enough to have parted with a good sum to have helped him, and
+was in gratitude bound to have done so, he having so effect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>ually saved
+to me all I had, so I resolved to make him the offer the first time I
+had an opportunity, which two or three days after offered itself, very
+much to my satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>He had told me at large, though on several occasions, the treatment he
+had met with from the Jew, and what expense he had put him to; how at
+length he had cast him, as above, and had recovered good damage of him,
+but that the rogue was unable to make him any considerable reparation.
+He had told me also how the Prince de &mdash;&mdash;'s gentleman had resented his
+treatment of his master, and how he had caused him to be used upon the
+Pont Neuf, &amp;c., as I have mentioned above, which I laughed at most
+heartily.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity," said I, "that I should sit here and make that gentleman
+no amends; if you would direct me, sir," said I, "how to do it, I would
+make him a handsome present, and acknowledge the justice he had done to
+me, as well as to the prince, his master." He said he would do what I
+directed in it; so I told him I would send him five hundred crowns.
+"That's too much," said he, "for you are but half interested in the
+usage of the Jew; it was on his master's account he corrected him, not
+on yours." Well, however, we were obliged to do nothing in it, for
+neither of us knew how to direct a letter to him, or to direct anybody
+to him; so I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> told him I would leave it till I came to England, for that
+my woman, Amy, corresponded with him, and that he had made love to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but, sir," said I, "as, in requital for his generous concern for
+me, I am careful to think of him, it is but just that what expense you
+have been obliged to be at, which was all on my account, should be
+repaid you; and therefore," said I, "let me see&mdash;." And there I paused,
+and began to reckon up what I had observed, from his own discourse, it
+had cost him in the several disputes and hearings which he had with that
+dog of a Jew, and I cast them up at something above 2130 crowns; so I
+pulled out some bills which I had upon a merchant in Amsterdam, and a
+particular account in bank, and was looking on them in order to give
+them to him; when he, seeing evidently what I was going about,
+interrupted me with some warmth, and told me he would have nothing of me
+on that account, and desired I would not pull out my bills and papers on
+that score; that he had not told me the story on that account, or with
+any such view; that it had been his misfortune first to bring that ugly
+rogue to me, which, though it was with a good design, yet he would
+punish himself with the expense he had been at for his being so unlucky
+to me; that I could not think so hard of him as to suppose he would take
+money of me, a widow, for serving me, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> doing acts of kindness to me
+in a strange country, and in distress too; but he said he would repeat
+what he had said before, that he kept me for a deeper reckoning, and
+that, as he had told me, he would put me into a posture to even all that
+favour, as I called it, at once, so we should talk it over another time,
+and balance all together.</p>
+
+<p>Now I expected it would come out, but still he put it off, as before,
+from whence I concluded it could not be matter of love, for that those
+things are not usually delayed in such a manner, and therefore it must
+be matter of money. Upon which thought I broke the silence, and told
+him, that as he knew I had, by obligation, more kindness for him than to
+deny any favour to him that I could grant, and that he seemed backward
+to mention his case, I begged leave of him to give me leave to ask him
+whether anything lay upon his mind with respect to his business and
+effects in the world; that if it did, he knew what I had in the world as
+well as I did, and that, if he wanted money, I would let him have any
+sum for his occasion, as far as five or six thousand pistoles, and he
+should pay me as his own affairs would permit; and that, if he never
+paid me, I would assure him that I would never give him any trouble for
+it.</p>
+
+<p>He rose up with ceremony, and gave me thanks in terms that sufficiently
+told me he had been bred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> among people more polite and more courteous
+than is esteemed the ordinary usage of the Dutch; and after his
+compliment was over he came nearer to me, and told me he was obliged to
+assure me, though with repeated acknowledgments of my kind offer, that
+he was not in any want of money; that he had met with no uneasiness in
+any of his affairs&mdash;no, not of any kind whatever, except that of the
+loss of his wife and one of his children, which indeed had troubled him
+much; but that this was no part of what he had to offer me, and by
+granting which I should balance all obligations; but that, in short, it
+was that, seeing Providence had (as it were for that purpose) taken his
+wife from him, I would make up the loss to him; and with that he held me
+fast in his arms, and, kissing me, would not give me leave to say no,
+and hardly to breathe.</p>
+
+<p>At length, having got room to speak, I told him that, as I had said
+before, I could deny him but one thing in the world; I was very sorry he
+should propose that thing only that I could not grant.</p>
+
+<p>I could not but smile, however, to myself that he should make so many
+circles and roundabout motions to come at a discourse which had no such
+rarity at the bottom of it, if he had known all. But there was another
+reason why I resolved not to have him, when, at the same time, if he had
+courted me in a manner less honest or virtuous, I believe I should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> not
+have denied him; but I shall come to that part presently.</p>
+
+<p>He was, as I have said, long a-bringing it out, but when he had brought
+it out he pursued it with such importunities as would admit of no
+denial; at least he intended they should not; but I resisted them
+obstinately, and yet with expressions of the utmost kindness and respect
+for him that could be imagined, often telling him there was nothing else
+in the world that I could deny him, and showing him all the respect, and
+upon all occasions treating him with intimacy and freedom, as if he had
+been my brother.</p>
+
+<p>He tried all the ways imaginable to bring his design to pass, but I was
+inflexible. At last he thought of a way which, he flattered himself,
+would not fail; nor would he have been mistaken, perhaps, in any other
+woman in the world but me. This was, to try if he could take me at an
+advantage and get to bed to me, and then, as was most rational to think,
+I should willingly enough marry him afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>We were so intimate together that nothing but man and wife could, or at
+least ought, to be more; but still our freedoms kept within the bounds
+of modesty and decency. But one evening, above all the rest, we were
+very merry, and I fancied he pushed the mirth to watch for his
+advantage, and I resolved that I would at least feign to be as merry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> as
+he; and that, in short, if he offered anything he should have his will
+easily enough.</p>
+
+<p>About one o'clock in the morning&mdash;for so long we sat up together&mdash;I
+said, "Come, 'tis one o'clock; I must go to bed." "Well," says he, "I'll
+go with you." "No, no;" says I; "go to your own chamber." He said he
+would go to bed with me. "Nay," says I, "if you will, I don't know what
+to say; if I can't help it, you must." However, I got from him, left
+him, and went into my chamber, but did not shut the door, and as he
+could easily see that I was undressing myself, he steps to his own room,
+which was but on the same floor, and in a few minutes undresses himself
+also, and returns to my door in his gown and slippers.</p>
+
+<p>I thought he had been gone indeed, and so that he had been in jest; and,
+by the way, thought either he had no mind to the thing, or that he never
+intended it; so I shut my door&mdash;that is, latched it, for I seldom locked
+or bolted it&mdash;and went to bed. I had not been in bed a minute but he
+comes in his gown to the door and opens it a little way, but not enough
+to come in or look in, and says softly, "What! are you really gone to
+bed?" "Yes, yes," says I; "get you gone." "No, indeed," says he, "I
+shall not be gone; you gave me leave before to come to bed, and you
+shan't say 'Get you gone' now." So he comes into my room, and then
+turns<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> about and fastens the door, and immediately comes to the bedside
+to me. I pretended to scold and struggle, and bid him begone with more
+warmth than before; but it was all one; he had not a rag of clothes on
+but his gown and slippers and shirt, so he throws off his gown, and
+throws open the bed, and came in at once.</p>
+
+<p>I made a seeming resistance, but it was no more indeed; for, as above, I
+resolved from the beginning he should lie with me if he would, and, for
+the rest, I left it to come after.</p>
+
+<p>Well, he lay with me that night, and the two next, and very merry we
+were all the three days between; but the third night he began to be a
+little more grave. "Now, my dear," says he, "though I have pushed this
+matter farther than ever I intended, or than I believe you expected from
+me, who never made any pretences to you but what were very honest, yet
+to heal it all up, and let you see how sincerely I meant at first, and
+how honest I will ever be to you, I am ready to marry you still, and
+desire you to let it be done to-morrow morning; and I will give you the
+same fair conditions of marriage as I would have done before."</p>
+
+<p>This, it must be owned, was a testimony that he was very honest, and
+that he loved me sincerely; but I construed it quite another way,
+namely, that he aimed at the money. But how surprised did he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> look, and
+how was he confounded, when he found me receive his proposal with
+coldness and indifference, and still tell him that it was the only thing
+I could not grant!</p>
+
+<p>He was astonished. "What! not take me now," says he, "when I have been
+abed with you!" I answered coldly, though respectfully still, "It is
+true, to my shame be it spoken," says I, "that you have taken me by
+surprise, and have had your will of me; but I hope you will not take it
+ill that I cannot consent to marry for all that. If I am with child,"
+said I, "care must be taken to manage that as you shall direct; I hope
+you won't expose me for my having exposed myself to you, but I cannot go
+any farther." And at that point I stood, and would hear of no matrimony
+by any means.</p>
+
+<p>Now, because this may seem a little odd, I shall state the matter
+clearly, as I understood it myself. I knew that, while I was a mistress,
+it is customary for the person kept to receive from them that keep; but
+if I should be a wife, all I had then was given up to the husband, and I
+was henceforth to be under his authority only; and as I had money
+enough, and needed not fear being what they call a cast-off mistress, so
+I had no need to give him twenty thousand pounds to marry me, which had
+been buying my lodging too dear a great deal.</p>
+
+<p>Thus his project of coming to bed to me was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> bite upon himself, while
+he intended it for a bite upon me; and he was no nearer his aim of
+marrying me than he was before. All his arguments he could urge upon the
+subject of matrimony were at an end, for I positively declined marrying
+him; and as he had refused the thousand pistoles which I had offered him
+in compensation for his expenses and loss at Paris with the Jew, and had
+done it upon the hopes he had of marrying me, so when he found his way
+difficult still, he was amazed, and, I had some reason to believe,
+repented that he had refused the money.</p>
+
+<p>But thus it is when men run into wicked measures to bring their designs
+about. I, that was infinitely obliged to him before, began to talk to
+him as if I had balanced accounts with him now, and that the favour of
+lying with a whore was equal, not to the thousand pistoles only, but to
+all the debt I owed him for saving my life and all my effects.</p>
+
+<p>But he drew himself into it, and though it was a dear bargain, yet it
+was a bargain of his own making; he could not say I had tricked him into
+it. But as he projected and drew me in to lie with him, depending that
+was a sure game in order to a marriage, so I granted him the favour, as
+he called it, to balance the account of favours received from him, and
+keep the thousand pistoles with a good grace.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He was extremely disappointed in this article, and knew not how to
+manage for a great while; and as I dare say, if he had not expected to
+have made it an earnest for marrying me, he would not have attempted me
+the other way, so, I believed, if it had not been for the money which he
+knew I had, he would never have desired to marry me after he had lain
+with me. For where is the man that cares to marry a whore, though of his
+own making? And as I knew him to be no fool, so I did him no wrong when
+I supposed that, but for the money, he would not have had any thoughts
+of me that way, especially after my yielding as I had done; in which it
+is to be remembered that I made no capitulation for marrying him when I
+yielded to him, but let him do just what he pleased, without any
+previous bargain.</p>
+
+<p>Well, hitherto we went upon guesses at one another's designs; but as he
+continued to importune me to marry, though he had lain with me, and
+still did lie with me as often as he pleased, and I continued to refuse
+to marry him, though I let him lie with me whenever he desired it; I
+say, as these two circumstances made up our conversation, it could not
+continue long thus, but we must come to an explanation.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, in the middle of our unlawful freedoms&mdash;that is to say,
+when we were in bed together<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>&mdash;he sighed, and told me he desired my
+leave to ask me one question, and that I would give him an answer to it
+with the same ingenious freedom and honesty that I had used to treat him
+with. I told him I would. Why, then, his question was, why I would not
+marry him, seeing I allowed him all the freedom of a husband. "Or," says
+he, "my dear, since you have been so kind as to take me to your bed, why
+will you not make me your own, and take me for good and all, that we may
+enjoy ourselves without any reproach to one another?"</p>
+
+<p>I told him, that as I confessed it was the only thing I could not comply
+with him in, so it was the only thing in all my actions that I could not
+give him a reason for; that it was true I had let him come to bed to me,
+which was supposed to be the greatest favour a woman could grant; but it
+was evident, and he might see it, that, as I was sensible of the
+obligation I was under to him for saving me from the worst circumstance
+it was possible for me to be brought to, I could deny him nothing; and
+if I had had any greater favour to yield him, I should have done it,
+that of matrimony only excepted, and he could not but see that I loved
+him to an extraordinary degree, in every part of my behaviour to him;
+but that as to marrying, which was giving up my liberty, it was what
+once he knew I had done, and he had seen how it had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> hurried me up and
+down in the world, and what it had exposed me to; that I had an aversion
+to it, and desired he would not insist upon it. He might easily see I
+had no aversion to him; and that, if I was with child by him, he should
+see a testimony of my kindness to the father, for that I would settle
+all I had in the world upon the child.</p>
+
+<p>He was mute a good while. At last says he, "Come, my dear, you are the
+first woman in the world that ever lay with a man and then refused to
+marry him, and therefore there must be some other reason for your
+refusal; and I have therefore one other request, and that is, if I guess
+at the true reason, and remove the objection, will you then yield to
+me?" I told him if he removed the objection I must needs comply, for I
+should certainly do everything that I had no objection against.</p>
+
+<p>"Why then, my dear, it must be that either you are already engaged or
+married to some other man, or you are not willing to dispose of your
+money to me, and expect to advance yourself higher with your fortune.
+Now, if it be the first of these, my mouth will be stopped, and I have
+no more to say; but if it be the last, I am prepared effectually to
+remove the objection, and answer all you can say on that subject."</p>
+
+<p>I took him up short at the first of these, telling him he must have base
+thoughts of me indeed, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> think that I could yield to him in such a
+manner as I had done, and continue it with so much freedom as he found I
+did, if I had a husband or were engaged to any other man; and that he
+might depend upon it that was not my case, nor any part of my case.</p>
+
+<p>"Why then," said he, "as to the other, I have an offer to make to you
+that shall take off all the objection, viz., that I will not touch one
+pistole of your estate more than shall be with your own voluntary
+consent, neither now or at any other time, but you shall settle it as
+you please for your life, and upon who you please after your death;"
+that I should see he was able to maintain me without it, and that it was
+not for that that he followed me from Paris.</p>
+
+<p>I was indeed surprised at that part of his offer, and he might easily
+perceive it; it was not only what I did not expect, but it was what I
+knew not what answer to make to. He had, indeed, removed my principal
+objection&mdash;nay, all my objections, and it was not possible for me to
+give any answer; for, if upon so generous an offer I should agree with
+him, I then did as good as confess that it was upon the account of my
+money that I refused him; and that though I could give up my virtue and
+expose myself, yet I would not give up my money, which, though it was
+true, yet was really too gross for me to acknowledge, and I could not
+pretend to marry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> him upon that principle neither. Then as to having
+him, and make over all my estate out of his hands, so as not to give him
+the management of what I had, I thought it would be not only a little
+Gothic and inhuman, but would be always a foundation of unkindness
+between us, and render us suspected one to another; so that, upon the
+whole, I was obliged to give a new turn to it, and talk upon a kind of
+an elevated strain, which really was not in my thoughts, at first, at
+all; for I own, as above, the divesting myself of my estate and putting
+my money out of my hand was the sum of the matter that made me refuse to
+marry; but, I say, I gave it a new turn upon this occasion, as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I told him I had, perhaps, different notions of matrimony from what the
+received custom had given us of it; that I thought a woman was a free
+agent as well as a man, and was born free, and, could she manage herself
+suitably, might enjoy that liberty to as much purpose as the men do;
+that the laws of matrimony were indeed otherwise, and mankind at this
+time acted quite upon other principles, and those such that a woman gave
+herself entirely away from herself, in marriage, and capitulated, only
+to be, at best, but an upper servant, and from the time she took the man
+she was no better or worse than the servant among the Israelites, who
+had his ears bored&mdash;that is, nailed to the door-post&mdash;who by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> that act
+gave himself up to be a servant during life; that the very nature of the
+marriage contract was, in short, nothing but giving up liberty, estate,
+authority, and everything to the man, and the woman was indeed a mere
+woman ever after&mdash;that is to say, a slave.</p>
+
+<p>He replied, that though in some respects it was as I had said, yet I
+ought to consider that, as an equivalent to this, the man had all the
+care of things devolved upon him; that the weight of business lay upon
+his shoulders, and as he had the trust, so he had the toil of life upon
+him; his was the labour, his the anxiety of living; that the woman had
+nothing to do but to eat the fat and drink the sweet; to sit still and
+look around her, be waited on and made much of, be served and loved and
+made easy, especially if the husband acted as became him; and that, in
+general, the labour of the man was appointed to make the woman live
+quiet and unconcerned in the world; that they had the name of subjection
+without the thing; and if in inferior families they had the drudgery of
+the house and care of the provisions upon them, yet they had indeed much
+the easier part; for, in general, the women had only the care of
+managing&mdash;that is, spending what their husbands get; and that a woman
+had the name of subjection, indeed, but that they generally commanded,
+not the men only, but all they had; managed all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> for themselves; and
+where the man did his duty, the woman's life was all ease and
+tranquillity, and that she had nothing to do but to be easy, and to make
+all that were about her both easy and merry.</p>
+
+<p>I returned, that while a woman was single, she was a masculine in her
+politic capacity; that she had then the full command of what she had,
+and the full direction of what she did; that she was a man in her
+separate capacity, to all intents and purposes that a man could be so to
+himself; that she was controlled by none, because accountable to none,
+and was in subjection to none. So I sung these two lines of Mr. &mdash;&mdash;'s:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Oh! 'tis pleasant to be free,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The sweetest Miss is Liberty."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I added, that whoever the woman was that had an estate, and would give
+it up to be the slave of a great man, that woman was a fool, and must be
+fit for nothing but a beggar; that it was my opinion a woman was as fit
+to govern and enjoy her own estate without a man as a man was without a
+woman; and that, if she had a mind to gratify herself as to sexes, she
+might entertain a man as a man does a mistress; that while she was thus
+single she was her own, and if she gave away that power she merited to
+be as miserable as it was possible that any creature could be.</p>
+
+<p>All he could say could not answer the force of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> as to argument;
+only this, that the other way was the ordinary method that the world was
+guided by; that he had reason to expect I should be content with that
+which all the world was contented with; that he was of the opinion that
+a sincere affection between a man and his wife answered all the
+objections that I had made about the being a slave, a servant, and the
+like; and where there was a mutual love there could be no bondage, but
+that there was but one interest, one aim, one design, and all conspired
+to make both very happy.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," said I, "that is the thing I complain of. The pretence of
+affection takes from a woman everything that can be called herself; she
+is to have no interest, no aim, no view; but all is the interest, aim,
+and view of the husband; she is to be the passive creature you spoke
+of," said I. "She is to lead a life of perfect indolence, and living by
+faith, not in God, but in her husband, she sinks or swims, as he is
+either fool or wise man, unhappy or prosperous; and in the middle of
+what she thinks is her happiness and prosperity, she is engulfed in
+misery and beggary, which she had not the least notice, knowledge, or
+suspicion of. How often have I seen a woman living in all the splendour
+that a plentiful fortune ought to allow her, with her coaches and
+equipages, her family and rich furniture, her attendants and friends,
+her visitors and good company,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> all about her to-day; to-morrow
+surprised with a disaster, turned out of all by a commission of
+bankrupt, stripped to the clothes on her back; her jointure, suppose she
+had it, is sacrificed to the creditors so long as her husband lived, and
+she turned into the street, and left to live on the charity of her
+friends, if she has any, or follow the monarch, her husband, into the
+Mint, and live there on the wreck of his fortunes, till he is forced to
+run away from her even there; and then she sees her children starve,
+herself miserable, breaks her heart, and cries herself to death! This,"
+says I, "is the state of many a lady that has had &pound;10,000 to her
+portion."</p>
+
+<p>He did not know how feelingly I spoke this, and what extremities I had
+gone through of this kind; how near I was to the very last article
+above, viz., crying myself to death; and how I really starved for almost
+two years together.</p>
+
+<p>But he shook his head, and said, where had I lived? and what dreadful
+families had I lived among, that had frighted me into such terrible
+apprehensions of things? that these things indeed might happen where men
+run into hazardous things in trade, and, without prudence or due
+consideration, launched their fortunes in a degree beyond their
+strength, grasping at adventures beyond their stocks, and the like; but
+that, as he was stated in the world, if I would embark with him, he had
+a fortune equal with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> mine; that together we should have no occasion of
+engaging in business any more, but that in any part of the world where I
+had a mind to live, whether England, France, Holland, or where I would,
+we might settle, and live as happily as the world could make any one
+live; that if I desired the management of our estate, when put together,
+if I would not trust him with mine, he would trust me with his; that we
+would be upon one bottom, and I should steer. "Ay," says I, "you'll
+allow me to steer&mdash;that is, hold the helm&mdash;but you'll con the ship, as
+they call it; that is, as at sea, a boy serves to stand at the helm, but
+he that gives him the orders is pilot."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed at my simile. "No," says he; "you shall be pilot then; you
+shall con the ship." "Ay," says I, "as long as you please; but you can
+take the helm out of my hand when you please, and bid me go spin. It is
+not you," says I, "that I suspect, but the laws of matrimony puts the
+power into your hands, bids you do it, commands you to command, and
+binds me, forsooth, to obey. You, that are now upon even terms with me,
+and I with you," says I, "are the next hour set up upon the throne, and
+the humble wife placed at your footstool; all the rest, all that you
+call oneness of interest, mutual affection, and the like, is courtesy
+and kindness then, and a woman is indeed infinitely obliged where she
+meets with it, but can't help herself where it fails."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Well, he did not give it over yet, but came to the serious part, and
+there he thought he should be too many for me. He first hinted that
+marriage was decreed by Heaven; that it was the fixed state of life,
+which God had appointed for man's felicity, and for establishing a legal
+posterity; that there could be no legal claim of estates by inheritance
+but by children born in wedlock; that all the rest was sunk under
+scandal and illegitimacy; and very well he talked upon that subject
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>But it would not do; I took him short there. "Look you, sir," said I,
+"you have an advantage of me there indeed, in my particular case, but it
+would not be generous to make use of it. I readily grant that it were
+better for me to have married you than to admit you to the liberty I
+have given you, but as I could not reconcile my judgment to marriage,
+for the reasons above, and had kindness enough for you, and obligation
+too much on me to resist you, I suffered your rudeness and gave up my
+virtue. But I have two things before me to heal up that breach of honour
+without that desperate one of marriage, and those are, repentance for
+what is past, and putting an end to it for time to come."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to be concerned to think that I should take him in that
+manner. He assured me that I misunderstood him; that he had more manners
+as well as more kindness for me, and more justice than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> to reproach me
+with what he had been the aggressor in, and had surprised me into; that
+what he spoke referred to my words above, that the woman, if she thought
+fit, might entertain a man, as a man did a mistress; and that I seemed
+to mention that way of living as justifiable, and setting it as a lawful
+thing, and in the place of matrimony.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we strained some compliments upon those points, not worth
+repeating; and I added, I supposed when he got to bed to me he thought
+himself sure of me; and, indeed, in the ordinary course of things, after
+he had lain with me he ought to think so, but that, upon the same foot
+of argument which I had discoursed with him upon, it was just the
+contrary; and when a woman had been weak enough to yield up the last
+point before wedlock, it would be adding one weakness to another to take
+the man afterwards, to pin down the shame of it upon herself all the
+days of her life, and bind herself to live all her time with the only
+man that could upbraid her with it; that in yielding at first, she must
+be a fool, but to take the man is to be sure to be called fool; that to
+resist a man is to act with courage and vigour, and to cast off the
+reproach, which, in the course of things, drops out of knowledge and
+dies. The man goes one way and the woman another, as fate and the
+circumstances of living direct; and if they keep one another's counsel,
+the folly is heard no more of. "But to take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> the man," says I, "is the
+most preposterous thing in nature, and (saving your presence) is to
+befoul one's self, and live always in the smell of it. No, no," added I;
+"after a man has lain with me as a mistress, he ought never to lie with
+me as a wife. That's not only preserving the crime in memory, but it is
+recording it in the family. If the woman marries the man afterwards, she
+bears the reproach of it to the last hour. If her husband is not a man
+of a hundred thousand, he some time or other upbraids her with it. If he
+has children, they fail not one way or other to hear of it. If the
+children are virtuous, they do their mother the justice to hate her for
+it; if they are wicked, they give her the mortification of doing the
+like, and giving her for the example. On the other hand, if the man and
+the woman part, there is an end of the crime and an end of the clamour;
+time wears out the memory of it, or a woman may remove but a few
+streets, and she soon outlives it, and hears no more of it."</p>
+
+<p>He was confounded at this discourse, and told me he could not say but I
+was right in the main. That as to that part relating to managing
+estates, it was arguing <i>&agrave; la cavalier</i>; it was in some sense right, if
+the women were able to carry it on so, but that in general the sex were
+not capable of it; their heads were not turned for it, and they had
+better choose a person capable and honest, that knew how to do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> them
+justice as women, as well as to love them; and that then the trouble was
+all taken off of their hands.</p>
+
+<p>I told him it was a dear way of purchasing their ease, for very often
+when the trouble was taken off of their hands, so was their money too;
+and that I thought it was far safer for the sex not to be afraid of the
+trouble, but to be really afraid of their money; that if nobody was
+trusted, nobody would be deceived, and the staff in their own hands was
+the best security in the world.</p>
+
+<p>He replied, that I had started a new thing in the world; that however I
+might support it by subtle reasoning, yet it was a way of arguing that
+was contrary to the general practice, and that he confessed he was much
+disappointed in it; that, had he known I would have made such a use of
+it, he would never have attempted what he did, which he had no wicked
+design in, resolving to make me reparation, and that he was very sorry
+he had been so unhappy; that he was very sure he should never upbraid me
+with it hereafter, and had so good an opinion of me as to believe I did
+not suspect him; but seeing I was positive in refusing him,
+notwithstanding what had passed, he had nothing to do but secure me from
+reproach by going back again to Paris, that so, according to my own way
+of arguing, it might die out of memory, and I might never meet with it
+again to my disadvantage.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I was not pleased with this part at all, for I had no mind to let him go
+neither, and yet I had no mind to give him such hold of me as he would
+have had; and thus I was in a kind of suspense, irresolute, and doubtful
+what course to take.</p>
+
+<p>I was in the house with him, as I have observed, and I saw evidently
+that he was preparing to go back to Paris; and particularly I found he
+was remitting money to Paris, which was, as I understood afterwards, to
+pay for some wines which he had given order to have bought for him at
+Troyes, in Champagne, and I knew not what course to take; and, besides
+that, I was very loth to part with him. I found also that I was with
+child by him, which was what I had not yet told him of, and sometimes I
+thought not to tell him of it at all; but I was in a strange place, and
+had no acquaintance, though I had a great deal of substance, which
+indeed, having no friends there, was the more dangerous to me.</p>
+
+<p>This obliged me to take him one morning when I saw him, as I thought, a
+little anxious about his going, and irresolute. Says I to him, "I fancy
+you can hardly find in your heart to leave me now." "The more unkind is
+it in you," said he, "severely unkind, to refuse a man that knows not
+how to part with you."</p>
+
+<p>"I am so far from being unkind to you," said I, "that I will go over all
+the world with you if you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> desire me to, except to Paris, where you know
+I can't go."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity so much love," said he, "on both sides should ever
+separate."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then," said I, "do you go away from me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," said he, "you won't take me."</p>
+
+<p>"But if I won't take you," said I, "you may take me anywhere but to
+Paris."</p>
+
+<p>He was very loth to go anywhere, he said, without me, but he must go to
+Paris or the East Indies.</p>
+
+<p>I told him I did not use to court, but I durst venture myself to the
+East Indies with him, if there was a necessity of his going.</p>
+
+<p>He told me, God be thanked he was in no necessity of going anywhere, but
+that he had a tempting invitation to go to the Indies.</p>
+
+<p>I answered, I would say nothing to that, but that I desired he would go
+anywhere but to Paris, because there he knew I must not go.</p>
+
+<p>He said he had no remedy but to go where I could not go, for he could
+not bear to see me if he must not have me.</p>
+
+<p>I told him that was the unkindest thing he could say of me, and that I
+ought to take it very ill, seeing I knew how very well to oblige him to
+stay, without yielding to what he knew I could not yield to.</p>
+
+<p>This amazed him, and he told me I was pleased to be mysterious, but that
+he was sure it was in nobody's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> power to hinder him going, if he
+resolved upon it, except me, who had influence enough upon him to make
+him do anything.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I told him, I could hinder him, because I knew he could no more do
+an unkind thing by me than he could do an unjust one; and to put him out
+of his pain, I told him I was with child.</p>
+
+<p>He came to me, and taking me in his arms and kissing me a thousand times
+almost, said, why would I be so unkind not to tell him that before?</p>
+
+<p>I told him 'twas hard, that to have him stay, I should be forced to do
+as criminals do to avoid the gallows, plead my belly; and that I thought
+I had given him testimonies enough of an affection equal to that of a
+wife, if I had not only lain with him, been with child by him, shown
+myself unwilling to part with him, but offered to go to the East Indies
+with him; and except one thing that I could not grant, what could he ask
+more?</p>
+
+<p>He stood mute a good while, but afterwards told me he had a great deal
+more to say if I could assure him that I would not take ill whatever
+freedom he might use with me in his discourse.</p>
+
+<p>I told him he might use any freedom in words with me; for a woman who
+had given leave to such other freedoms as I had done had left herself no
+room to take anything ill, let it be what it would.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then," he said, "I hope you believe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> madam, I was born a
+Christian, and that I have some sense of sacred things upon my mind.
+When I first broke in upon my own virtue and assaulted yours; when I
+surprised and, as it were, forced you to that which neither you intended
+or I designed but a few hours before, it was upon a presumption that you
+would certainly marry me, if once I could go that length with you, and
+it was with an honest resolution to make you my wife.</p>
+
+<p>"But I have been surprised with such a denial that no woman in such
+circumstances ever gave to a man; for certainly it was never known that
+any woman refused to marry a man that had first lain with her, much less
+a man that had gotten her with child. But you go upon different notions
+from all the world, and though you reason upon it so strongly that a man
+knows hardly what to answer, yet I must own there is something in it
+shocking to nature, and something very unkind to yourself. But, above
+all, it is unkind to the child that is yet unborn, who, if we marry,
+will come into the world with advantage enough, but if not, is ruined
+before it is born; must bear the eternal reproach of what it is not
+guilty of; must be branded from its cradle with a mark of infamy, be
+loaded with the crimes and follies of its parents, and suffer for sins
+that it never committed. This I take to be very hard, and, indeed, cruel
+to the poor infant not yet born, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> you cannot think of with any
+patience, if you have the common affection of a mother, and not do that
+for it which should at once place it on a level with the rest of the
+world, and not leave it to curse its parents for what also we ought to
+be ashamed of. I cannot, therefore," says he, "but beg and entreat you,
+as you are a Christian and a mother, not to let the innocent lamb you go
+with be ruined before it is born, and leave it to curse and reproach us
+hereafter for what may be so easily avoided.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, dear madam," said he, with a world of tenderness (and I thought I
+saw tears in his eyes), "allow me to repeat it, that I am a Christian,
+and consequently I do not allow what I have rashly, and without due
+consideration, done; I say, I do not approve of it as lawful, and
+therefore, though I did, with the view I have mentioned, one
+unjustifiable action, I cannot say that I could satisfy myself to live
+in a continual practice of what in judgment we must both condemn; and
+though I love you above all the women in the world, and have done enough
+to convince you of it by resolving to marry you after what has passed
+between us, and by offering to quit all pretensions to any part of your
+estate, so that I should, as it were, take a wife after I had lain with
+her, and without a farthing portion, which, as my circumstances are, I
+need not do; I say, notwithstanding my affection to you, which is
+inex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>pressible, yet I cannot give up soul as well as body, the interest
+of this world and the hopes of another; and you cannot call this my
+disrespect to you."</p>
+
+<p>If ever any man in the world was truly valuable for the strictest
+honesty of intention, this was the man; and if ever woman in her senses
+rejected a man of merit on so trivial and frivolous a pretence, I was
+the woman; but surely it was the most preposterous thing that ever woman
+did.</p>
+
+<p>He would have taken me as a wife, but would not entertain me as a whore.
+Was ever woman angry with any gentleman on that head? And was ever woman
+so stupid to choose to be a whore, where she might have been an honest
+wife? But infatuations are next to being possessed of the devil. I was
+inflexible, and pretended to argue upon the point of a woman's liberty
+as before, but he took me short, and with more warmth than he had yet
+used with me, though with the utmost respect, replied, "Dear madam, you
+argue for liberty, at the same time that you restrain yourself from that
+liberty which God and nature has directed you to take, and, to supply
+the deficiency, propose a vicious liberty, which is neither honourable
+or religious. Will you propose liberty at the expense of modesty?"</p>
+
+<p>I returned, that he mistook me; I did not propose it; I only said that
+those that could not be content without concerning the sexes in that
+affair might do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> so indeed; might entertain a man as men do a mistress,
+if they thought fit, but he did not hear me say I would do so; and
+though, by what had passed, he might well censure me in that part, yet
+he should find, for the future, that I should freely converse with him
+without any inclination that way.</p>
+
+<p>He told me he could not promise that for himself, and thought he ought
+not to trust himself with the opportunity, for that, as he had failed
+already, he was loth to lead himself into the temptation of offending
+again, and that this was the true reason of his resolving to go back to
+Paris; not that he could willingly leave me, and would be very far from
+wanting my invitation; but if he could not stay upon terms that became
+him, either as an honest man or a Christian, what could he do? And he
+hoped, he said, I could not blame him that he was unwilling anything
+that was to call him father should upbraid him with leaving him in the
+world to be called bastard; adding that he was astonished to think how I
+could satisfy myself to be so cruel to an innocent infant not yet born;
+professed he could neither bear the thoughts of it, much less bear to
+see it, and hoped I would not take it ill that he could not stay to see
+me delivered, for that very reason.</p>
+
+<p>I saw he spoke this with a disturbed mind, and that it was with some
+difficulty that he restrained his passion, so I declined any farther
+discourse upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> it; only said I hoped he would consider of it. "Oh,
+madam!" says he, "do not bid me consider; 'tis for you to consider;" and
+with that he went out of the room, in a strange kind of confusion, as
+was easy to be seen in his countenance.</p>
+
+<p>If I had not been one of the foolishest as well as wickedest creatures
+upon earth, I could never have acted thus. I had one of the honestest,
+completest gentlemen upon earth at my hand. He had in one sense saved my
+life, but he had saved that life from ruin in a most remarkable manner.
+He loved me even to distraction, and had come from Paris to Rotterdam on
+purpose to seek me. He had offered me marriage even after I was with
+child by him, and had offered to quit all his pretensions to my estate,
+and give it up to my own management, having a plentiful estate of his
+own. Here I might have settled myself out of the reach even of disaster
+itself; his estate and mine would have purchased even then above two
+thousand pounds a year, and I might have lived like a queen&mdash;nay, far
+more happy than a queen; and, which was above all, I had now an
+opportunity to have quitted a life of crime and debauchery, which I had
+been given up to for several years, and to have sat down quiet in plenty
+and honour, and to have set myself apart to the great work which I have
+since seen so much necessity of and occasion for&mdash;I mean that of
+repentance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But my measure of wickedness was not yet full. I continued obstinate
+against matrimony, and yet I could not bear the thoughts of his going
+away neither. As to the child, I was not very anxious about it. I told
+him I would promise him it should never come to him to upbraid him with
+its being illegitimate; that if it was a boy, I would breed it up like
+the son of a gentleman, and use it well for his sake; and after a little
+more such talk as this, and seeing him resolved to go, I retired, but
+could not help letting him see the tears run down my cheeks. He came to
+me and kissed me, entreated me, conjured me by the kindness he had shown
+me in my distress, by the justice he had done me in my bills and money
+affairs, by the respect which made him refuse a thousand pistoles from
+me for his expenses with that traitor the Jew, by the pledge of our
+misfortunes&mdash;so he called it&mdash;which I carried with me, and by all that
+the sincerest affection could propose to do, that I would not drive him
+away.</p>
+
+<p>But it would not do. I was stupid and senseless, deaf to all his
+importunities, and continued so to the last. So we parted, only desiring
+me to promise that I would write him word when I was delivered, and how
+he might give me an answer; and this I engaged my word I would do. And
+upon his desiring to be informed which way I intended to dispose of
+myself, I told him I resolved to go directly to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> England, and to London,
+where I proposed to lie in; but since he resolved to leave me, I told
+him I supposed it would be of no consequence to him what became of me.</p>
+
+<p>He lay in his lodgings that night, but went away early in the morning,
+leaving me a letter in which he repeated all he had said, recommended
+the care of the child, and desired of me that as he had remitted to me
+the offer of a thousand pistoles which I would have given him for the
+recompense of his charges and trouble with the Jew, and had given it me
+back, so he desired I would allow him to oblige me to set apart that
+thousand pistoles, with its improvement, for the child, and for its
+education; earnestly pressing me to secure that little portion for the
+abandoned orphan when I should think fit, as he was sure I would, to
+throw away the rest upon something as worthless as my sincere friend at
+Paris. He concluded with moving me to reflect, with the same regret as
+he did, on our follies we had committed together; asked me forgiveness
+for being the aggressor in the fact, and forgave me everything, he said,
+but the cruelty of refusing him, which he owned he could not forgive me
+so heartily as he should do, because he was satisfied it was an injury
+to myself, would be an introduction to my ruin, and that I would
+seriously repent of it. He foretold some fatal things which, he said, he
+was well assured I should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> fall into, and that at last I would be ruined
+by a bad husband; bid me be the more wary, that I might render him a
+false prophet; but to remember that, if ever I came into distress, I had
+a fast friend at Paris, who would not upbraid me with the unkind things
+past, but would be always ready to return me good for evil.</p>
+
+<p>This letter stunned me. I could not think it possible for any one that
+had not dealt with the devil to write such a letter, for he spoke of
+some particular things which afterwards were to befall me with such an
+assurance that it frighted me beforehand; and when those things did come
+to pass, I was persuaded he had some more than human knowledge. In a
+word, his advices to me to repent were very affectionate, his warnings
+of evil to happen to me were very kind, and his promises of assistance,
+if I wanted him, were so generous that I have seldom seen the like; and
+though I did not at first set much by that part because I looked upon
+them as what might not happen, and as what was improbable to happen at
+that time, yet all the rest of his letter was so moving that it left me
+very melancholy, and I cried four-and-twenty hours after, almost without
+ceasing, about it; and yet even all this while, whatever it was that
+bewitched me, I had not one serious wish that I had taken him. I wished
+heartily, indeed, that I could have kept him with me, but I had a mortal
+aversion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> to marrying him, or indeed anybody else, but formed a thousand
+wild notions in my head that I was yet gay enough, and young and
+handsome enough, to please a man of quality, and that I would try my
+fortune at London, come of it what would.</p>
+
+<p>Thus blinded by my own vanity, I threw away the only opportunity I then
+had to have effectually settled my fortunes, and secured them for this
+world; and I am a memorial to all that shall read my story, a standing
+monument of the madness and distraction which pride and infatuations
+from hell run us into, how ill our passions guide us, and how
+dangerously we act when we follow the dictates of an ambitious mind.</p>
+
+<p>I was rich, beautiful, and agreeable, and not yet old. I had known
+something of the influence I had had upon the fancies of men even of the
+highest rank. I never forgot that the Prince de &mdash;&mdash; had said, with an
+ecstasy, that I was the finest woman in France. I knew I could make a
+figure at London, and how well I could grace that figure. I was not at a
+loss how to behave, and having already been adored by princes, I thought
+of nothing less than of being mistress to the king himself. But I go
+back to my immediate circumstances at that time.</p>
+
+<p>I got over the absence of my honest merchant but slowly at first. It was
+with infinite regret that I let him go at all; and when I read the
+letter he left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> I was quite confounded. As soon as he was out of call
+and irrecoverable I would have given half I had in the world for him
+back again; my notion of things changed in an instant, and I called
+myself a thousand fools for casting myself upon a life of scandal and
+hazard, when, after the shipwreck of virtue, honour, and principle, and
+sailing at the utmost risk in the stormy seas of crime and abominable
+levity, I had a safe harbour presented, and no heart to cast anchor in
+it.</p>
+
+<p>His predictions terrified me; his promises of kindness if I came to
+distress melted me into tears, but frighted me with the apprehensions of
+ever coming into such distress, and filled my head with a thousand
+anxieties and thoughts how it should be possible for me, who had now
+such a fortune, to sink again into misery.</p>
+
+<p>Then the dreadful scene of my life, when I was left with my five
+children, &amp;c., as I have related, represented itself again to me, and I
+sat considering what measures I might take to bring myself to such a
+state of desolation again, and how I should act to avoid it.</p>
+
+<p>But these things wore off gradually. As to my friend the merchant, he
+was gone, and gone irrecoverably, for I durst not follow him to Paris,
+for the reasons mentioned above. Again, I was afraid to write to him to
+return, lest he should have refused,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> as I verily believed he would; so
+I sat and cried intolerably for some days&mdash;nay, I may say for some
+weeks; but, I say, it wore off gradually, and as I had a pretty deal of
+business for managing my effects, the hurry of that particular part
+served to divert my thoughts, and in part to wear out the impressions
+which had been made upon my mind.</p>
+
+<p>I had sold my jewels, all but the diamond ring which my gentleman the
+jeweller used to wear, and this, at proper times, I wore myself; as also
+the diamond necklace which the prince had given me, and a pair of
+extraordinary earrings worth about 600 pistoles; the other, which was a
+fine casket, he left with me at his going to Versailles, and a small
+case with some rubies and emeralds, &amp;c. I say I sold them at the Hague
+for 7600 pistoles. I had received all the bills which the merchant had
+helped me to at Paris, and with the money I brought with me, they made
+up 13,900 pistoles more; so that I had in ready money, and in account in
+the bank at Amsterdam, above one-and-twenty thousand pistoles, besides
+jewels; and how to get this treasure to England was my next care.</p>
+
+<p>The business I had had now with a great many people for receiving such
+large sums and selling jewels of such considerable value gave me
+opportunity to know and converse with several of the best merchants of
+the place, so that I wanted no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> direction now how to get my money
+remitted to England. Applying, therefore, to several merchants, that I
+might neither risk it all on the credit of one merchant, nor suffer any
+single man to know the quantity of money I had; I say, applying myself
+to several merchants, I got bills of exchange payable in London for all
+my money. The first bills I took with me; the second bills I left in
+trust (in case of any disaster at sea) in the hands of the first
+merchant, him to whom I was recommended by my friend from Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus spent nine months in Holland, refused the best offer ever
+woman in my circumstances had, parted unkindly, and indeed barbarously,
+with the best friend and honestest man in the world, got all my money in
+my pocket, and a bastard in my belly, I took shipping at the Brill in
+the packet-boat, and arrived safe at Harwich, where my woman Amy was
+come by my direction to meet me.</p>
+
+<p>I would willingly have given ten thousand pounds of my money to have
+been rid of the burthen I had in my belly, as above; but it could not
+be, so I was obliged to bear with that part, and get rid of it by the
+ordinary method of patience and a hard travail.</p>
+
+<p>I was above the contemptible usage that women in my circumstances
+oftentimes meet with. I had considered all that beforehand; and having
+sent Amy beforehand, and remitted her money to do it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> she had taken me
+a very handsome house in &mdash;&mdash; Street, near Charing Cross; had hired me
+two maids and a footman, who she had put in a good livery; and having
+hired a glass coach and four horses, she came with them and the
+man-servant to Harwich to meet me, and had been there near a week before
+I came, so I had nothing to do but to go away to London to my own house,
+where I arrived in very good health, and where I passed for a French
+lady, by the title of &mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>My first business was to get all my bills accepted, which, to cut the
+story short, was all both accepted and currently paid; and I then
+resolved to take me a country lodging somewhere near the town, to be
+incognito, till I was brought to bed; which, appearing in such a figure
+and having such an equipage, I easily managed without anybody's offering
+the usual insults of parish inquiries. I did not appear in my new house
+for some time, and afterwards I thought fit, for particular reasons, to
+quit that house, and not to come to it at all, but take handsome large
+apartments in the Pall Mall, in a house out of which was a private door
+into the king's garden, by the permission of the chief gardener, who had
+lived in the house.</p>
+
+<p>I had now all my effects secured; but my money being my great concern at
+that time, I found it a difficulty how to dispose of it so as to bring
+me in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> an annual interest. However, in some time I got a substantial
+safe mortgage for &pound;14,000 by the assistance of the famous Sir Robert
+Clayton, for which I had an estate of &pound;1800 a year bound to me, and had
+&pound;700 per annum interest for it.</p>
+
+<p>This, with some other securities, made me a very handsome estate of
+above a thousand pounds a year; enough, one would think, to keep any
+woman in England from being a whore.</p>
+
+<p>I lay in at &mdash;&mdash;, about four miles from London, and brought a fine boy
+into the world, and, according to my promise, sent an account of it to
+my friend at Paris, the father of it; and in the letter told him how
+sorry I was for his going away, and did as good as intimate that, if he
+would come once more to see me, I should use him better than I had done.
+He gave me a very kind and obliging answer, but took not the least
+notice of what I had said of his coming over, so I found my interest
+lost there for ever. He gave me joy of the child, and hinted that he
+hoped I would make good what he had begged for the poor infant as I had
+promised, and I sent him word again that I would fulfil his order to a
+tittle; and such a fool and so weak I was in this last letter,
+notwithstanding what I have said of his not taking notice of my
+invitation, as to ask his pardon almost for the usage I gave him at
+Rotterdam, and stooped so low as to expostulate with him for not taking
+notice of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> my inviting him to come to me again, as I had done; and,
+which was still more, went so far as to make a second sort of an offer
+to him, telling him, almost in plain words, that if he would come over
+now I would have him; but he never gave me the least reply to it at all,
+which was as absolute a denial to me as he was ever able to give; so I
+sat down, I cannot say contented, but vexed heartily that I had made the
+offer at all, for he had, as I may say, his full revenge of me in
+scorning to answer, and to let me twice ask that of him which he with so
+much importunity begged of me before.</p>
+
+<p>I was now up again, and soon came to my City lodging in the Pall Mall,
+and here I began to make a figure suitable to my estate, which was very
+great; and I shall give you an account of my equipage in a few words,
+and of myself too.</p>
+
+<p>I paid &pound;60 a year for my new apartments, for I took them by the year;
+but then they were handsome lodgings indeed, and very richly furnished.
+I kept my own servants to clean and look after them, found my own
+kitchen ware and firing. My equipage was handsome, but not very great; I
+had a coach, a coachman, a footman, my woman Amy, who I now dressed like
+a gentlewoman and made her my companion, and three maids; and thus I
+lived for a time. I dressed to the height of every mode, went extremely
+rich in clothes, and as for jewels, I wanted none.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> I gave a very good
+livery, laced with silver, and as rich as anybody below the nobility
+could be seen with; and thus I appeared, leaving the world to guess who
+or what I was, without offering to put myself forward.</p>
+
+<p>I walked sometimes in the Mall with my woman Amy, but I kept no company
+and made no acquaintances, only made as gay a show as I was able to do,
+and that upon all occasions. I found, however, the world was not
+altogether so unconcerned about me as I seemed to be about them; and
+first I understood that the neighbours began to be mighty inquisitive
+about me, as who I was, and what my circumstances were.</p>
+
+<p>Amy was the only person that could answer their curiosity or give any
+account of me; and she, a tattling woman and a true gossip, took care to
+do that with all the art that she was mistress of. She let them know
+that I was the widow of a person of quality in France, that I was very
+rich, that I came over hither to look after an estate that fell to me by
+some of my relations who died here, that I was worth &pound;40,000 all in my
+own hands, and the like.</p>
+
+<p>This was all wrong in Amy, and in me too, though we did not see it at
+first, for this recommended me indeed to those sort of gentlemen they
+call fortune-hunters, and who always besieged ladies, as they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> called
+it&mdash;on purpose to take them prisoners, as I called it&mdash;that is to say,
+to marry the women and have the spending of their money. But if I was
+wrong in refusing the honourable proposals of the Dutch merchant, who
+offered me the disposal of my whole estate, and had as much of his own
+to maintain me with, I was right now in refusing those offers which came
+generally from gentlemen of good families and good estates, but who,
+living to the extent of them, were always needy and necessitous, and
+wanted a sum of money to make themselves easy, as they call it&mdash;that is
+to say, to pay off encumbrances, sisters' portions, and the like; and
+then the woman is prisoner for life, and may live as they give her
+leave. This life I had seen into clearly enough, and therefore I was not
+to be catched that way. However, as I said, the reputation of my money
+brought several of those sort of gentry about me, and they found means,
+by one stratagem or other, to get access to my ladyship; but, in short,
+I answered them well enough, that I lived single and was happy; that as
+I had no occasion to change my condition for an estate, so I did not see
+that by the best offer that any of them could make me I could mend my
+fortune; that I might be honoured with titles indeed, and in time rank
+on public occasions with the peeresses (I mention that because one that
+offered at me was the eldest son of a peer), but that I was as well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+without the title as long as I had the estate, and while I had &pound;2000 a
+year of my own I was happier than I could be in being prisoner of state
+to a nobleman, for I took the ladies of that rank to be little better.</p>
+
+<p>As I have mentioned Sir Robert Clayton, with whom I had the good fortune
+to become acquainted, on account of the mortgage which he helped me to,
+it is necessary to take notice that I had much advantage in my ordinary
+affairs by his advice, and therefore I called it my good fortune; for as
+he paid me so considerable an annual income as &pound;700 a year, so I am to
+acknowledge myself much a debtor, not only to the justice of his
+dealings with me, but to the prudence and conduct which he guided me to,
+by his advice, for the management of my estate. And as he found I was
+not inclined to marry, he frequently took occasion to hint how soon I
+might raise my fortune to a prodigious height if I would but order my
+family economy so far within my revenue as to lay up every year
+something to add to the capital.</p>
+
+<p>I was convinced of the truth of what he said, and agreed to the
+advantages of it. You are to take it as you go that Sir Robert supposed
+by my own discourse, and especially by my woman Amy, that I had &pound;2000 a
+year income. He judged, as he said, by my way of living that I could not
+spend above one thousand, and so, he added, I might prudently lay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> by
+&pound;1000 every year to add to the capital; and by adding every year the
+additional interest or income of the money to the capital, he proved to
+me that in ten years I should double the &pound;1000 per annum that I laid by.
+And he drew me out a table, as he called it, of the increase, for me to
+judge by; and by which, he said, if the gentlemen of England would but
+act so, every family of them would increase their fortunes to a great
+degree, just as merchants do by trade; whereas now, says Sir Robert, by
+the humour of living up to the extent of their fortunes, and rather
+beyond, the gentlemen, says he, ay, and the nobility too, are almost all
+of them borrowers, and all in necessitous circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>As Sir Robert frequently visited me, and was (if I may say so from his
+own mouth) very well pleased with my way of conversing with him, for he
+knew nothing, not so much as guessed at what I had been; I say, as he
+came often to see me, so he always entertained me with this scheme of
+frugality; and one time he brought another paper, wherein he showed me,
+much to the same purpose as the former, to what degree I should increase
+my estate if I would come into his method of contracting my expenses;
+and by this scheme of his, it appeared that, laying up a thousand pounds
+a year, and every year adding the interest to it, I should in twelve
+years' time have in bank one-and-twenty thousand and fifty-eight
+pounds,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> after which I might lay up two thousand pounds a year.</p>
+
+<p>I objected that I was a young woman, that I had been used to live
+plentifully, and with a good appearance, and that I knew not how to be a
+miser.</p>
+
+<p>He told me that if I thought I had enough it was well, but that if I
+desired to have more, this was the way; that in another twelve years I
+should be too rich, so that I should not know what to do with it.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, sir," says I, "you are contriving how to make me a rich old woman,
+but that won't answer my end; I had rather have &pound;20,000 now than &pound;60,000
+when I am fifty years old."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, madam," says he, "I suppose your honour has no children?"</p>
+
+<p>"None, Sir Robert," said I, "but what are provided for." So I left him
+in the dark as much as I found him. However, I considered his scheme
+very well, though I said no more to him at that time, and I resolved,
+though I would make a very good figure, I say I resolved to abate a
+little of my expense, and draw in, live closer, and save something, if
+not so much as he proposed to me. It was near the end of the year that
+Sir Robert made this proposal to me, and when the year was up I went to
+his house in the City, and there I told him I came to thank him for his
+scheme of frugality; that I had been studying much upon it, and though I
+had not been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> able to mortify myself so much as to lay up a thousand
+pounds a year, yet, as I had not come to him for my interest
+half-yearly, as was usual, I was now come to let him know that I had
+resolved to lay up that seven hundred pounds a year, and never use a
+penny of it, desiring him to help me to put it out to advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Robert, a man thoroughly versed in arts of improving money, but
+thoroughly honest, said to me, "Madam, I am glad you approve of the
+method that I proposed to you; but you have begun wrong; you should have
+come for your interest at the half-year, and then you had had the money
+to put out. Now you have lost half a year's interest of &pound;350, which is
+&pound;9; for I had but 5 per cent, on the mortgage."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, sir," says I, "can you put this out for me now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let it lie, madam," says he, "till the next year, and then I'll put out
+your &pound;1400 together, and in the meantime I'll pay you interest for the
+&pound;700." So he gave me his bill for the money, which he told me should be
+no less than &pound;6 per cent. Sir Robert Clayton's bill was what nobody
+would refuse, so I thanked him and let it lie; and next year I did the
+same, and the third year Sir Robert got me a good mortgage for &pound;2200 at
+&pound;6 per cent interest. So I had &pound;132 a year added to my income, which was
+a very satisfying article.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But I return to my history. As I have said, I found that my measures
+were all wrong; the posture I set up in exposed me to innumerable
+visitors of the kind I have mentioned above. I was cried up for a vast
+fortune, and one that Sir Robert Clayton managed for; and Sir Robert
+Clayton was courted for me as much as I was for myself. But I had given
+Sir Robert his cue. I had told him my opinion of matrimony, in just the
+same terms as I had done my merchant, and he came into it presently. He
+owned that my observation was just, and that if I valued my liberty, as
+I knew my fortune, and that it was in my own hands, I was to blame if I
+gave it away to any one.</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Robert knew nothing of my design, that I aimed at being a kept
+mistress, and to have a handsome maintenance; and that I was still for
+getting money, and laying it up too, as much as he could desire me, only
+by a worse way.</p>
+
+<p>However, Sir Robert came seriously to me one day, and told me he had an
+offer of matrimony to make to me that was beyond all that he had heard
+had offered themselves, and this was a merchant. Sir Robert and I agreed
+exactly in our notions of a merchant. Sir Robert said, and I found it to
+be true, that a true-bred merchant is the best gentleman in the nation;
+that in knowledge, in manners, in judgment of things, the merchant
+outdid many of the nobility;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> that having once mastered the world, and
+being above the demand of business, though no real estate, they were
+then superior to most gentlemen, even in estate; that a merchant in
+flush business and a capital stock is able to spend more money than a
+gentleman of &pound;5000 a year estate; that while a merchant spent, he only
+spent what he got, and not that, and that he laid up great sums every
+year; that an estate is a pond, but that a trade was a spring; that if
+the first is once mortgaged, it seldom gets clear, but embarrassed the
+person for ever; but the merchant had his estate continually flowing;
+and upon this he named me merchants who lived in more real splendour and
+spent more money than most of the noblemen in England could singly
+expend, and that they still grew immensely rich.</p>
+
+<p>He went on to tell me that even the tradesmen in London, speaking of the
+better sort of trades, could spend more money in their families, and yet
+give better fortunes to their children, than, generally speaking, the
+gentry of England from &pound;1000 a year downward could do, and yet grow rich
+too.</p>
+
+<p>The upshot of all this was to recommend to me rather the bestowing my
+fortune upon some eminent merchant, who lived already in the first
+figure of a merchant, and who, not being in want or scarcity of money,
+but having a flourishing business and a flowing cash, would at the first
+word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> settle all my fortune on myself and children, and maintain me like
+a queen.</p>
+
+<p>This was certainly right, and had I taken his advice, I had been really
+happy; but my heart was bent upon an independency of fortune, and I told
+him I knew no state of matrimony but what was at best a state of
+inferiority, if not of bondage; that I had no notion of it; that I lived
+a life of absolute liberty now, was free as I was born, and having a
+plentiful fortune, I did not understand what coherence the words "honour
+and obey" had with the liberty of a free woman; that I knew no reason
+the men had to engross the whole liberty of the race, and make the
+woman, notwithstanding any disparity of fortune, be subject to the laws
+of marriage, of their own making; that it was my misfortune to be a
+woman, but I was resolved it should not be made worse by the sex; and,
+seeing liberty seemed to be the men's property, I would be a man-woman,
+for, as I was born free, I would die so.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Robert smiled, and told me I talked a kind of Amazonian language;
+that he found few women of my mind, or that, if they were, they wanted
+resolution to go on with it; that, notwithstanding all my notions, which
+he could not but say had once some weight in them, yet he understood I
+had broke in upon them, and had been married. I answered, I had so; but
+he did not hear me say that I had any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> encouragement from what was past
+to make a second venture; that I was got well out of the toil, and if I
+came in again I should have nobody to blame but myself.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Robert laughed heartily at me, but gave over offering any more
+arguments, only told me he had pointed me out for some of the best
+merchants in London, but since I forbade him he would give me no
+disturbance of that kind. He applauded my way of managing my money, and
+told me I should soon be monstrous rich; but he neither knew or
+mistrusted that, with all this wealth, I was yet a whore, and was not
+averse to adding to my estate at the farther expense of my virtue.</p>
+
+<p>But to go on with my story as to my way of living. I found, as above,
+that my living as I did would not answer; that it only brought the
+fortune-hunters and bites about me, as I have said before, to make a
+prey of me and my money; and, in short, I was harassed with lovers,
+beaux, and fops of quality, in abundance, but it would not do. I aimed
+at other things, and was possessed with so vain an opinion of my own
+beauty, that nothing less than the king himself was in my eye. And this
+vanity was raised by some words let fall by a person I conversed with,
+who was, perhaps, likely enough to have brought such a thing to pass,
+had it been sooner; but that game began to be pretty well over at
+court.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> However, the having mentioned such a thing, it seems a little
+too publicly, it brought abundance of people about me, upon a wicked
+account too.</p>
+
+<p>And now I began to act in a new sphere. The court was exceedingly gay
+and fine, though fuller of men than of women, the queen not affecting to
+be very much in public. On the other hand, it is no slander upon the
+courtiers to say, they were as wicked as anybody in reason could desire
+them. The king had several mistresses, who were prodigious fine, and
+there was a glorious show on that side indeed. If the sovereign gave
+himself a loose, it could not be expected the rest of the court should
+be all saints; so far was it from that, though I would not make it worse
+than it was, that a woman that had anything agreeable in her appearance
+could never want followers.</p>
+
+<p>I soon found myself thronged with admirers, and I received visits from
+some persons of very great figure, who always introduced themselves by
+the help of an old lady or two who were now become my intimates; and one
+of them, I understood afterwards, was set to work on purpose to get into
+my favour, in order to introduce what followed.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation we had was generally courtly, but civil. At length some
+gentlemen proposed to play, and made what they called a party. This, it
+seems, was a contrivance of one of my female<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> hangers-on, for, as I
+said, I had two of them, who thought this was the way to introduce
+people as often as she pleased; and so indeed it was. They played high
+and stayed late, but begged my pardon, only asked leave to make an
+appointment for the next night. I was as gay and as well pleased as any
+of them, and one night told one of the gentlemen, my Lord &mdash;&mdash;, that
+seeing they were doing me the honour of diverting themselves at my
+apartment, and desired to be there sometimes, I did not keep a
+gaming-table, but I would give them a little ball the next day if they
+pleased, which they accepted very willingly.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, in the evening the gentlemen began to come, where I let
+them see that I understood very well what such things meant. I had a
+large dining-room in my apartments, with five other rooms on the same
+floor, all which I made drawing-rooms for the occasion, having all the
+beds taken down for the day. In three of these I had tables placed,
+covered with wine and sweetmeats, the fourth had a green table for play,
+and the fifth was my own room, where I sat, and where I received all the
+company that came to pay their compliments to me. I was dressed, you may
+be sure, to all the advantage possible, and had all the jewels on that I
+was mistress of. My Lord &mdash;&mdash;, to whom I had made the invitation, sent me
+a set of fine music from the play<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>house, and the ladies danced, and we
+began to be very merry, when about eleven o'clock I had notice given me
+that there were some gentlemen coming in masquerade. I seemed a little
+surprised, and began to apprehend some disturbance, when my Lord &mdash;&mdash;
+perceiving it, spoke to me to be easy, for that there was a party of the
+guards at the door which should be ready to prevent any rudeness; and
+another gentleman gave me a hint as if the king was among the masks. I
+coloured as red as blood itself could make a face look, and expressed a
+great surprise; however, there was no going back, so I kept my station
+in my drawing-room, but with the folding-doors wide open.</p>
+
+<p>A while after the masks came in, and began with a dance <i>&agrave; la comique</i>,
+performing wonderfully indeed. While they were dancing I withdrew, and
+left a lady to answer for me that I would return immediately. In less
+than half-an-hour I returned, dressed in the habit of a Turkish
+princess; the habit I got at Leghorn, when my foreign prince bought me a
+Turkish slave, as I have said. The Maltese man-of-war had, it seems,
+taken a Turkish vessel going from Constantinople to Alexandria, in which
+were some ladies bound for Grand Cairo in Egypt; and as the ladies were
+made slaves, so their fine clothes were thus exposed; and with this
+Turkish slave I bought the rich clothes too. The dress was
+extraor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>dinary fine indeed; I had bought it as a curiosity, having never
+seen the like. The robe was a fine Persian or India damask, the ground
+white, and the flowers blue and gold, and the train held five yards. The
+dress under it was a vest of the same, embroidered with gold, and set
+with some pearl in the work and some turquoise stones. To the vest was a
+girdle five or six inches wide, after the Turkish mode; and on both ends
+where it joined, or hooked, was set with diamonds for eight inches
+either way, only they were not true diamonds, but nobody knew that but
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>The turban, or head-dress, had a pinnacle on the top, but not above five
+inches, with a piece of loose sarcenet hanging from it; and on the
+front, just over the forehead, was a good jewel which I had added to it.</p>
+
+<p>This habit, as above, cost me about sixty pistoles in Italy, but cost
+much more in the country from whence it came; and little did I think
+when I bought it that I should put it to such a use as this, though I
+had dressed myself in it many times by the help of my little Turk, and
+afterwards between Amy and I, only to see how I looked in it. I had sent
+her up before to get it ready, and when I came up I had nothing to do
+but slip it on, and was down in my drawing-room in a little more than a
+quarter of an hour. When I came there the room was full of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> company; but
+I ordered the folding-doors to be shut for a minute or two till I had
+received the compliments of the ladies that were in the room, and had
+given them a full view of my dress.</p>
+
+<p>But my Lord &mdash;&mdash;, who happened to be in the room, slipped out at another
+door, and brought back with him one of the masks, a tall, well-shaped
+person, but who had no name, being all masked; nor would it have been
+allowed to ask any person's name on such an occasion. The person spoke
+in French to me, that it was the finest dress he had ever seen, and
+asked me if he should have the honour to dance with me. I bowed, as
+giving my consent, but said, as I had been a Mahometan, I could not
+dance after the manner of this country; I supposed their music would not
+play <i>&agrave; la Moresque</i>. He answered merrily. I had a Christian's face, and
+he'd venture it that I could dance like a Christian; adding that so much
+beauty could not be Mahometan. Immediately the folding-doors were flung
+open, and he led me into the room. The company were under the greatest
+surprise imaginable; the very music stopped awhile to gaze, for the
+dress was indeed exceedingly surprising, perfectly new, very agreeable,
+and wonderful rich.</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman, whoever he was, for I never knew, led me only <i>&agrave;
+courant</i>, and then asked me if I had a mind to dance an antic&mdash;that is
+to say, whether I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> would dance the antic as they had danced in
+masquerade, or anything by myself. I told him anything else rather, if
+he pleased; so we danced only two French dances, and he led me to the
+drawing-room door, when he retired to the rest of the masks. When he
+left me at the drawing-room door I did not go in, as he thought I would
+have done, but turned about and showed myself to the whole room, and
+calling my woman to me, gave her some directions to the music, by which
+the company presently understood that I would give them a dance by
+myself. Immediately all the house rose up and paid me a kind of a
+compliment by removing back every way to make me room, for the place was
+exceedingly full. The music did not at first hit the tune that I
+directed, which was a French tune, so I was forced to send my woman to
+them again, standing all this while at my drawing-room door; but as soon
+as my woman spoke to them again, they played it right, and I, to let
+them see it was so, stepped forward to the middle of the room. Then they
+began it again, and I danced by myself a figure which I learnt in
+France, when the Prince de &mdash;&mdash; desired I would dance for his diversion.
+It was, indeed, a very fine figure, invented by a famous master at
+Paris, for a lady or a gentleman to dance single; but being perfectly
+new, it pleased the company exceedingly, and they all thought it had
+been Turkish; nay, one gentleman had the folly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> to expose himself so
+much as to say, and I think swore too, that he had seen it danced at
+Constantinople, which was ridiculous enough.</p>
+
+<p>At the finishing the dance the company clapped, and almost shouted; and
+one of the gentlemen cried out "Roxana! Roxana! by &mdash;&mdash;," with an oath;
+upon which foolish accident I had the name of Roxana presently fixed
+upon me all over the court end of town as effectually as if I had been
+christened Roxana. I had, it seems, the felicity of pleasing everybody
+that night to an extreme; and my ball, but especially my dress, was the
+chat of the town for that week; and so the name of Roxana was the toast
+at and about the court; no other health was to be named with it.</p>
+
+<p>Now things began to work as I would have them, and I began to be very
+popular, as much as I could desire. The ball held till (as well as I was
+pleased with the show) I was sick of the night; the gentlemen masked
+went off about three o'clock in the morning, the other gentlemen sat
+down to play; the music held it out, and some of the ladies were dancing
+at six in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>But I was mighty eager to know who it was danced with me. Some of the
+lords went so far as to tell me I was very much honoured in my company;
+one of them spoke so broad as almost to say it was the king, but I was
+convinced afterwards it was not; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> another replied if he had been his
+Majesty he should have thought it no dishonour to lead up a Roxana; but
+to this hour I never knew positively who it was; and by his behaviour I
+thought he was too young, his Majesty being at that time in an age that
+might be discovered from a young person, even in his dancing.</p>
+
+<p>Be that as it would, I had five hundred guineas sent me the next
+morning, and the messenger was ordered to tell me that the persons who
+sent it desired a ball again at my lodgings on the next Tuesday, but
+that they would have my leave to give the entertainment themselves. I
+was mighty well pleased with this, to be sure, but very inquisitive to
+know who the money came from; but the messenger was silent as death as
+to that point, and bowing always at my inquiries, begged me to ask no
+questions which he could not give an obliging answer to.</p>
+
+<p>I forgot to mention, that the gentlemen that played gave a hundred
+guineas to the box, as they called it, and at the end of their play they
+asked for my gentlewoman of the bedchamber, as they called her (Mrs.
+Amy, forsooth), and gave it her, and gave twenty guineas more among the
+servants.</p>
+
+<p>These magnificent doings equally both pleased and surprised me, and I
+hardly knew where I was; but especially that notion of the king being
+the person<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> that danced with me, puffed me up to that degree, that I not
+only did not know anybody else, but indeed was very far from knowing
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>I had now, the next Tuesday, to provide for the like company. But, alas!
+it was all taken out of my hand. Three gentlemen, who yet were, it
+seems, but servants, came on the Saturday, and bringing sufficient
+testimonies that they were right, for one was the same who brought the
+five hundred guineas; I say, three of them came, and brought bottles of
+all sorts of wines, and hampers of sweetmeats to such a quantity, it
+appeared they designed to hold the trade on more than once, and that
+they would furnish everything to a profusion.</p>
+
+<p>However, as I found a deficiency in two things, I made provision of
+about twelve dozen of fine damask napkins, with tablecloths of the same,
+sufficient to cover all the tables, with three tablecloths upon every
+table, and sideboards in proportion. Also I bought a handsome quantity
+of plate, necessary to have served all the sideboards; but the gentlemen
+would not suffer any of it to be used, telling me they had bought fine
+china dishes and plates for the whole service, and that in such public
+places they could not be answerable for the plate. So it was set all up
+in a large glass cupboard in the room I sat in, where it made a very
+good show indeed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On Tuesday there came such an appearance of gentlemen and ladies, that
+my apartments were by no means able to receive them, and those who in
+particular appeared as principals gave order below to let no more
+company come up. The street was full of coaches with coronets, and fine
+glass chairs, and, in short, it was impossible to receive the company. I
+kept my little room as before, and the dancers filled the great room;
+all the drawing-rooms also were filled, and three rooms below stairs,
+which were not mine.</p>
+
+<p>It was very well that there was a strong party of the guards brought to
+keep the door, for without that there had been such a promiscuous crowd,
+and some of them scandalous too, that we should have been all disorder
+and confusion; but the three head servants managed all that, and had a
+word to admit all the company by.</p>
+
+<p>It was uncertain to me, and is to this day, who it was that danced with
+me the Wednesday before, when the ball was my own; but that the king was
+at this assembly was out of question with me, by circumstances that, I
+suppose, I could not be deceived in, and particularly that there were
+five persons who were not masked; three of them had blue garters, and
+they appeared not to me till I came out to dance.</p>
+
+<p>This meeting was managed just as the first, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> with much more
+magnificence, because of the company. I placed myself (exceedingly rich
+in clothes and jewels) in the middle of my little room, as before, and
+made my compliment to all the company as they passed me, as I did
+before. But my Lord &mdash;&mdash;, who had spoken openly to me the first night,
+came to me, and, unmasking, told me the company had ordered him to tell
+me they hoped they should see me in the dress I had appeared in the
+first day, which had been so acceptable that it had been the occasion of
+this new meeting. "And, madam," says he, "there are some in this
+assembly who it is worth your while to oblige."</p>
+
+<p>I bowed to my Lord &mdash;&mdash;, and immediately withdrew. While I was above,
+a-dressing in my new habit, two ladies, perfectly unknown to me, were
+conveyed into my apartment below, by the order of a noble person, who,
+with his family, had been in Persia; and here, indeed, I thought I
+should have been outdone, or perhaps balked.</p>
+
+<p>One of these ladies was dressed most exquisitely fine indeed, in the
+habit of a virgin lady of quality of Georgia, and the other in the same
+habit of Armenia, with each of them a woman slave to attend them.</p>
+
+<p>The ladies had their petticoats short to their ankles, but plaited all
+round, and before them short aprons, but of the finest point that could
+be seen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> Their gowns were made with long antique sleeves hanging down
+behind, and a train let down. They had no jewels, but their heads and
+breasts were dressed up with flowers, and they both came in veiled.</p>
+
+<p>Their slaves were bareheaded, but their long, black hair was braided in
+locks hanging down behind to their waists, and tied up with ribands.
+They were dressed exceeding rich, and were as beautiful as their
+mistresses; for none of them had any masks on. They waited in my room
+till I came down, and all paid their respects to me after the Persian
+manner, and sat down on a safra&mdash;that is to say, almost crosslegged, on
+a couch made up of cushions laid on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>This was admirably fine, and I was indeed startled at it. They made
+their compliment to me in French, and I replied in the same language.
+When the doors were opened, they walked into the dancing-room, and
+danced such a dance as indeed nobody there had ever seen, and to an
+instrument like a guitar, with a small low-sounding trumpet, which
+indeed was very fine, and which my Lord &mdash;&mdash; had provided.</p>
+
+<p>They danced three times all alone, for nobody indeed could dance with
+them. The novelty pleased, truly, but yet there was something wild and
+<i>bizarre</i> in it, because they really acted to the life the bar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>barous
+country whence they came; but as mine had the French behaviour under the
+Mahometan dress, it was every way as new, and pleased much better
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as they had shown their Georgian and Armenian shapes, and
+danced, as I have said, three times, they withdrew, paid their
+compliment to me (for I was queen of the day), and went off to undress.</p>
+
+<p>Some gentlemen then danced with ladies all in masks; and when they
+stopped, nobody rose up to dance, but all called out "Roxana, Roxana."
+In the interval, my Lord &mdash;&mdash; had brought another masked person into my
+room, who I knew not, only that I could discern it was not the same
+person that led me out before. This noble person (for I afterwards
+understood it was the Duke of &mdash;&mdash;), after a short compliment, led me
+out into the middle of the room.</p>
+
+<p>I was dressed in the same vest and girdle as before, but the robe had a
+mantle over it, which is usual in the Turkish habit, and it was of
+crimson and green, the green brocaded with gold; and my tyhiaai, or
+head-dress, varied a little from that I had before, as it stood higher,
+and had some jewels about the rising part, which made it look like a
+turban crowned.</p>
+
+<p>I had no mask, neither did I paint, and yet I had the day of all the
+ladies that appeared at the ball, I mean of those that appeared with
+faces on. As for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> those masked, nothing could be said of them, no doubt
+there might be many finer than I was; it must be confessed that the
+habit was infinitely advantageous to me, and everybody looked at me with
+a kind of pleasure, which gave me great advantage too.</p>
+
+<p>After I had danced with that noble person, I did not offer to dance by
+myself, as I had before; but they all called out "Roxana" again; and two
+of the gentlemen came into the drawing-room to entreat me to give them
+the Turkish dance, which I yielded to readily, so I came out and danced
+just as at first.</p>
+
+<p>While I was dancing, I perceived five persons standing all together, and
+among them only one with his hat on. It was an immediate hint to me who
+it was, and had at first almost put me into some disorder; but I went
+on, received the applause of the house, as before, and retired into my
+own room. When I was there, the five gentlemen came across the room to
+my side, and, coming in, followed by a throng of great persons, the
+person with his hat on said, "Madam Roxana, you perform to admiration."
+I was prepared, and offered to kneel to kiss his hand, but he declined
+it, and saluted me, and so, passing back again through the great room,
+went away.</p>
+
+<p>I do not say here who this was, but I say I came afterwards to know
+something more plainly. I would have withdrawn, and disrobed, being
+somewhat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> too thin in that dress, unlaced and open-breasted, as if I had
+been in my shift; but it could not be, and I was obliged to dance
+afterwards with six or eight gentlemen most, if not all of them, of the
+first rank; and I was told afterwards that one of them was the Duke of
+M[onmou]th.</p>
+
+<p>About two or three o'clock in the morning the company began to decrease;
+the number of women especially dropped away home, some and some at a
+time; and the gentlemen retired downstairs, where they unmasked and went
+to play.</p>
+
+<p>Amy waited at the room where they played, sat up all night to attend
+them, and in the morning when they broke up they swept the box into her
+lap, when she counted out to me sixty-two guineas and a half; and the
+other servants got very well too. Amy came to me when they were all
+gone; "Law, madam," says Amy, with a long gaping cry, "what shall I do
+with all this money?" And indeed the poor creature was half mad with
+joy.</p>
+
+<p>I was now in my element. I was as much talked of as anybody could
+desire, and I did not doubt but something or other would come of it; but
+the report of my being so rich rather was a balk to my view than
+anything else; for the gentlemen that would perhaps have been
+troublesome enough otherwise, seemed to be kept off, for Roxana was too
+high for them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There is a scene which came in here which I must cover from human eyes
+or ears. For three years and about a month Roxana lived retired, having
+been obliged to make an excursion in a manner, and with a person which
+duty and private vows obliges her not to reveal, at least not yet.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of this time I appeared again; but, I must add, that as I had
+in this time of retreat made hay, &amp;c., so I did not come abroad again
+with the same lustre, or shine with so much advantage as before. For as
+some people had got at least a suspicion of where I had been, and who
+had had me all the while, it began to be public that Roxana was, in
+short, a mere Roxana, neither better nor worse, and not that woman of
+honour and virtue that was at first supposed.</p>
+
+<p>You are now to suppose me about seven years come to town, and that I had
+not only suffered the old revenue, which I hinted was managed by Sir
+Robert Clayton, to grow, as was mentioned before, but I had laid up an
+incredible wealth, the time considered; and had I yet had the least
+thought of reforming, I had all the opportunity to do it with advantage
+that ever woman had. For the common vice of all whores, I mean money,
+was out of the question, nay, even avarice itself seemed to be glutted;
+for, including what I had saved in reserving the interest of &pound;14,000,
+which, as above, I had left to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> grow, and including some very good
+presents I had made to me in mere compliment upon these shining
+masquerading meetings, which I held up for about two years, and what I
+made of three years of the most glorious retreat, as I call it, that
+ever woman had, I had fully doubled my first substance, and had near
+&pound;5000 in money which I kept at home, besides abundance of plate and
+jewels, which I had either given me or had bought to set myself out for
+public days.</p>
+
+<p>In a word, I had now five-and-thirty thousand pounds estate; and as I
+found ways to live without wasting either principal or interest, I laid
+up &pound;2000 every year at least out of the mere interest, adding it to the
+principal, and thus I went on.</p>
+
+<p>After the end of what I call my retreat, and out of which I brought a
+great deal of money, I appeared again, but I seemed like an old piece of
+plate that had been hoarded up some years, and comes out tarnished and
+discoloured; so I came out blown, and looked like a cast-off mistress;
+nor, indeed, was I any better, though I was not at all impaired in
+beauty except that I was a little fatter than I was formerly, and always
+granting that I was four years older.</p>
+
+<p>However, I preserved the youth of my temper, was always bright, pleasant
+in company, and agreeable to everybody, or else everybody flattered me;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+and in this condition I came abroad to the world again. And though I was
+not so popular as before, and indeed did not seek it, because I knew it
+could not be, yet I was far from being without company, and that of the
+greatest quality (of subjects I mean), who frequently visited me, and
+sometimes we had meetings for mirth and play at my apartments, where I
+failed not to divert them in the most agreeable manner possible.</p>
+
+<p>Nor could any of them make the least particular application to me, from
+the notion they had of my excessive wealth, which, as they thought,
+placed me above the meanness of a maintenance, and so left no room to
+come easily about me.</p>
+
+<p>But at last I was very handsomely attacked by a person of honour, and
+(which recommended him particularly to me) a person of a very great
+estate. He made a long introduction to me upon the subject of my wealth.
+"Ignorant creature!" said I to myself, considering him as a lord, "was
+there ever woman in the world that could stoop to the baseness of being
+a whore, and was above taking the reward of her vice! No, no, depend
+upon it, if your lordship obtains anything of me, you must pay for it;
+and the notion of my being so rich serves only to make it cost you the
+dearer, seeing you cannot offer a small matter to a woman of &pound;2000 a
+year estate."</p>
+
+<p>After he had harangued upon that subject a good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> while, and had assured
+me he had no design upon me, that he did not come to make a prize of me,
+or to pick my pocket, which, by the way, I was in no fear of, for I took
+too much care of my money to part with any of it that way, he then
+turned his discourse to the subject of love, a point so ridiculous to me
+without the main thing, I mean the money, that I had no patience to hear
+him make so long a story of it.</p>
+
+<p>I received him civilly, and let him see I could bear to hear a wicked
+proposal without being affronted, and yet I was not to be brought into
+it too easily. He visited me a long while, and, in short, courted me as
+closely and assiduously as if he had been wooing me to matrimony. He
+made me several valuable presents, which I suffered myself to be
+prevailed with to accept, but not without great difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually I suffered also his other importunities; and when he made a
+proposal of a compliment or appointment to me for a settlement, he said
+that though I was rich, yet there was not the less due from him to
+acknowledge the favours he received; and that if I was to be his I
+should not live at my own expense, cost what it would. I told him I was
+far from being extravagant, and yet I did not live at the expense of
+less than &pound;500 a year out of my own pocket; that, however, I was not
+covetous of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> settled allowances, for I looked upon that as a kind of
+golden chain, something like matrimony; that though I knew how to be
+true to a man of honour, as I knew his lordship to be, yet I had a kind
+of aversion to the bonds; and though I was not so rich as the world
+talked me up to be, yet I was not so poor as to bind myself to hardships
+for a pension.</p>
+
+<p>He told me he expected to make my life perfectly easy, and intended it
+so; that he knew of no bondage there could be in a private engagement
+between us; that the bonds of honour he knew I would be tied by, and
+think them no burthen; and for other obligations, he scorned to expect
+anything from me but what he knew as a woman of honour I could grant.
+Then as to maintenance, he told me he would soon show me that he valued
+me infinitely above &pound;500 a year, and upon this foot we began.</p>
+
+<p>I seemed kinder to him after this discourse, and as time and private
+conversation made us very intimate, we began to come nearer to the main
+article, namely, the &pound;500 a year. He offered that at first word, and to
+acknowledge it as an infinite favour to have it be accepted of; and I,
+that thought it was too much by all the money, suffered myself to be
+mastered, or prevailed with to yield, even on but a bare engagement upon
+parole.</p>
+
+<p>When he had obtained his end that way, I told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> him my mind. "Now you
+see, my lord," said I, "how weakly I have acted, namely, to yield to you
+without any capitulation, or anything secured to me but that which you
+may cease to allow when you please. If I am the less valued for such a
+confidence, I shall be injured in a manner that I will endeavour not to
+deserve."</p>
+
+<p>He told me that he would make it evident to me that he did not seek me
+by way of bargain, as such things were often done; that as I had treated
+him with a generous confidence, so I should find I was in the hands of a
+man of honour, and one that knew how to value the obligation; and upon
+this he pulled out a goldsmith's bill for &pound;300, which (putting it into
+my hand), he said, he gave me as a pledge that I should not be a loser
+by my not having made a bargain with him.</p>
+
+<p>This was engaging indeed, and gave me a good idea of our future
+correspondence; and, in short, as I could not refrain treating him with
+more kindness than I had done before, so one thing begetting another, I
+gave him several testimonies that I was entirely his own by inclination
+as well as by the common obligation of a mistress, and this pleased him
+exceedingly.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after this private engagement I began to consider whether it were
+not more suitable to the manner of life I now led to be a little less
+public;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> and, as I told my lord, it would rid me of the importunities of
+others, and of continual visits from a sort of people who he knew of,
+and who, by the way, having now got the notion of me which I really
+deserved, began to talk of the old game, love and gallantry, and to
+offer at what was rude enough&mdash;things as nauseous to me now as if I had
+been married and as virtuous as other people. The visits of these people
+began indeed to be uneasy to me, and particularly as they were always
+very tedious and impertinent; nor could my Lord &mdash;&mdash; be pleased with
+them at all if they had gone on. It would be diverting to set down here
+in what manner I repulsed these sort of people; how in some I resented
+it as an affront, and told them that I was sorry they should oblige me
+to vindicate myself from the scandal of such suggestions by telling them
+that I could see them no more, and by desiring them not to give
+themselves the trouble of visiting me, who, though I was not willing to
+be uncivil, yet thought myself obliged never to receive any visit from
+any gentleman after he had made such proposals as those to me. But these
+things would be too tedious to bring in here. It was on this account I
+proposed to his lordship my taking new lodgings for privacy; besides, I
+considered that as I might live very handsomely, and yet not so
+publicly, so I needed not spend so much money by a great deal; and if I
+made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> &pound;500 a year of this generous person, it was more than I had any
+occasion to spend by a great deal.</p>
+
+<p>My lord came readily into this proposal, and went further than I
+expected, for he found out a lodging for me in a very handsome house,
+where yet he was not known&mdash;I suppose he had employed somebody to find
+it out for him&mdash;and where he had a convenient way to come into the
+garden by a door that opened into the park, a thing very rarely allowed
+in those times.</p>
+
+<p>By this key he could come in at what time of night or day he pleased;
+and as we had also a little door in the lower part of the house which
+was always left upon a lock, and his was the master-key, so if it was
+twelve, one, or two o'clock at night, he could come directly into my
+bedchamber. <i>N.B.</i>&mdash;I was not afraid I should be found abed with anybody
+else, for, in a word, I conversed with nobody at all.</p>
+
+<p>It happened pleasantly enough one night, his lordship had stayed late,
+and I, not expecting him that night, had taken Amy to bed with me, and
+when my lord came into the chamber we were both fast asleep. I think it
+was near three o'clock when he came in, and a little merry, but not at
+all fuddled or what they call in drink; and he came at once into the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Amy was frighted out of her wits, and cried out. I said calmly, "Indeed,
+my lord, I did not expect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> you to-night, and we have been a little
+frighted to-night with fire." "Oh!" says he, "I see you have got a
+bedfellow with you." I began to make an apology. "No, no," says my lord,
+"you need no excuse, 'tis not a man bedfellow, I see;" but then, talking
+merrily enough, he catched his words back: "But, hark ye," says he, "now
+I think on 't, how shall I be satisfied it is not a man bedfellow?"
+"Oh," says I, "I dare say your lordship is satisfied 'tis poor Amy."
+"Yes," says he, "'tis Mrs. Amy; but how do I know what Amy is? it may be
+Mr. Amy for aught I know; I hope you'll give me leave to be satisfied."
+I told him, yes, by all means, I would have his lordship satisfied; but
+I supposed he knew who she was.</p>
+
+<p>Well, he fell foul of poor Amy, and indeed I thought once he would have
+carried the jest on before my face, as was once done in a like case; but
+his lordship was not so hot neither, but he would know whether Amy was
+Mr. Amy or Mrs. Amy, and so, I suppose, he did; and then being satisfied
+in that doubtful case, he walked to the farther end of the room, and
+went into a little closet and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Amy and I got up, and I bid her run and make the bed in
+another chamber for my lord, and I gave her sheets to put into it; which
+she did immediately, and I put my lord to bed there, and when I had
+done, at his desire went to bed to him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> I was backward at first to come
+to bed to him, and made my excuse because I had been in bed with Amy,
+and had not shifted me; but he was past those niceties at that time; and
+as long as he was sure it was Mrs. Amy, and not Mr. Amy, he was very
+well satisfied, and so the jest passed over. But Amy appeared no more
+all that night, or the next day, and when she did, my lord was so merry
+with her upon his eclaircissement, as he called it, that Amy did not
+know what to do with herself.</p>
+
+<p>Not that Amy was such a nice lady in the main, if she had been fairly
+dealt with, as has appeared in the former part of this work; but now she
+was surprised, and a little hurried, that she scarce knew where she was;
+and besides, she was, as to his lordship, as nice a lady as any in the
+world, and for anything he knew of her she appeared as such. The rest
+was to us only that knew of it.</p>
+
+<p>I held this wicked scene of life out eight years, reckoning from my
+first coming to England; and though my lord found no fault, yet I found,
+without much examining, that any one who looked in my face might see I
+was above twenty years old; and yet, without flattering myself, I
+carried my age, which was above fifty, very well too.</p>
+
+<p>I may venture to say that no woman ever lived a life like me, of
+six-and-twenty years of wickedness, without the least signals of
+remorse, without any signs of repentance, or without so much as a wish
+to put an end to it; I had so long habituated myself to a life of vice,
+that really it appeared to be no vice to me. I went on smooth and
+pleasant, I wallowed in wealth, and it flowed in upon me at such a rate,
+having taken the frugal measures that the good knight directed, so that
+I had at the end of the eight years two thousand eight hundred pounds
+coming yearly in, of which I did not spend one penny, being maintained
+by my allowance from my Lord &mdash;&mdash;, and more than maintained by above
+&pound;200 per annum; for though he did not contract for &pound;500 a year, as I
+made dumb signs to have it be, yet he gave me money so often, and that
+in such large parcels, that I had seldom so little as seven to eight
+hundred pounds a year of him, one year with another.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/roxanavol2frontis.jpg" alt="THE DUTCH MERCHANT CALLS ON ROXANA
+
+&quot;There,&quot; says she (ushering him in), &quot;is the person
+who, I suppose, thou inquirest for&quot;" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption">THE DUTCH MERCHANT CALLS ON ROXANA<br />
+
+&quot;There,&quot; says she (ushering him in), &quot;is the person
+who, I suppose, thou inquirest for&quot;</span>
+<p class="center">Page&nbsp;<a href="#Page_338">338</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+<p>I must go back here, after telling openly the
+wicked things I did, to mention something
+which, however, had the face of doing good.
+I remembered that when I went from England,
+which was fifteen years before, I had left five
+little children, turned out as it were to the wide
+world, and to the charity of their father's relations;
+the eldest was not six years old, for we had not been
+married full seven years when their father went
+away.</p>
+
+<p>After my coming to England I was greatly desirous
+to hear how things stood with them, and whether
+they were all alive or not, and in what manner they
+had been maintained; and yet I resolved not to
+discover myself to them in the least, or to let any
+of the people that had the breeding of them up
+know that there was such a body left in the world
+as their mother.</p>
+
+<p>Amy was the only body I could trust with such
+a commission, and I sent her into Spitalfields, to the
+old aunt and to the poor woman that were so instrumental
+in disposing the relations to take some care
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>of the children, but they were both gone, dead and
+buried some years. The next inquiry she made was
+at the house where she carried the poor children, and
+turned them in at the door. When she came there
+she found the house inhabited by other people, so
+that she could make little or nothing of her inquiries,
+and came back with an answer that indeed was no
+answer to me, for it gave me no satisfaction at all.
+I sent her back to inquire in the neighbourhood what
+was become of the family that lived in that house;
+and if they were removed, where they lived, and what
+circumstances they were in; and, withal, if she could,
+what became of the poor children, and how they
+lived, and where; how they had been treated; and
+the like.</p>
+
+<p>She brought me back word upon this second going,
+that she heard, as to the family, that the husband,
+who, though but uncle-in-law to the children, had yet
+been kindest to them, was dead; and that the widow
+was left but in mean circumstances&mdash;that is to say,
+she did not want, but that she was not so well in the
+world as she was thought to be when her husband
+was alive; that, as to the poor children, two of them,
+it seems, had been kept by her, that is to say, by
+her husband, while he lived, for that it was against
+her will, that we all knew; but the honest neighbours
+pitied the poor children, they said, heartily;
+for that their aunt used them barbarously, and made
+them little better than servants in the house to wait
+upon her and her children, and scarce allowed them
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>clothes fit to wear.</p>
+
+<p>These were, it seems, my eldest and third, which
+were daughters; the second was a son, the fourth a
+daughter, and the youngest a son.</p>
+
+<p>To finish the melancholy part of this history of
+my two unhappy girls, she brought me word that as
+soon as they were able to go out and get any work
+they went from her, and some said she had turned
+them out of doors; but it seems she had not done
+so, but she used them so cruelly that they left her,
+and one of them went to service to a neighbour's, a
+little way off, who knew her, an honest, substantial
+weaver's wife, to whom she was chambermaid, and in
+a little time she took her sister out of the Bridewell
+of her aunt's house, and got her a place too.</p>
+
+<p>This was all melancholy and dull. I sent her
+then to the weaver's house, where the eldest had
+lived, but found that, her mistress being dead, she
+was gone, and nobody knew there whither she went,
+only that they heard she had lived with a great lady
+at the other end of the town; but they did not know
+who that lady was.</p>
+
+<p>These inquiries took us up three or four weeks,
+and I was not one jot the better for it, for I could
+hear nothing to my satisfaction. I sent her next to
+find out the honest man who, as in the beginning of
+my story I observed, made them be entertained, and
+caused the youngest to be fetched from the town
+where we lived, and where the parish officers had
+taken care of him. This gentleman was still alive;
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>and there she heard that my youngest daughter and
+eldest son was dead also; but that my youngest son
+was alive, and was at that time about seventeen years
+old, and that he was put out apprentice by the kindness
+and charity of his uncle, but to a mean trade,
+and at which he was obliged to work very hard.</p>
+
+<p>Amy was so curious in this part that she went
+immediately to see him, and found him all dirty and
+hard at work. She had no remembrance at all of
+the youth, for she had not seen him since he was
+about two years old; and it was evident he could
+have no knowledge of her.</p>
+
+<p>However, she talked with him, and found him a
+good, sensible, mannerly youth; that he knew little
+of the story of his father or mother, and had no
+view of anything but to work hard for his living;
+and she did not think fit to put any great things
+into his head, lest it should take him off of his
+business, and perhaps make him turn giddy-headed
+and be good for nothing; but she went and found
+out that kind man, his benefactor, who had put
+him out, and finding him a plain, well-meaning,
+honest, and kind-hearted man, she opened her tale
+to him the easier. She made a long story, how she
+had a prodigious kindness for the child, because she
+had the same for his father and mother; told him
+that she was the servant-maid that brought all of
+them to their aunt's door, and run away and left
+them; that their poor mother wanted bread, and
+what came of her after she would have been glad to
+know. She added that her circumstances had hap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>pened
+to mend in the world, and that, as she was in
+condition, so she was disposed to show some kindness
+to the children if she could find them out.</p>
+
+<p>He received her with all the civility that so kind
+a proposal demanded, gave her an account of what
+he had done for the child, how he had maintained
+him, fed and clothed him, put him to school, and at
+last put him out to a trade. She said he had indeed
+been a father to the child. "But, sir," says she,
+"'tis a very laborious, hard-working trade, and he
+is but a thin, weak boy." "That's true," says he;
+"but the boy chose the trade, and I assure you I
+gave &pound;20 with him, and am to find him clothes all
+his apprenticeship; and as to its being a hard trade,"
+says he, "that's the fate of his circumstances, poor
+boy. I could not well do better for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, as you did all for him in charity,"
+says she, "it was exceeding well; but, as my resolution
+is to do something for him, I desire you will, if
+possible, take him away again from that place,
+where he works so hard, for I cannot bear to see the
+child work so very hard for his bread, and I will do
+something for him that shall make him live without
+such hard labour."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled at that. "I can, indeed," says he,
+"take him away, but then I must lose my &pound;20 that I
+gave with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said Amy, "I'll enable you to lose
+that &pound;20 immediately;" and so she put her hand in
+her pocket and pulls out her purse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He begun to be a little amazed at her, and looked
+her hard in the face, and that so very much that she
+took notice of it, and said, "Sir, I fancy by your
+looking at me you think you know me, but I am assured
+you do not, for I never saw your face before. I
+think you have done enough for the child, and that
+you ought to be acknowledged as a father to him;
+but you ought not to lose by your kindness to him,
+more than the kindness of bringing him up obliges
+you to; and therefore there's the &pound;20," added she,
+"and pray let him be fetched away."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, madam," says he, "I will thank you for
+the boy, as well as for myself; but will you please to
+tell me what I must do with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," says Amy, "as you have been so kind to
+keep him so many years, I beg you will take him
+home again one year more, and I'll bring you a
+hundred pounds more, which I will desire you to lay
+out in schooling and clothes for him, and to pay you
+for his board. Perhaps I may put him in a condition
+to return your kindness."</p>
+
+<p>He looked pleased, but surprised very much, and
+inquired of Amy, but with very great respect, what
+he should go to school to learn, and what trade she
+would please to put him out to.</p>
+
+<p>Amy said he should put him to learn a little
+Latin, and then merchants' accounts, and to write a
+good hand, for she would have him be put to a Turkey
+merchant.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," says he, "I am glad for his sake to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+hear you talk so; but do you know that a Turkey
+merchant will not take him under &pound;400 or &pound;500?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," says Amy, "I know it very well."</p>
+
+<p>"And," says he, "that it will require as many
+thousands to set him up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," says Amy, "I know that very well
+too;" and, resolving to talk very big, she added, "I
+have no children of my own, and I resolve to make
+him my heir, and if &pound;10,000 be required to set him
+up, he shall not want it. I was but his mother's
+servant when he was born, and I mourned heartily
+for the disaster of the family, and I always said, if
+ever I was worth anything in the world, I would take
+the child for my own, and I'll be as good as my
+word now, though I did not then foresee that it
+would be with me as it has been since." And so
+Amy told him a long story how she was troubled for
+me, and what she would give to hear whether I was
+dead or alive, and what circumstances I was in; that
+if she could but find me, if I was ever so poor, she
+would take care of me, and make a gentlewoman of
+me again.</p>
+
+<p>He told her that, as to the child's mother, she had
+been reduced to the last extremity, and was obliged
+(as he supposed she knew) to send the children all
+among her husband's friends; and if it had not been
+for him, they had all been sent to the parish; but
+that he obliged the other relations to share the charge
+among them; that he had taken two, whereof he had
+lost the eldest, who died of the smallpox, but that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+he had been as careful of this as of his own, and had
+made very little difference in their breeding up, only
+that when he came to put him out he thought it was
+best for the boy to put him to a trade which he
+might set up in without a stock, for otherwise his
+time would be lost; and that as to his mother, he
+had never been able to hear one word of her, no, not
+though he had made the utmost inquiry after her;
+that there went a report that she had drowned herself,
+but that he could never meet with anybody that
+could give him a certain account of it.</p>
+
+<p>Amy counterfeited a cry for her poor mistress;
+told him she would give anything in the world to
+see her, if she was alive; and a great deal more such-like
+talk they had about that; then they returned
+to speak of the boy.</p>
+
+<p>He inquired of her why she did not seek after the
+child before, that he might have been brought up
+from a younger age, suitable to what she designed
+to do for him.</p>
+
+<p>She told him she had been out of England, and
+was but newly returned from the East Indies. That
+she had been out of England, and was but newly
+returned, was true, but the latter was false, and was
+put in to blind him, and provide against farther inquiries;
+for it was not a strange thing for young
+women to go away poor to the East Indies, and
+come home vastly rich. So she went on with directions
+about him, and both agreed in this, that the
+boy should by no means be told what was intended<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
+for him, but only that he should be taken home
+again to his uncle's, that his uncle thought the trade
+too hard for him, and the like.</p>
+
+<p>About three days after this Amy goes again, and
+carried him the hundred pounds she promised him,
+but then Amy made quite another figure than she
+did before; for she went in my coach, with two footmen
+after her, and dressed very fine also, with jewels
+and a gold watch; and there was indeed no great
+difficulty to make Amy look like a lady, for she was
+a very handsome, well-shaped woman, and genteel
+enough. The coachman and servants were particularly
+ordered to show her the same respect as they
+would to me, and to call her Madam Collins, if they
+were asked any questions about her.</p>
+
+<p>When the gentleman saw what a figure she made
+it added to the former surprise, and he entertained
+her in the most respectful manner possible, congratulated
+her advancement in fortune, and particularly
+rejoiced that it should fall to the poor child's lot to
+be so provided for, contrary to all expectation.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Amy talked big, but very free and familiar,
+told them she had no pride in her good fortune (and
+that was true enough, for, to give Amy her due, she
+was far from it, and was as good-humoured a creature
+as ever lived); that she was the same as ever;
+and that she always loved this boy, and was resolved
+to do something extraordinary for him.</p>
+
+<p>Then she pulled out her money, and paid him
+down a hundred and twenty pounds, which, she said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+she paid him that he might be sure he should be no
+loser by taking him home again, and that she would
+come and see him again, and talk farther about
+things with him, so that all might be settled for
+him, in such a manner as accidents, such as mortality,
+or anything else, should make no alteration to
+the child's prejudice.</p>
+
+<p>At this meeting the uncle brought his wife out,
+a good, motherly, comely, grave woman, who spoke
+very tenderly of the youth, and, as it appeared, had
+been very good to him, though she had several children
+of her own. After a long discourse, she put in
+a word of her own. "Madam," says she, "I am
+heartily glad of the good intentions you have for
+this poor orphan, and I rejoice sincerely in it for his
+sake; but, madam, you know, I suppose, that there
+are two sisters alive too; may we not speak a word
+for them? Poor girls," says she, "they have not
+been so kindly used as he has, and are turned out to
+the wide world."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are they, madam?" says Amy.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor creatures," says the gentlewoman, "they
+are out at service, nobody knows where but themselves;
+their case is very hard."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, madam," says Amy, "though if I could
+find them I would assist them, yet my concern is for
+my boy, as I call him, and I will put him into a
+condition to take care of his sisters."</p>
+
+<p>"But, madam," says the good, compassionate
+creature, "he may not be so charitable perhaps by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
+his own inclination, for brothers are not fathers, and
+they have been cruelly used already, poor girls; we
+have often relieved them, both with victuals and
+clothes too, even while they were pretended to be
+kept by their barbarous aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, madam," says Amy, "what can I do for
+them? They are gone, it seems, and cannot be
+heard of. When I see them 'tis time enough."</p>
+
+<p>She pressed Amy then to oblige their brother,
+out of the plentiful fortune he was like to have,
+to do something for his sisters when he should be
+able.</p>
+
+<p>Amy spoke coldly of that still, but said she would
+consider of it; and so they parted for that time.
+They had several meetings after this, for Amy went
+to see her adopted son, and ordered his schooling,
+clothes, and other things, but enjoined them not to
+tell the young man anything, but that they thought
+the trade he was at too hard for him, and they
+would keep him at home a little longer, and give
+him some schooling to fit him for other business;
+and Amy appeared to him as she did before, only
+as one that had known his mother and had some
+kindness for him.</p>
+
+<p>Thus this matter passed on for near a twelvemonth,
+when it happened that one of my maid-servants having
+asked Amy leave (for Amy was mistress of the
+servants, and took and put out such as she pleased)&mdash;I
+say, having asked leave to go into the city to
+see her friends, came home crying bitterly, and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>
+a most grievous agony she was, and continued so
+several days till Amy, perceiving the excess, and
+that the maid would certainly cry herself sick, she
+took an opportunity with her and examined her
+about it.</p>
+
+<p>The maid told her a long story, that she had been
+to see her brother, the only brother she had in the
+world, and that she knew he was put out apprentice
+to a &mdash;&mdash;; but there had come a lady in a coach
+to his uncle &mdash;&mdash;, who had brought him up, and
+made him take him home again; and so the wench
+run on with the whole story just as 'tis told above,
+till she came to that part that belonged to herself.
+"And there," says she, "I had not let them know
+where I lived, and the lady would have taken me,
+and, they say, would have provided for me too, as
+she has done for my brother; but nobody could tell
+where to find me, and so I have lost it all, and
+all the hopes of being anything but a poor servant
+all my days;" and then the girl fell a-crying again.</p>
+
+<p>Amy said, "What's all this story? Who could
+this lady be? It must be some trick, sure." "No,"
+she said, "it was not a trick, for she had made them
+take her brother home from apprentice, and bought
+him new clothes, and put him to have more learning;
+and the gentlewoman said she would make him her
+heir."</p>
+
+<p>"Her heir!" says Amy. "What does that
+amount to? It may be she had nothing to leave
+him; she might make anybody her heir."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, no,"' says the girl; "she came in a fine
+coach and horses, and I don't know how many footmen
+to attend her, and brought a great bag of gold
+and gave it to my uncle &mdash;&mdash;, he that brought up
+my brother, to buy him clothes and to pay for his
+schooling and board."</p>
+
+<p>"He that brought up your brother?" says Amy.
+"Why, did not he bring you up too as well as your
+brother? Pray who brought you up, then?"</p>
+
+<p>Here the poor girl told a melancholy story, how
+an aunt had brought up her and her sister, and how
+barbarously she had used them, as we have heard.</p>
+
+<p>By this time Amy had her head full enough, and
+her heart too, and did not know how to hold it, or
+what to do, for she was satisfied that this was no
+other than my own daughter, for she told her all the
+history of her father and mother, and how she was
+carried by their maid to her aunt's door, just as is
+related in the beginning of my story.</p>
+
+<p>Amy did not tell me this story for a great while,
+nor did she well know what course to take in it; but
+as she had authority to manage everything in the
+family, she took occasion some time after, without
+letting me know anything of it, to find some fault
+with the maid and turn her away.</p>
+
+<p>Her reasons were good, though at first I was not
+pleased when I heard of it, but I was convinced
+afterwards that she was in the right, for if she had
+told me of it I should have been in great perplexity
+between the difficulty of concealing myself from my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>
+own child and the inconvenience of having my way
+of living be known among my first husband's relations,
+and even to my husband himself; for as to his
+being dead at Paris, Amy, seeing me resolved against
+marrying any more, had told me that she had formed
+that story only to make me easy when I was in Holland
+if anything should offer to my liking.</p>
+
+<p>However, I was too tender a mother still, notwithstanding
+what I had done, to let this poor girl go
+about the world drudging, as it were, for bread, and
+slaving at the fire and in the kitchen as a cook-maid;
+besides, it came into my head that she might perhaps
+marry some poor devil of a footman, or a coachman,
+or some such thing, and be undone that way, or,
+which was worse, be drawn in to lie with some of
+that coarse, cursed kind, and be with child, and be
+utterly ruined that way; and in the midst of all my
+prosperity this gave me great uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>As to sending Amy to her, there was no doing
+that now, for, as she had been servant in the house,
+she knew Amy as well as Amy knew me; and no
+doubt, though I was much out of her sight, yet she
+might have had the curiosity to have peeped at me,
+and seen me enough to know me again if I had discovered
+myself to her; so that, in short, there was
+nothing to be done that way.</p>
+
+<p>However, Amy, a diligent indefatigable creature,
+found out another woman, and gave her her errand,
+and sent her to the honest man's house in Spitalfields,
+whither she supposed the girl would go after she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>
+out of her place; and bade her talk with her, and
+tell her at a distance that as something had been
+done for her brother, so something would be done
+for her too; and, that she should not be discouraged,
+she carried her &pound;20 to buy her clothes, and bid her
+not go to service any more, but think of other things;
+that she should take a lodging in some good family,
+and that she should soon hear farther.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was overjoyed with this news, you may
+be sure, and at first a little too much elevated with
+it, and dressed herself very handsomely indeed, and
+as soon as she had done so came and paid a visit to
+Madam Amy, to let her see how fine she was. Amy
+congratulated her, and wished it might be all as she
+expected, but admonished her not to be elevated with
+it too much; told her humility was the best ornament
+of a gentlewoman, and a great deal of good
+advice she gave her, but discovered nothing.</p>
+
+<p>All this was acted in the first years of my setting
+up my new figure here in town, and while the masks
+and balls were in agitation; and Amy carried on the
+affair of setting out my son into the world, which we
+were assisted in by the sage advice of my faithful
+counsellor, Sir Robert Clayton, who procured us a
+master for him, by whom he was afterwards sent
+abroad to Italy, as you shall hear in its place; and
+Amy managed my daughter too very well, though
+by a third hand.</p>
+
+<p>My amour with my Lord &mdash;&mdash; began now to draw
+to an end, and indeed, notwithstanding his money,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+it had lasted so long that I was much more sick of
+his lordship than he could be of me. He grew old
+and fretful, and captious, and I must add, which
+made the vice itself begin to grow surfeiting and
+nauseous to me, he grew worse and wickeder the
+older he grew, and that to such degree as is not fit
+to write of, and made me so weary of him that upon
+one of his capricious humours, which he often took
+occasion to trouble me with, I took occasion to be
+much less complaisant to him than I used to be;
+and as I knew him to be hasty, I first took care to
+put him into a little passion, and then to resent it,
+and this brought us to words, in which I told him I
+thought he grew sick of me; and he answered in a
+heat that truly so he was. I answered that I found
+his lordship was endeavouring to make me sick too;
+that I had met with several such rubs from him of
+late, and that he did not use me as he used to do,
+and I begged his lordship he would make himself
+easy. This I spoke with an air of coldness and indifference
+such as I knew he could not bear; but I
+did not downright quarrel with him and tell him
+I was sick of him too, and desire him to quit me, for
+I knew that would come of itself; besides, I had
+received a great deal of handsome usage from him,
+and I was loth to have the breach be on my side,
+that he might not be able to say I was ungrateful.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/roxanavol2illo016.jpg" alt="THE AMOUR DRAWS TO AN END
+
+I told him I thought he grew sick of me; and he
+answered in a heat that truly so he was" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption">THE AMOUR DRAWS TO AN END<br />
+
+I told him I thought he grew sick of me; and he
+answered in a heat that truly so he was</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>But he put the occasion into my hands, for he
+came no more to me for two months; indeed I expected
+a fit of absence, for such I had had several
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>times before, but not for above a fortnight or three
+weeks at most; but after I had stayed a month,
+which was longer than ever he kept away yet, I took
+a new method with him, for I was resolved now it
+should be in my power to continue or not, as I
+thought fit. At the end of a month, therefore, I
+removed, and took lodgings at Kensington Gravel
+Pits, at that part next to the road to Acton, and
+left nobody in my lodgings but Amy and a footman,
+with proper instructions how to behave when his
+lordship, being come to himself, should think fit to
+come again, which I knew he would.</p>
+
+<p>About the end of two months, he came in the dusk
+of the evening as usual. The footman answered him,
+and told him his lady was not at home, but there
+was Mrs. Amy above; so he did not order her to be
+called down, but went upstairs into the dining-room,
+and Mrs. Amy came to him. He asked where I was.
+"My lord," said she, "my mistress has been removed
+a good while from hence, and lives at Kensington."
+"Ah, Mrs. Amy! how came you to be here, then?"
+"My lord," said she, "we are here till the quarter-day,
+because the goods are not removed, and to give
+answers if any comes to ask for my lady." "Well,
+and what answer are you to give to me?" "Indeed,
+my lord," says Amy, "I have no particular answer
+to your lordship, but to tell you and everybody else
+where my lady lives, that they may not think she's
+run away." "No, Mrs. Amy," says he, "I don't
+think she's run away; but, indeed, I can't go after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+her so far as that." Amy said nothing to that, but
+made a courtesy, and said she believed I would be
+there again for a week or two in a little time.
+"How little time, Mrs Amy?" says my lord. "She
+comes next Tuesday," says Amy. "Very well," says
+my lord; "I'll call and see her then;" and so he
+went away.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly I came on the Tuesday, and stayed
+a fortnight, but he came not; so I went back to
+Kensington, and after that I had very few of his
+lordship's visits, which I was very glad of, and in a
+little time after was more glad of it than I was at
+first, and upon a far better account too.</p>
+
+<p>For now I began not to be sick of his lordship
+only, but really I began to be sick of the vice; and
+as I had good leisure now to divert and enjoy myself
+in the world as much as it was possible for any
+woman to do that ever lived in it, so I found that
+my judgment began to prevail upon me to fix my
+delight upon nobler objects than I had formerly
+done, and the very beginning of this brought some
+just reflections upon me relating to things past, and
+to the former manner of my living; and though
+there was not the least hint in all this from what
+may be called religion or conscience, and far from
+anything of repentance, or anything that was akin
+to it, especially at first, yet the sense of things, and
+the knowledge I had of the world, and the vast
+variety of scenes that I had acted my part in, began
+to work upon my senses, and it came so very strong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>
+upon my mind one morning when I had been lying
+awake some time in my bed, as if somebody had
+asked me the question, What was I a whore for now?
+It occurred naturally upon this inquiry, that at first
+I yielded to the importunity of my circumstances,
+the misery of which the devil dismally aggravated,
+to draw me to comply; for I confess I had strong
+natural aversions to the crime at first, partly owing
+to a virtuous education, and partly to a sense of
+religion; but the devil, and that greater devil of
+poverty, prevailed; and the person who laid siege
+to me did it in such an obliging, and I may almost
+say irresistible, manner, all still managed by the evil
+spirit; for I must be allowed to believe that he has
+a share in all such things, if not the whole management
+of them. But, I say, it was carried on by that
+person in such an irresistible manner that, as I said
+when I related the fact, there was no withstanding
+it; these circumstances, I say, the devil managed
+not only to bring me to comply, but he continued
+them as arguments to fortify my mind against all
+reflection, and to keep me in that horrid course I
+had engaged in, as if it were honest and lawful.</p>
+
+<p>But not to dwell upon that now; this was a pretence,
+and here was something to be said, though I
+acknowledge it ought not to have been sufficient to
+me at all; but, I say, to leave that, all this was out
+of doors; the devil himself could not form one argument,
+or put one reason into my head now, that
+could serve for an answer&mdash;no, not so much as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>
+pretended answer to this question, why I should be
+a whore now.</p>
+
+<p>It had for a while been a little kind of excuse to
+me that I was engaged with this wicked old lord,
+and that I could not in honour forsake him; but
+how foolish and absurd did it look to repeat the
+word "honour" on so vile an occasion! as if a
+woman should prostitute her honour in point of
+honour&mdash;horrid inconsistency! Honour called upon
+me to detest the crime and the man too, and to have
+resisted all the attacks which, from the beginning,
+had been made upon my virtue; and honour, had
+it been consulted, would have preserved me honest
+from the beginning:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"For 'honesty' and 'honour' are the same."</p></div>
+
+<p>This, however, shows us with what faint excuses
+and with what trifles we pretend to satisfy ourselves,
+and suppress the attempts of conscience, in the pursuit
+of agreeable crime, and in the possessing those
+pleasures which we are loth to part with.</p>
+
+<p>But this objection would now serve no longer, for
+my lord had in some sort broke his engagements (I
+won't call it honour again) with me, and had so far
+slighted me as fairly to justify my entire quitting of
+him now; and so, as the objection was fully answered,
+the question remained still unanswered, Why am I a
+whore now? Nor indeed had I anything to say for
+myself, even to myself; I could not without blushing,
+as wicked as I was, answer that I loved it for the sake<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+of the vice, and that I delighted in being a whore, as
+such; I say, I could not say this, even to myself, and
+all alone, nor indeed would it have been true. I was
+never able, in justice and with truth, to say I was so
+wicked as that; but as necessity first debauched me,
+and poverty made me a whore at the beginning, so
+excess of avarice for getting money and excess of
+vanity continued me in the crime, not being able to
+resist the flatteries of great persons; being called the
+finest woman in France; being caressed by a prince;
+and afterwards, I had pride enough to expect and
+folly enough to believe, though indeed without
+ground, by a great monarch. These were my baits,
+these the chains by which the devil held me bound,
+and by which I was indeed too fast held for any
+reasoning that I was then mistress of to deliver me
+from.</p>
+
+<p>But this was all over now; avarice could have no
+pretence. I was out of the reach of all that fate
+could be supposed to do to reduce me; now I was
+so far from poor, or the danger of it, that I had
+&pound;50,000 in my pocket at least; nay, I had the
+income of &pound;50,000, for I had &pound;2500 a year coming
+in upon very good land security, besides three or four
+thousand pounds in money, which I kept by me for
+ordinary occasions, and, besides, jewels, and plate,
+and goods which were worth near &pound;5600 more; these
+put together, when I ruminated on it all in my
+thoughts, as you may be sure I did often, added
+weight still to the question, as above, and it sounded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+continually in my head, "What next? What am I
+a whore for now?"</p>
+
+<p>It is true this was, as I say, seldom out of my
+thoughts, but yet it made no impressions upon me of
+that kind which might be expected from a reflection
+of so important a nature, and which had so much of
+substance and seriousness in it.</p>
+
+<p>But, however, it was not without some little consequences,
+even at that time, and which gave a little
+turn to my way of living at first, as you shall hear in
+its place.</p>
+
+<p>But one particular thing intervened besides this
+which gave me some uneasiness at this time, and made
+way for other things that followed. I have mentioned
+in several little digressions the concern I
+had upon me for my children, and in what manner
+I had directed that affair; I must go on a little with
+that part, in order to bring the subsequent parts of
+my story together.</p>
+
+<p>My boy, the only son I had left that I had a legal
+right to call "son," was, as I have said, rescued from
+the unhappy circumstances of being apprentice to a
+mechanic, and was brought up upon a new foot; but
+though this was infinitely to his advantage, yet it
+put him back near three years in his coming into
+this world; for he had been near a year at the
+drudgery he was first put to, and it took up two
+years more to form him for what he had hopes given
+him he should hereafter be, so that he was full
+nineteen years old, or rather twenty years, before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>
+he came to be put out as I intended; at the end of
+which time I put him to a very flourishing Italian
+merchant, and he again sent him to Messina, in the
+island of Sicily; and a little before the juncture I am
+now speaking of I had letters from him&mdash;that is to
+say, Mrs. Amy had letters from him, intimating that
+he was out of his time, and that he had an opportunity
+to be taken into an English house there, on very good
+terms, if his support from hence might answer what
+he was bid to hope for; and so begged that what
+would be done for him might be so ordered that he
+might have it for his present advancement, referring
+for the particulars to his master, the merchant in
+London, who he had been put apprentice to here;
+who, to cut the story short, gave such a satisfactory
+account of it, and of my young man, to my steady
+and faithful counsellor, Sir Robert Clayton, that I
+made no scruple to pay &pound;4000, which was &pound;1000
+more than he demanded, or rather proposed, that he
+might have encouragement to enter into the world
+better than he expected.</p>
+
+<p>His master remitted the money very faithfully to
+him; and finding, by Sir Robert Clayton, that the
+young gentleman&mdash;for so he called him&mdash;was well
+supported, wrote such letters on his account as gave
+him a credit at Messina equal in value to the money
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>I could not digest it very well that I should all
+this while conceal myself thus from my own child,
+and make all this favour due, in his opinion, to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
+stranger; and yet I could not find in my heart to let
+my son know what a mother he had, and what a life
+she lived; when, at the same time that he must
+think himself infinitely obliged to me, he must be
+obliged, if he was a man of virtue, to hate his mother,
+and abhor the way of living by which all the bounty
+he enjoyed was raised.</p>
+
+<p>This is the reason of mentioning this part of my
+son's story, which is otherwise no ways concerned in
+my history, but as it put me upon thinking how to
+put an end to that wicked course I was in, that my
+own child, when he should afterwards come to England
+in a good figure, and with the appearance of a
+merchant, should not be ashamed to own me.</p>
+
+<p>But there was another difficulty, which lay heavier
+upon me a great deal, and that was my daughter,
+who, as before, I had relieved by the hands of another
+instrument, which Amy had procured. The girl, as
+I have mentioned, was directed to put herself into a
+good garb, take lodgings, and entertain a maid to
+wait upon her, and to give herself some breeding&mdash;that
+is to say, to learn to dance, and fit herself to
+appear as a gentlewoman; being made to hope that
+she should, some time or other, find that she should
+be put into a condition to support her character, and
+to make herself amends for all her former troubles.
+She was only charged not to be drawn into matrimony
+till she was secured of a fortune that might
+assist to dispose of herself suitable not to what she
+then was, but what she was to be.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The girl was too sensible of her circumstances not
+to give all possible satisfaction of that kind, and
+indeed she was mistress of too much understanding
+not to see how much she should be obliged to that
+part for her own interest.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long after this, but being well equipped,
+and in everything well set out, as she was directed,
+she came, as I have related above, and paid a visit to
+Mrs. Amy, and to tell her of her good fortune. Amy
+pretended to be much surprised at the alteration, and
+overjoyed for her sake, and began to treat her very
+well, entertained her handsomely, and when she
+would have gone away, pretended to ask my leave,
+and sent my coach home with her; and, in short,
+learning from her where she lodged, which was in
+the city, Amy promised to return her visit, and did
+so; and, in a word, Amy and Susan (for she was my
+own name) began an intimate acquaintance together.</p>
+
+<p>There was an inexpressible difficulty in the poor
+girl's way, or else I should not have been able to have
+forborne discovering myself to her, and this was, her
+having been a servant in my particular family; and I
+could by no means think of ever letting the children
+know what a kind of creature they owed their being
+to, or giving them an occasion to upbraid their mother
+with her scandalous life, much less to justify the like
+practice from my example.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was with me; and thus, no doubt, considering
+parents always find it that their own children
+are a restraint to them in their worst courses, when the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>
+sense of a superior power has not the same influence.
+But of that hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>There happened, however, one good circumstance
+in the case of this poor girl, which brought about a
+discovery sooner than otherwise it would have been,
+and it was thus. After she and Amy had been intimate
+for some time, and had exchanged several visits,
+the girl, now grown a woman, talking to Amy of the
+gay things that used to fall out when she was servant
+in my family, spoke of it with a kind of concern that
+she could not see (me) her lady; and at last she adds,
+"'Twas very strange, madam," says she to Amy,
+"but though I lived near two years in the house, I
+never saw my mistress in my life, except it was that
+public night when she danced in the fine Turkish
+habit, and then she was so disguised that I knew
+nothing of her afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>Amy was glad to hear this, but as she was a cunning
+girl from the beginning, she was not to be bit,
+and so she laid no stress upon that at first, but gave
+me an account of it; and I must confess it gave me
+a secret joy to think that I was not known to her,
+and that, by virtue of that only accident, I might,
+when other circumstances made room for it, discover
+myself to her, and let her know she had a mother in
+a condition fit to be owned.</p>
+
+<p>It was a dreadful restraint to me before, and this
+gave me some very sad reflections, and made way for
+the great question I have mentioned above; and by
+how much the circumstance was bitter to me, by so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+much the more agreeable it was to understand that
+the girl had never seen me, and consequently did not
+know me again if she was to be told who I was.</p>
+
+<p>However, the next time she came to visit Amy, I
+was resolved to put it to a trial, and to come into the
+room and let her see me, and to see by that whether
+she knew me or not; but Amy put me by, lest
+indeed, as there was reason enough to question, I
+should not be able to contain or forbear discovering
+myself to her; so it went off for that time.</p>
+
+<p>But both these circumstances, and that is the reason
+of mentioning them, brought me to consider of
+the life I lived, and to resolve to put myself into some
+figure of life in which I might not be scandalous to
+my own family, and be afraid to make myself known
+to my own children, who were my own flesh and
+blood.</p>
+
+<p>There was another daughter I had, which, with all
+our inquiries, we could not hear of, high nor low, for
+several years after the first. But I return to my own
+story.</p>
+
+<p>Being now in part removed from my old station, I
+seemed to be in a fair way of retiring from my old
+acquaintances, and consequently from the vile, abominable
+trade I had driven so long; so that the door
+seemed to be, as it were, particularly open to my
+reformation, if I had any mind to it in earnest; but,
+for all that, some of my old friends, as I had used to
+call them, inquired me out, and came to visit me at
+Kensington, and that more frequently than I wished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>
+they would do; but it being once known where I was,
+there was no avoiding it, unless I would have downright
+refused and affronted them; and I was not yet
+in earnest enough with my resolutions to go that
+length.</p>
+
+<p>The best of it was, my old lewd favourite, who I
+now heartily hated, entirely dropped me. He came
+once to visit me, but I caused Amy to deny me, and
+say I was gone out. She did it so oddly, too, that
+when his lordship went away, he said coldly to her,
+"Well, well, Mrs. Amy, I find your mistress does not
+desire to be seen; tell her I won't trouble her any
+more," repeating the words "any more" two or three
+times over, just at his going away.</p>
+
+<p>I reflected a little on it at first as unkind to him,
+having had so many considerable presents from him,
+but, as I have said, I was sick of him, and that on
+some accounts which, if I could suffer myself to publish
+them, would fully justify my conduct. But that
+part of the story will not bear telling, so I must
+leave it, and proceed.</p>
+
+<p>I had begun a little, as I have said above, to reflect
+upon my manner of living, and to think of putting
+a new face upon it, and nothing moved me to it more
+than the consideration of my having three children,
+who were now grown up; and yet that while I was in
+that station of life I could not converse with them
+or make myself known to them; and this gave me a
+great deal of uneasiness. At last I entered into talk
+on this part of it with my woman Amy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We lived at Kensington, as I have said, and though
+I had done with my old wicked l&mdash;&mdash;, as above, yet
+I was frequently visited, as I said, by some others;
+so that, in a word, I began to be known in the town,
+not by name only, but by my character too, which
+was worse.</p>
+
+<p>It was one morning when Amy was in bed with me,
+and I had some of my dullest thoughts about me, that
+Amy, hearing me sigh pretty often, asked me if I was
+not well. "Yes, Amy, I am well enough," says I,
+"but my mind is oppressed with heavy thoughts, and
+has been so a good while;" and then I told her how
+it grieved me that I could not make myself known to
+my own children, or form any acquaintances in the
+world. "Why so?" says Amy. "Why, prithee,
+Amy," says I, "what will my children say to themselves,
+and to one another, when they find their
+mother, however rich she may be, is at best but a
+whore, a common whore? And as for acquaintance,
+prithee, Amy, what sober lady or what family of
+any character will visit or be acquainted with a
+whore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, all that's true, madam," says Amy; "but
+how can it be remedied now?" "'Tis true, Amy,"
+said I, "the thing cannot be remedied now, but the
+scandal of it, I fancy, may be thrown off."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly," says Amy, "I do not see how, unless
+you will go abroad again, and live in some other
+nation where nobody has known us or seen us, so that
+they cannot say they ever saw us before."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That very thought of Amy put what follows into
+my head, and I returned, "Why, Amy," says I, "is
+it not possible for me to shift my being from this
+part of the town and go and live in another part of
+the city, or another part of the country, and be as
+entirely concealed as if I had never been known?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says Amy, "I believe it might; but then
+you must put off all your equipages and servants,
+coaches and horses, change your liveries&mdash;nay, your
+own clothes, and, if it was possible, your very face."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says I, "and that's the way, Amy, and
+that I'll do, and that forthwith; for I am not able
+to live in this manner any longer." Amy came into
+this with a kind of pleasure particular to herself&mdash;that
+is to say, with an eagerness not to be resisted;
+for Amy was apt to be precipitant in her motions,
+and was for doing it immediately. "Well," says I,
+"Amy, as soon as you will; but what course must
+we take to do it? We cannot put off servants, and
+coach and horses, and everything, leave off housekeeping,
+and transform ourselves into a new shape
+all in a moment; servants must have warning, and
+the goods must be sold off, and a thousand things;"
+and this began to perplex us, and in particular took
+us up two or three days' consideration.</p>
+
+<p>At last Amy, who was a clever manager in such
+cases, came to me with a scheme, as she called it.
+"I have found it out, madam," says she, "I have
+found a scheme how you shall, if you have a mind to
+it, begin and finish a perfect entire change of your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>
+figure and circumstances in one day, and shall be as
+much unknown, madam, in twenty-four hours, as you
+would be in so many years."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Amy," says I, "let us hear of it, for you
+please me mightily with the thoughts of it." "Why,
+then," says Amy, "let me go into the city this afternoon,
+and I'll inquire out some honest, plain sober
+family, where I will take lodgings for you, as for a
+country gentlewoman that desires to be in London
+for about half a year, and to board yourself and a
+kinswoman&mdash;that is, half a servant, half a companion,
+meaning myself; and so agree with them by the
+month. To this lodging (if I hit upon one to your
+mind) you may go to-morrow morning in a hackney-coach,
+with nobody but me, and leave such clothes
+and linen as you think fit, but, to be sure, the plainest
+you have; and then you are removed at once; you
+never need set your foot in this house again" (meaning
+where we then were), "or see anybody belonging
+to it. In the meantime I'll let the servants know
+that you are going over to Holland upon extraordinary
+business, and will leave off your equipages, and
+so I'll give them warning, or, if they will accept of
+it, give them a month's wages. Then I'll sell off
+your furniture as well as I can. As to your coach,
+it is but having it new painted and the lining
+changed, and getting new harness and hammercloths,
+and you may keep it still or dispose of it as you
+think fit. And only take care to let this lodging be
+in some remote part of the town, and you may be as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>
+perfectly unknown as if you had never been in England
+in your life."</p>
+
+<p>This was Amy's scheme, and it pleased me so well
+that I resolved not only to let her go, but was resolved
+to go with her myself; but Amy put me off
+of that, because, she said, she should have occasion
+to hurry up and down so long that if I was with
+her it would rather hinder than further her, so I
+waived it.</p>
+
+<p>In a word, Amy went, and was gone five long
+hours; but when she came back I could see by her
+countenance that her success had been suitable to her
+pains, for she came laughing and gaping. "O
+madam!" says she, "I have pleased you to the
+life;" and with that she tells me how she had fixed
+upon a house in a court in the Minories; that she
+was directed to it merely by accident; that it was a
+female family, the master of the house being gone to
+New England, and that the woman had four children,
+kept two maids, and lived very handsomely, but
+wanted company to divert her; and that on that
+very account she had agreed to take boarders.</p>
+
+<p>Amy agreed for a good, handsome price, because
+she was resolved I should be used well; so she bargained
+to give her &pound;35 for the half-year, and &pound;50 if
+we took a maid, leaving that to my choice; and that
+we might be satisfied we should meet with nothing
+very gay, the people were Quakers, and I liked them
+the better.</p>
+
+<p>I was so pleased that I resolved to go with Amy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>
+the next day to see the lodgings, and to see the
+woman of the house, and see how I liked them; but
+if I was pleased with the general, I was much more
+pleased with the particulars, for the gentlewoman&mdash;I
+must call her so, though she was a Quaker&mdash;was
+a most courteous, obliging, mannerly person, perfectly
+well-bred and perfectly well-humoured, and,
+in short, the most agreeable conversation that ever
+I met with; and, which was worth all, so grave,
+and yet so pleasant and so merry, that 'tis scarcely
+possible for me to express how I was pleased and
+delighted with her company; and particularly, I was
+so pleased that I would go away no more; so I e'en
+took up my lodging there the very first night.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, though it took up Amy almost
+a month so entirely to put off all the appearances of
+housekeeping, as above, it need take me up no time
+to relate it; 'tis enough to say that Amy quitted all
+that part of the world and came pack and package
+to me, and here we took up our abode.</p>
+
+<p>I was now in a perfect retreat indeed, remote from
+the eyes of all that ever had seen me, and as much
+out of the way of being ever seen or heard of by any
+of the gang that used to follow me as if I had been
+among the mountains in Lancashire; for when did
+a blue garter or a coach-and-six come into a little
+narrow passage in the Minories or Goodman's Fields?
+And as there was no fear of them, so really I had no
+desire to see them, or so much as to hear from them
+any more as long as I lived.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I seemed in a little hurry while Amy came and
+went so every day at first, but when that was over
+I lived here perfectly retired, and with a most pleasant
+and agreeable lady; I must call her so, for,
+though a Quaker, she had a full share of good breeding,
+sufficient to her if she had been a duchess; in
+a word, she was the most agreeable creature in her
+conversation, as I said before, that ever I met with.</p>
+
+<p>I pretended, after I had been there some time, to
+be extremely in love with the dress of the Quakers,
+and this pleased her so much that she would needs
+dress me up one day in a suit of her own clothes;
+but my real design was to see whether it would pass
+upon me for a disguise.</p>
+
+<p>Amy was struck with the novelty, though I had
+not mentioned my design to her, and when the
+Quaker was gone out of the room says Amy, "I
+guess your meaning; it is a perfect disguise to you.
+Why, you look quite another body; I should not
+have known you myself. Nay," says Amy, "more
+than that, it makes you look ten years younger than
+you did."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could please me better than that, and
+when Amy repeated it, I was so fond of it that I
+asked my Quaker (I won't call her landlady; 'tis
+indeed too coarse a word for her, and she deserved
+a much better)&mdash;I say, I asked her if she would sell
+it. I told her I was so fond of it that I would give
+her enough to buy her a better suit. She declined
+it at first, but I soon perceived that it was chiefly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>
+in good manners, because I should not dishonour
+myself, as she called it, to put on her old clothes;
+but if I pleased to accept of them, she would give
+me them for my dressing-clothes, and go with me,
+and buy a suit for me that might be better worth
+my wearing.</p>
+
+<p>But as I conversed in a very frank, open manner
+with her, I bid her do the like with me; that I
+made no scruples of such things, but that if she
+would let me have them I would satisfy her. So
+she let me know what they cost, and to make her
+amends I gave her three guineas more than they cost
+her.</p>
+
+<p>This good (though unhappy) Quaker had the misfortune
+to have had a bad husband, and he was gone
+beyond sea. She had a good house, and well furnished,
+and had some jointure of her own estate
+which supported her and her children, so that she
+did not want; but she was not at all above such a
+help as my being there was to her; so she was as
+glad of me as I was of her.</p>
+
+<p>However, as I knew there was no way to fix this
+new acquaintance like making myself a friend to her,
+I began with making her some handsome presents
+and the like to her children. And first, opening my
+bundles one day in my chamber, I heard her in another
+room, and called her in with a kind of familiar
+way. There I showed her some of my fine clothes,
+and having among the rest of my things a piece of
+very fine new holland, which I had bought a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>
+before, worth about 9s. an ell, I pulled it out:
+"Here, my friend," says I, "I will make you a present,
+if you will accept of it;" and with that I laid
+the piece of Holland in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>I could see she was surprised, and that she could
+hardly speak. "What dost thou mean?" says she.
+"Indeed I cannot have the face to accept so fine a
+present as this;" adding, "'Tis fit for thy own use,
+but 'tis above my wear, indeed." I thought she had
+meant she must not wear it so fine because she was a
+Quaker. So I returned, "Why, do not you Quakers
+wear fine linen neither?" "Yes," says she, "we
+wear fine linen when we can afford it, but this is too
+good for me." However, I made her take it, and she
+was very thankful too. But my end was answered
+another way, for by this I engaged her so, that as I
+found her a woman of understanding, and of honesty
+too, I might, upon any occasion, have a confidence
+in her, which was, indeed, what I very much wanted.</p>
+
+<p>By accustoming myself to converse with her, I had
+not only learned to dress like a Quaker, but so used
+myself to "thee" and "thou" that I talked like a
+Quaker too, as readily and naturally as if I had been
+born among them; and, in a word, I passed for a
+Quaker among all people that did not know me. I
+went but little abroad, but I had been so used to a
+coach that I knew not how well to go without one;
+besides, I thought it would be a farther disguise to me,
+so I told my Quaker friend one day that I thought I
+lived too close, that I wanted air. She proposed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>
+taking a hackney-coach sometimes, or a boat; but I
+told her I had always had a coach of my own till
+now, and I could find in my heart to have one again.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed to think it strange at first, considering
+how close I lived, but had nothing to say when she
+found I did not value the expense; so, in short, I
+resolved I would have a coach. When we came to
+talk of equipages, she extolled the having all things
+plain. I said so too; so I left it to her direction,
+and a coachmaker was sent for, and he provided me a
+plain coach, no gilding or painting, lined with a light
+grey cloth, and my coachman had a coat of the same,
+and no lace on his hat.</p>
+
+<p>When all was ready I dressed myself in the dress I
+bought of her, and said, "Come, I'll be a Quaker
+to-day, and you and I'll go abroad;" which we did,
+and there was not a Quaker in the town looked less
+like a counterfeit than I did. But all this was my
+particular plot, to be the more completely concealed,
+and that I might depend upon being not known, and
+yet need not be confined like a prisoner and be
+always in fear; so that all the rest was grimace.</p>
+
+<p>We lived here very easy and quiet, and yet I cannot
+say I was so in my mind; I was like a fish out of
+water. I was as gay and as young in my disposition
+as I was at five-and-twenty; and as I had always been
+courted, flattered, and used to love it, so I missed it
+in my conversation; and this put me many times
+upon looking back upon things past.</p>
+
+<p>I had very few moments in my life which, in their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>
+reflection, afforded me anything but regret: but of
+all the foolish actions I had to look back upon in my
+life, none looked so preposterous and so like distraction,
+nor left so much melancholy on my mind, as
+my parting with my friend, the merchant of Paris,
+and the refusing him upon such honourable and just
+conditions as he had offered; and though on his just
+(which I called unkind) rejecting my invitation to
+come to him again, I had looked on him with some
+disgust, yet now my mind run upon him continually,
+and the ridiculous conduct of my refusing him, and
+I could never be satisfied about him. I flattered myself
+that if I could but see him I could yet master
+him, and that he would presently forget all that
+had passed that might be thought unkind; but as
+there was no room to imagine anything like that to
+be possible, I threw those thoughts off again as much
+as I could.</p>
+
+<p>However, they continually returned, and I had no
+rest night or day for thinking of him, who I had forgot
+above eleven years. I told Amy of it, and we
+talked it over sometimes in bed, almost whole nights
+together. At last Amy started a thing of her own
+head, which put it in a way of management, though
+a wild one too. "You are so uneasy, madam," says
+she, "about this Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, the merchant at Paris;
+come," says she, "if you'll give me leave, I'll go
+over and see what's become of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not for ten thousand pounds," said I; "no, nor
+if you met him in the street, not to offer to speak to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>
+him on my account." "No," says Amy, "I would
+not speak to him at all; or if I did, I warrant you it
+shall not look to be upon your account. I'll only
+inquire after him, and if he is in being, you shall
+hear of him; if not, you shall hear of him still, and
+that may be enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," says I, "if you will promise me not to
+enter into anything relating to me with him, nor to begin
+any discourse at all unless he begins it with you,
+I could almost be persuaded to let you go and try."</p>
+
+<p>Amy promised me all that I desired; and, in a
+word, to cut the story short, I let her go, but tied
+her up to so many particulars that it was almost impossible
+her going could signify anything; and had
+she intended to observe them, she might as well have
+stayed at home as have gone, for I charged her, if
+she came to see him, she should not so much as take
+notice that she knew him again; and if he spoke to
+her, she should tell him she was come away from me
+a great many years ago, and knew nothing what was
+become of me; that she had been come over to France
+six years ago, and was married there, and lived at
+Calais; or to that purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Amy promised me nothing, indeed; for, as she
+said, it was impossible for her to resolve what would
+be fit to do, or not to do, till she was there upon the
+spot, and had found out the gentleman, or heard of
+him; but that then, if I would trust her, as I had
+always done, she would answer for it that she would
+do nothing but what should be for my interest, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>
+what she would hope I should be very well pleased
+with.</p>
+
+<p>With this general commission, Amy, notwithstanding
+she had been so frighted at the sea, ventured her
+carcass once more by water, and away she goes to
+France. She had four articles of confidence in charge
+to inquire after for me, and, as I found by her, she
+had one for herself&mdash;I say, four for me, because,
+though her first and principal errand was to inform
+myself of my Dutch merchant, yet I gave her in
+charge to inquire, second, after my husband, who I
+left a trooper in the <i>gens d'armes</i>; third, after that
+rogue of a Jew, whose very name I hated, and of
+whose face I had such a frightful idea that Satan
+himself could not counterfeit a worse; and, lastly,
+after my foreign prince. And she discharged herself
+very well of them all, though not so successful as I
+wished.</p>
+
+<p>Amy had a very good passage over the sea, and I
+had a letter from her, from Calais, in three days after
+she went from London. When she came to Paris
+she wrote me an account, that as to her first and
+most important inquiry, which was after the Dutch
+merchant, her account was, that he had returned
+to Paris, lived three years there, and quitting that
+city, went to live at Rouen; so away goes Amy for
+Rouen.</p>
+
+<p>But as she was going to bespeak a place in the
+coach to Rouen, she meets very accidentally in the
+street with her gentleman, as I called him&mdash;that is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>
+to say, the Prince de &mdash;&mdash; 's gentleman, who had been
+her favourite, as above.</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure there were several other kind
+things happened between Amy and him, as you shall
+hear afterwards; but the two main things were, first,
+that Amy inquired about his lord, and had a full
+account of him, of which presently; and, in the next
+place, telling him whither she was going and for what,
+he bade her not go yet, for that he would have a particular
+account of it the next day from a merchant that
+knew him; and, accordingly, he brought her word the
+next day that he had been for six years before that
+gone for Holland, and that he lived there still.</p>
+
+<p>This, I say, was the first news from Amy for some
+time&mdash;I mean about my merchant. In the meantime
+Amy, as I have said, inquired about the other persons
+she had in her instructions. As for the prince, the
+gentleman told her he was gone into Germany, where
+his estate lay, and that he lived there; that he had
+made great inquiry after me; that he (his gentleman)
+had made all the search he had been able for me, but
+that he could not hear of me; that he believed, if his
+lord had known I had been in England, he would
+have gone over to me; but that, after long inquiry,
+he was obliged to give it over; but that he verily
+believed, if he could have found me, he would have
+married me; and that he was extremely concerned
+that he could hear nothing of me.</p>
+
+<p>I was not at all satisfied with Amy's account, but
+ordered her to go to Rouen herself, which she did,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>
+and there with much difficulty (the person she was
+directed to being dead)&mdash;I say, with much difficulty
+she came to be informed that my merchant had lived
+there two years, or something more, but that, having
+met with a very great misfortune, he had gone back
+to Holland, as the French merchant said, where he
+had stayed two years; but with this addition, viz.,
+that he came back again to Rouen, and lived in good
+reputation there another year; and afterwards he was
+gone to England, and that he lived in London. But
+Amy could by no means learn how to write to him
+there, till, by great accident, an old Dutch skipper,
+who had formerly served him, coming to Rouen, Amy
+was told of it; and he told her that he lodged in St.
+Laurence Pountney's Lane, in London, but was to be
+seen every day upon the Exchange, in the French walk.</p>
+
+<p>This, Amy thought, it was time enough to tell me
+of when she came over; and, besides, she did not
+find this Dutch skipper till she had spent four or five
+months and been again in Paris, and then come back
+to Rouen for farther information. But in the meantime
+she wrote to me from Paris that he was not to
+be found by any means; that he had been gone from
+Paris seven or eight years; that she was told he had
+lived at Rouen, and she was agoing thither to inquire,
+but that she had heard afterwards that he was gone
+also from thence to Holland, so she did not go.</p>
+
+<p>This, I say, was Amy's first account; and I, not
+satisfied with it, had sent her an order to go to
+Rouen to inquire there also, as above.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>While this was negotiating, and I received these
+accounts from Amy at several times, a strange adventure
+happened to me which I must mention just
+here. I had been abroad to take the air as usual
+with my Quaker, as far as Epping Forest, and we
+were driving back towards London, when, on the
+road between Bow and Mile End, two gentlemen on
+horseback came riding by, having overtaken the
+coach and passed it, and went forwards towards
+London.</p>
+
+<p>They did not ride apace though they passed the
+coach, for we went very softly; nor did they look
+into the coach at all, but rode side by side, earnestly
+talking to one another and inclining their faces sideways
+a little towards one another, he that went
+nearest the coach with his face from it, and he that
+was farthest from the coach with his face towards it,
+and passing in the very next tract to the coach, I
+could hear them talk Dutch very distinctly. But it
+is impossible to describe the confusion I was in when
+I plainly saw that the farthest of the two, him whose
+face looked towards the coach, was my friend the
+Dutch merchant of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>If it had been possible to conceal my disorder
+from my friend the Quaker I would have done it,
+but I found she was too well acquainted with such
+things not to take the hint. "Dost thou understand
+Dutch?" said she. "Why?" said I. "Why,"
+says she, "it is easy to suppose that thou art a
+little concerned at somewhat those men say; I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>
+suppose they are talking of thee." "Indeed, my
+good friend," said I, "thou art mistaken this time,
+for I know very well what they are talking of, but
+'tis all about ships and trading affairs." "Well,"
+says she, "then one of them is a man friend of thine,
+or somewhat is the case; for though thy tongue will
+not confess it, thy face does."</p>
+
+<p>I was going to have told a bold lie, and said I
+knew nothing of them; but I found it was impossible
+to conceal it, so I said, "Indeed, I think I
+know the farthest of them; but I have neither
+spoken to him or so much as seen him for about
+eleven years." "Well, then," says she, "thou hast
+seen him with more than common eyes when thou
+didst see him, or else seeing him now would not be
+such a surprise to thee." "Indeed," said I, "it is
+true I am a little surprised at seeing him just now,
+for I thought he had been in quite another part of
+the world; and I can assure you I never saw him in
+England in my life." "Well, then, it is the more
+likely he is come over now on purpose to seek thee."
+"No, no," said I, "knight-errantry is over; women
+are not so hard to come at that men should not be
+able to please themselves without running from one
+kingdom to another." "Well, well," says she, "I
+would have him see thee for all that, as plainly as
+thou hast seen him." "No, but he shan't," says I,
+"for I am sure he don't know me in this dress,
+and I'll take care he shan't see my face, if I can
+help it;" so I held up my fan before my face, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>
+she saw me resolute in that, so she pressed me no
+farther.</p>
+
+<p>We had several discourses upon the subject, but
+still I let her know I was resolved he should not
+know me; but at last I confessed so much, that
+though I would not let him know who I was or
+where I lived, I did not care if I knew where he
+lived and how I might inquire about him. She
+took the hint immediately, and her servant being
+behind the coach, she called him to the coach-side
+and bade him keep his eye upon that gentleman,
+and as soon as the coach came to the end of Whitechapel
+he should get down and follow him closely,
+so as to see where he put up his horse, and then to
+go into the inn and inquire, if he could, who he was
+and where he lived.</p>
+
+<p>The fellow followed diligently to the gate of an
+inn in Bishopsgate Street, and seeing him go in,
+made no doubt but he had him fast; but was confounded
+when, upon inquiry, he found the inn was
+a thoroughfare into another street, and that the two
+gentlemen had only rode through the inn, as the
+way to the street where they were going; and so,
+in short, came back no wiser than he went.</p>
+
+<p>My kind Quaker was more vexed at the disappointment,
+at least apparently so, than I was;
+and asking the fellow if he was sure he knew the
+gentleman again if he saw him, the fellow said he
+had followed him so close and took so much notice
+of him, in order to do his errand as it ought to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>
+done, that he was very sure he should know him
+again; and that, besides, he was sure he should
+know his horse.</p>
+
+<p>This part was, indeed, likely enough; and the
+kind Quaker, without telling me anything of the
+matter, caused her man to place himself just at
+the corner of Whitechapel Church wall every Saturday
+in the afternoon, that being the day when the
+citizens chiefly ride abroad to take the air, and there
+to watch all the afternoon and look for him.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till the fifth Saturday that her man
+came, with a great deal of joy, and gave her an
+account that he had found out the gentleman; that
+he was a Dutchman, but a French merchant; that
+he came from Rouen, and his name was &mdash;&mdash;, and
+that he lodged at Mr. &mdash;&mdash;'s, on Laurence Pountney's
+Hill. I was surprised, you may be sure, when she
+came and told me one evening all the particulars,
+except that of having set her man to watch. "I
+have found out thy Dutch friend," says she, "and
+can tell thee how to find him too." I coloured again
+as red as fire. "Then thou hast dealt with the evil
+one, friend," said I very gravely. "No, no," says
+she, "I have no familiar; but I tell thee I have
+found him for thee, and his name is So-and-so, and
+he lives as above recited."</p>
+
+<p>I was surprised again at this, not being able to
+imagine how she should come to know all this.
+However, to put me out of pain, she told me what
+she had done. "Well," said I, "thou art very kind,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>
+but this is not worth thy pains; for now I know it,
+'tis only to satisfy my curiosity; for I shall not send
+to him upon any account." "Be that as thou wilt,"
+says she. "Besides," added she, "thou art in the
+right to say so to me, for why should I be trusted
+with it? Though, if I were, I assure thee I should
+not betray thee." "That's very kind," said I, "and
+I believe thee; and assure thyself, if I do send to
+him, thou shalt know it, and be trusted with it
+too."</p>
+
+<p>During this interval of five weeks I suffered a
+hundred thousand perplexities of mind. I was thoroughly
+convinced I was right as to the person, that
+it was the man. I knew him so well, and saw him
+so plain, I could not be deceived. I drove out again
+in the coach (on pretence of air) almost every day
+in hopes of seeing him again, but was never so lucky
+as to see him; and now I had made the discovery I
+was as far to seek what measures to take as I was
+before.</p>
+
+<p>To send to him, or speak to him first if I should
+see him, so as to be known to him, that I resolved
+not to do, if I died for it. To watch him about his
+lodging, that was as much below my spirit as the
+other. So that, in a word, I was at a perfect loss
+how to act or what to do.</p>
+
+<p>At length came Amy's letter, with the last account
+which she had at Rouen from the Dutch skipper,
+which, confirming the other, left me out of doubt
+that this was my man; but still no human invention<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>
+could bring me to the speech of him in such a manner
+as would suit with my resolutions. For, after all,
+how did I know what his circumstances were?
+whether married or single? And if he had a wife,
+I knew he was so honest a man he would not so
+much as converse with me, or so much as know me
+if he met me in the street.</p>
+
+<p>In the next place, as he entirely neglected me,
+which, in short, is the worst way of slighting a
+woman, and had given no answer to my letters, I did
+not know but he might be the same man still; so
+I resolved that I could do nothing in it unless some
+fairer opportunity presented, which might make my
+way clearer to me; for I was determined he should
+have no room to put any more slights upon me.</p>
+
+<p>In these thoughts I passed away near three
+months; till at last, being impatient, I resolved to
+send for Amy to come over, and tell her how things
+stood, and that I would do nothing till she came.
+Amy, in answer, sent me word she would come away
+with all speed, but begged of me that I would enter
+into no engagement with him, or anybody, till she
+arrived; but still keeping me in the dark as to the
+thing itself which she had to say; at which I was
+heartily vexed, for many reasons.</p>
+
+<p>But while all these things were transacting, and
+letters and answers passed between Amy and I a little
+slower than usual, at which I was not so well pleased
+as I used to be with Amy's despatch&mdash;I say, in this
+time the following scene opened.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was one afternoon, about four o'clock, my
+friendly Quaker and I sitting in her chamber upstairs,
+and very cheerful, chatting together (for she
+was the best company in the world), when somebody
+ringing hastily at the door, and no servant just then
+in the way, she ran down herself to the door, when
+a gentleman appears, with a footman attending, and
+making some apologies, which she did not thoroughly
+understand, he speaking but broken English, he
+asked to speak with me, by the very same name that
+I went by in her house, which, by the way, was not
+the name that he had known me by.</p>
+
+<p>She, with very civil language, in her way, brought
+him into a very handsome parlour below stairs, and
+said she would go and see whether the person who
+lodged in her house owned that name, and he should
+hear farther.</p>
+
+<p>I was a little surprised, even before I knew anything
+of who it was, my mind foreboding the thing
+as it happened (whence that arises let the naturalists
+explain to us); but I was frighted and ready to
+die when my Quaker came up all gay and crowing.
+"There," says she, "is the Dutch French merchant
+come to see thee." I could not speak one word to
+her nor stir off of my chair, but sat as motionless as
+a statue. She talked a thousand pleasant things to
+me, but they made no impression on me. At last
+she pulled me and teased me. "Come, come," says
+she, "be thyself, and rouse up. I must go down
+again to him; what shall I say to him?" "Say,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>
+said I, "that you have no such body in the house."
+"That I cannot do," says she, "because it is not
+the truth. Besides, I have owned thou art above.
+Come, come, go down with me." "Not for a thousand
+guineas," said I. "Well," says she, "I'll go
+and tell him thou wilt come quickly." So, without
+giving me time to answer her, away she goes.</p>
+
+<p>A million of thoughts circulated in my head while
+she was gone, and what to do I could not tell; I
+saw no remedy but I must speak with him, but
+would have given &pound;500 to have shunned it; yet had
+I shunned it, perhaps then I would have given &pound;500
+again that I had seen him. Thus fluctuating and
+unconcluding were my thoughts, what I so earnestly
+desired I declined when it offered itself; and what
+now I pretended to decline was nothing but what I
+had been at the expense of &pound;40 or &pound;50 to send Amy
+to France for, and even without any view, or, indeed,
+any rational expectation of bringing it to pass; and
+what for half a year before I was so uneasy about
+that I could not be quiet night or day till Amy proposed
+to go over to inquire after him. In short, my
+thoughts were all confused and in the utmost disorder.
+I had once refused and rejected him, and I
+repented it heartily; then I had taken ill his silence,
+and in my mind rejected him again, but had repented
+that too. Now I had stooped so low as to send
+after him into France, which if he had known, perhaps,
+he had never come after me; and should I reject
+him a third time! On the other hand, he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>
+repented too, in his turn, perhaps, and not knowing
+how I had acted, either in stooping to send in search
+after him or in the wickeder part of my life, was
+come over hither to seek me again; and I might
+take him, perhaps, with the same advantages as I
+might have done before, and would I now be backward
+to see him! Well, while I was in this hurry
+my friend the Quaker comes up again, and perceiving
+the confusion I was in, she runs to her closet and
+fetched me a little pleasant cordial; but I would not
+taste it. "Oh," says she, "I understand thee. Be
+not uneasy; I'll give thee something shall take off
+all the smell of it; if he kisses thee a thousand times
+he shall be no wiser." I thought to myself, "Thou
+art perfectly acquainted with affairs of this nature;
+I think you must govern me now;" so I began to
+incline to go down with her. Upon that I took the
+cordial, and she gave me a kind of spicy preserve
+after it, whose flavour was so strong, and yet so deliciously
+pleasant, that it would cheat the nicest smelling,
+and it left not the least taint of the cordial on
+the breath.</p>
+
+<p>Well, after this, though with some hesitation still,
+I went down a pair of back-stairs with her, and into
+a dining-room, next to the parlour in which he was;
+but there I halted, and desired she would let me consider
+of it a little. "Well, do so," says she, and left
+me with more readiness than she did before. "Do
+consider, and I'll come to thee again."</p>
+
+<p>Though I hung back with an awkwardness that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>
+was really unfeigned, yet when she so readily left me
+I thought it was not so kind, and I began to think
+she should have pressed me still on to it; so foolishly
+backward are we to the thing which, of all the world,
+we most desire; mocking ourselves with a feigned
+reluctance, when the negative would be death to us.
+But she was too cunning for me; for while I, as it
+were, blamed her in my mind for not carrying me to
+him, though, at the same time, I appeared backward
+to see him, on a sudden she unlocks the folding-doors,
+which looked into the next parlour, and throwing
+them open. "There," says she (ushering him in),
+"is the person who, I suppose, thou inquirest for;"
+and the same moment, with a kind decency, she retired,
+and that so swift that she would not give us
+leave hardly to know which way she went.</p>
+
+<p>I stood up, but was confounded with a sudden inquiry
+in my thoughts how I should receive him, and with a
+resolution as swift as lightning, in answer to it, said
+to myself, "It shall be coldly." So on a sudden I put
+on an air of stiffness and ceremony, and held it for
+about two minutes; but it was with great difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>He restrained himself too, on the other hand, came
+towards me gravely, and saluted me in form; but it
+was, it seems, upon his supposing the Quaker was
+behind him, whereas she, as I said, understood things
+too well, and had retired as if she had vanished, that
+we might have full freedom; for, as she said afterwards,
+she supposed we had seen one another before,
+though it might have been a great while ago.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Whatever stiffness I had put on my behaviour to
+him, I was surprised in my mind, and angry at his,
+and began to wonder what kind of a ceremonious
+meeting it was to be. However, after he perceived
+the woman was gone he made a kind of a hesitation,
+looking a little round him. "Indeed," said he, "I
+thought the gentlewoman was not withdrawn;" and
+with that he took me in his arms and kissed me three
+or four times; but I, that was prejudiced to the last
+degree with the coldness of his first salutes, when I
+did not know the cause of it, could not be thoroughly
+cleared of the prejudice though I did know the cause,
+and thought that even his return, and taking me in
+his arms, did not seem to have the same ardour with
+which he used to receive me, and this made me behave
+to him awkwardly, and I know not how for a good
+while; but this by the way.</p>
+
+<p>He began with a kind of an ecstasy upon the subject
+of his finding me out; how it was possible that
+he should have been four years in England, and had
+used all the ways imaginable, and could never so
+much as have the least intimation of me, or of any
+one like me; and that it was now above two years
+that he had despaired of it, and had given over all
+inquiry; and that now he should chop upon me, as
+it were, unlooked and unsought for.</p>
+
+<p>I could easily have accounted for his not finding
+me if I had but set down the detail of my real retirement;
+but I gave it a new, and indeed a truly
+hypocritical turn. I told him that any one that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>
+knew the manner of life I led might account for his
+not finding me; that the retreat I had taken up
+would have rendered it a hundred thousand to one
+odds that he ever found me at all; that, as I had
+abandoned all conversation, taken up another name,
+lived remote from London, and had not preserved
+one acquaintance in it, it was no wonder he had not
+met with me; that even my dress would let him see
+that I did not desire to be known by anybody.</p>
+
+<p>Then he asked if I had not received some letters
+from him. I told him no, he had not thought fit to
+give me the civility of an answer to the last I wrote
+to him, and he could not suppose I should expect a
+return after a silence in a case where I had laid myself
+so low and exposed myself in a manner I had
+never been used to; that indeed I had never sent for
+any letters after that to the place where I had ordered
+his to be directed; and that, being so justly, as I
+thought, punished for my weakness, I had nothing
+to do but to repent of being a fool, after I had
+strictly adhered to a just principle before; that,
+however, as what I did was rather from motions of
+gratitude than from real weakness, however it might
+be construed by him, I had the satisfaction in myself
+of having fully discharged the debt. I added, that
+I had not wanted occasions of all the seeming advancements
+which the pretended felicity of a marriage
+life was usually set off with, and might have been
+what I desired not to name; but that, however low
+I had stooped to him, I had maintained the dignity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>
+of female liberty against all the attacks either of
+pride or avarice; and that I had been infinitely
+obliged to him for giving me an opportunity to
+discharge the only obligation that endangered me,
+without subjecting me to the consequence; and that
+I hoped he was satisfied I had paid the debt by
+offering myself to be chained, but was infinitely
+debtor to him another way for letting me remain
+free.</p>
+
+<p>He was so confounded at this discourse that he
+knew not what to say, and for a good while he stood
+mute indeed; but recovering himself a little, he said
+I run out into a discourse he hoped was over and
+forgotten, and he did not intend to revive it; that
+he knew I had not had his letters, for that, when he
+first came to England, he had been at the place to
+which they were directed, and found them all lying
+there but one, and that the people had not known
+how to deliver them; that he thought to have had a
+direction there how to find me, but had the mortification
+to be told that they did not so much as
+know who I was; that he was under a great disappointment;
+and that I ought to know, in answer
+to all my resentments, that he had done a long and,
+he hoped, a sufficient penance for the slight that I
+had supposed he had put upon me; that it was true
+(and I could not suppose any other) that upon the
+repulse I had given them in a case so circumstanced
+as his was, and after such earnest entreaties and
+such offers as he had made me, he went away with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>
+mind heartily grieved and full of resentment; that
+he had looked back on the crime he had committed
+with some regret, but on the cruelty of my treatment
+of the poor infant I went with at that time with the
+utmost detestation, and that this made him unable
+to send an agreeable answer to me; for which reason
+he had sent none at all for some time; but that in
+about six or seven months, those resentments wearing
+off by the return of his affection to me and his
+concern in the poor child &mdash;&mdash;. There he stopped,
+and indeed tears stood in his eyes; while in a parenthesis
+he only added, and to this minute he did
+not know whether it was dead or alive. He then
+went on: Those resentments wearing off, he sent me
+several letters&mdash;I think he said seven or eight&mdash;but
+received no answer; that then his business
+obliging him to go to Holland, he came to England,
+as in his way, but found, as above, that his letters had
+not been called for, but that he left them at the
+house after paying the postage of them; and going
+then back to France, he was yet uneasy, and could
+not refrain the knight-errantry of coming to England
+again to seek me, though he knew neither where
+or of who to inquire for me, being disappointed in all
+his inquiries before; that he had yet taken up his
+residence here, firmly believing that one time or
+other he should meet me, or hear of me, and that
+some kind chance would at last throw him in my
+way; that he had lived thus above four years, and
+though his hopes were vanished, yet he had not any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>
+thoughts of removing any more in the world, unless
+it should be at last, as it is with other old men, he
+might have some inclination to go home to die in
+his own country, but that he had not thought of it
+yet; that if I would consider all these steps, I would
+find some reasons to forget his first resentments, and
+to think that penance, as he called it, which he had
+undergone in search of me an <i>amende honorable</i>,
+in reparation of the affront given to the kindness of
+my letter of invitation; and that we might at last
+make ourselves some satisfaction on both sides for
+the mortifications past.</p>
+
+<p>I confess I could not hear all this without being
+moved very much, and yet I continued a little stiff
+and formal too a good while. I told him that
+before I could give him any reply to the rest of his
+discourse I ought to give him the satisfaction of
+telling him that his son was alive, and that indeed,
+since I saw him so concerned about it, and mention
+it with such affection, I was sorry that I had not
+found out some way or other to let him know it
+sooner; but that I thought, after his slighting the
+mother, as above, he had summed up his affection
+to the child in the letter he had wrote to me about
+providing for it; and that he had, as other fathers
+often do, looked upon it as a birth which, being out
+of the way, was to be forgotten, as its beginning
+was to be repented of; that in providing sufficiently
+for it he had done more than all such fathers used to
+do, and might be well satisfied with it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He answered me that he should have been very
+glad if I had been so good but to have given him the
+satisfaction of knowing the poor unfortunate creature
+was yet alive, and he would have taken some
+care of it upon himself, and particularly by owning
+it for a legitimate child, which, where nobody had
+known to the contrary, would have taken off the infamy
+which would otherwise cleave to it, and so the
+child should not itself have known anything of its
+own disaster; but that he feared it was now too late.</p>
+
+<p>He added that I might see by all his conduct since
+that what unhappy mistake drew him into the thing
+at first, and that he would have been very far from
+doing the injury to me, or being instrumental to add
+<i>une miserable</i> (that was his word) to the world, if he
+had not been drawn into it by the hopes he had of
+making me his own; but that, if it was possible to
+rescue the child from the consequences of its unhappy
+birth, he hoped I would give him leave to do it, and
+he would let me see that he had both means and
+affection still to do it; and that, notwithstanding all
+the misfortunes that had befallen him, nothing that
+belonged to him, especially by a mother he had such
+a concern for as he had for me, should ever want
+what he was in a condition to do for it.</p>
+
+<p>I could not hear this without being sensibly
+touched with it. I was ashamed that he should show
+that he had more real affection for the child, though
+he had never seen it in his life, than I that bore it,
+for indeed I did not love the child, nor love to see it;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>
+and though I had provided for it, yet I did it by
+Amy's hand, and had not seen it above twice in four
+years, being privately resolved that when it grew up
+it should not be able to call me mother.</p>
+
+<p>However, I told him the child was taken care of,
+and that he need not be anxious about it, unless he
+suspected that I had less affection for it than he that
+had never seen it in his life; that he knew what I had
+promised him to do for it, namely, to give it the
+thousand pistoles which I had offered him, and which
+he had declined; that I assured him I had made my
+will, and that I had left it &pound;5000, and the interest
+of it till he should come of age, if I died before that
+time; that I would still be as good as that to it;
+but if he had a mind to take it from me into his
+government, I would not be against it; and to satisfy
+him that I would perform what I said, I would
+cause the child to be delivered to him, and the &pound;5000
+also for its support, depending upon it that he would
+show himself a father to it by what I saw of his
+affection to it now.</p>
+
+<p>I had observed that he had hinted two or three
+times in his discourse, his having had misfortunes in
+the world, and I was a little surprised at the expression,
+especially at the repeating it so often; but I
+took no notice of that part yet.</p>
+
+<p>He thanked me for my kindness to the child with
+a tenderness which showed the sincerity of all he had
+said before, and which increased the regret with which,
+as I said, I looked back on the little affection I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>
+showed to the poor child. He told me he did not
+desire to take him from me, but so as to introduce
+him into the world as his own, which he could still do,
+having lived absent from his other children (for he
+had two sons and a daughter which were brought up
+at Nimeguen, in Holland, with a sister of his) so
+long that he might very well send another son of ten
+years old to be bred up with them, and suppose his
+mother to be dead or alive, as he found occasion;
+and that, as I had resolved to do so handsomely for
+the child, he would add to it something considerable,
+though, having had some great disappointments (repeating
+the words), he could not do for it as he
+would otherwise have done.</p>
+
+<p>I then thought myself obliged to take notice of
+his having so often mentioned his having met with
+disappointments. I told him I was very sorry to
+hear he had met with anything afflicting to him in
+the world; that I would not have anything belonging
+to me add to his loss, or weaken him in what he
+might do for his other children; and that I would
+not agree to his having the child away, though the
+proposal was infinitely to the child's advantage,
+unless he would promise me that the whole expense
+should be mine, and that, if he did not think &pound;5000
+enough for the child, I would give it more.</p>
+
+<p>We had so much discourse upon this and the old
+affairs that it took up all our time at his first visit.
+I was a little importunate with him to tell me how
+he came to find me out, but he put it off for that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>
+time, and only obtaining my leave to visit me again,
+he went away; and indeed my heart was so full with
+what he had said already that I was glad when he
+went away. Sometimes I was full of tenderness and
+affection for him, and especially when he expressed
+himself so earnestly and passionately about the child;
+other times I was crowded with doubts about his
+circumstances. Sometimes I was terrified with apprehensions
+lest, if I should come into a close correspondence
+with him, he should any way come to
+hear what kind of life I had led at Pall Mall and
+in other places, and it might make me miserable
+afterwards; from which last thought I concluded
+that I had better repulse him again than receive
+him. All these thoughts, and many more, crowded
+in so fast, I say, upon me that I wanted to give vent
+to them and get rid of him, and was very glad when
+he was gone away.</p>
+
+<p>We had several meetings after this, in which still
+we had so many preliminaries to go through that
+we scarce ever bordered upon the main subject.
+Once, indeed, he said something of it, and I put it
+off with a kind of a jest. "Alas!" says I, "those
+things are out of the question now; 'tis almost two
+ages since those things were talked between us," says
+I. "You see I am grown an old woman since that."
+Another time he gave a little push at it again, and
+I laughed again. "Why, what dost thou talk of?"
+said I in a formal way. "Dost thou not see I am
+turned Quaker? I cannot speak of those things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>
+now." "Why," says he, "the Quakers marry as
+well as other people, and love one another as well.
+Besides," says he, "the Quakers' dress does not ill
+become you," and so jested with me again, and so
+it went off for a third time. However, I began to
+be kind to him in process of time, as they call it,
+and we grew very intimate; and if the following
+accident had not unluckily intervened, I had certainly
+married him, or consented to marry him, the
+very next time he had asked me.</p>
+
+<p>I had long waited for a letter from Amy, who,
+it seems, was just at that time gone to Rouen the
+second time, to make her inquiries about him; and
+I received a letter from her at this unhappy juncture,
+which gave me the following account of my
+business:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I. That for my gentleman, who I had now, as I
+may say, in my arms, she said he had been gone from
+Paris, as I have hinted, having met with some great
+losses and misfortunes; that he had been in Holland
+on that very account, whither he had also carried
+his children; that he was after that settled for
+some time at Rouen; that she had been at Rouen,
+and found there (by a mere accident), from a Dutch
+skipper, that he was at London, had been there
+above three years; that he was to be found upon
+the Exchange, on the French walk; and that he
+lodged at St. Laurence Pountney's Lane, and the
+like; so Amy said she supposed I might soon find
+him out, but that she doubted he was poor, and not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>
+worth looking after. This she did because of the
+next clause, which the jade had most mind to on
+many accounts.</p>
+
+<p>II. That as to the Prince &mdash;&mdash;; that, as above,
+he was gone into Germany, where his estate lay;
+that he had quitted the French service, and lived retired;
+that she had seen his gentleman, who remained
+at Paris to solicit his arrears, &amp;c.; that he had given
+her an account how his lord had employed him to
+inquire for me and find me out, as above, and told
+her what pains he had taken to find me; that he
+had understood that I was gone to England; that
+he once had orders to go to England to find me;
+that his lord had resolved, if he could have found me,
+to have called me a countess, and so have married
+me, and have carried me into Germany with him;
+and that his commission was still to assure me that
+the prince would marry me if I would come to him,
+and that he would send him an account that he had
+found me, and did not doubt but he would have
+orders to come over to England to attend me in a
+figure suitable to my quality.</p>
+
+<p>Amy, an ambitious jade, who knew my weakest
+part&mdash;namely, that I loved great things, and that I
+loved to be flattered and courted&mdash;said abundance
+of kind things upon this occasion, which she knew
+were suitable to me and would prompt my vanity;
+and talked big of the prince's gentleman having
+orders to come over to me with a procuration to
+marry me by proxy (as princes usually do in like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>
+cases), and to furnish me with an equipage, and I
+know not how many fine things; but told me, withal,
+that she had not yet let him know that she belonged
+to me still, or that she knew where to find me, or
+to write to me; because she was willing to see the
+bottom of it, and whether it was a reality or a gasconade.
+She had indeed told him that, if he had
+any such commission, she would endeavour to find
+me out, but no more.</p>
+
+<p>III. For the Jew, she assured me that she had not
+been able to come at a certainty what was become of
+him, or in what part of the world he was; but that thus
+much she had learned from good hands, that he had
+committed a crime, in being concerned in a design to
+rob a rich banker at Paris; and that he was fled, and
+had not been heard of there for above six years.</p>
+
+<p>IV. For that of my husband, the brewer, she
+learned, that being commanded into the field upon
+an occasion of some action in Flanders, he was
+wounded at the battle of Mons, and died of his
+wounds in the Hospital of the Invalids; so there was
+an end of my four inquiries, which I sent her over to
+make.</p>
+
+<p>This account of the prince, and the return of his
+affection to me, with all the flattering great things
+which seemed to come along with it; and especially
+as they came gilded and set out by my maid Amy&mdash;I
+say this account of the prince came to me in a very
+unlucky hour, and in the very crisis of my affair.</p>
+
+<p>The merchant and I had entered into close confer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>ences
+upon the grand affair. I had left off talking
+my platonics, and of my independency, and being a
+free woman, as before; and he having cleared up my
+doubts too, as to his circumstances and the misfortunes
+he had spoken of, I had gone so far that we
+had begun to consider where we should live, and in
+what figure, what equipage, what house, and the like.</p>
+
+<p>I had made some harangues upon the delightful
+retirement of a country life, and how we might enjoy
+ourselves so effectually without the encumbrances of
+business and the world; but all this was grimace,
+and purely because I was afraid to make any public
+appearance in the world, for fear some impertinent
+person of quality should chop upon me again and cry
+out, "Roxana, Roxana, by &mdash;&mdash;!" with an oath, as
+had been done before.</p>
+
+<p>My merchant, bred to business and used to converse
+among men of business, could hardly tell how
+to live without it; at least it appeared he should be
+like a fish out of water, uneasy and dying. But,
+however, he joined with me; only argued that we
+might live as near London as we could, that he
+might sometimes come to 'Change and hear how the
+world should go abroad, and how it fared with his
+friends and his children.</p>
+
+<p>I answered that if he chose still to embarrass himself
+with business, I supposed it would be more to
+his satisfaction to be in his own country, and where
+his family was so well known, and where his children
+also were.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He smiled at the thoughts of that, and let me
+know that he should be very willing to embrace such
+an offer; but that he could not expect it of me, to
+whom England was, to be sure, so naturalised now
+as that it would be carrying me out of my native
+country, which he would not desire by any means,
+however agreeable it might be to him.</p>
+
+<p>I told him he was mistaken in me; that as I had
+told him so much of a married state being a captivity,
+and the family being a house of bondage, that
+when I married I expected to be but an upper
+servant; so, if I did notwithstanding submit to it, I
+hoped he should see I knew how to act the servant's
+part, and do everything to oblige my master; that
+if I did not resolve to go with him wherever he
+desired to go, he might depend I would never have
+him. "And did I not," said I, "offer myself to go
+with you to the East Indies?"</p>
+
+<p>All this while this was indeed but a copy of my
+countenance; for, as my circumstances would not
+admit of my stay in London, at least not so as to
+appear publicly, I resolved, if I took him, to live
+remote in the country, or go out of England with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>But in an evil hour, just now came Amy's letter,
+in the very middle of all these discourses; and the
+fine things she had said about the prince began to
+make strange work with me. The notion of being
+a princess, and going over to live where all that had
+happened here would have been quite sunk out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>
+knowledge as well as out of memory (conscience excepted),
+was mighty taking. The thoughts of being
+surrounded with domestics, honoured with titles, be
+called her Highness, and live in all the splendour of
+a court, and, which was still more, in the arms of a
+man of such rank, and who, I knew, loved and
+valued me&mdash;all this, in a word, dazzled my eyes,
+turned my head, and I was as truly crazed and distracted
+for about a fortnight as most of the people
+in Bedlam, though perhaps not quite so far gone.</p>
+
+<p>When my gentleman came to me the next time I
+had no notion of him; I wished I had never received
+him at all. In short, I resolved to have no
+more to say to him, so I feigned myself indisposed;
+and though I did come down to him and speak to
+him a little, yet I let him see that I was so ill that I
+was (as we say) no company, and that it would be
+kind in him to give me leave to quit him for that
+time.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning he sent a footman to inquire
+how I did; and I let him know I had a violent cold,
+and was very ill with it. Two days after he came
+again, and I let him see me again, but feigned myself
+so hoarse that I could not speak to be heard,
+and that it was painful to me but to whisper; and,
+in a word, I held him in this suspense near three
+weeks.</p>
+
+<p>During this time I had a strange elevation upon
+my mind; and the prince, or the spirit of him, had
+such a possession of me that I spent most of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>
+time in the realising all the great things of a life
+with the prince, to my mind pleasing my fancy with
+the grandeur I was supposing myself to enjoy, and
+with wickedly studying in what manner to put off
+this gentleman and be rid of him for ever.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot but say that sometimes the baseness of
+the action stuck hard with me; the honour and sincerity
+with which he had always treated me, and,
+above all, the fidelity he had showed me at Paris,
+and that I owed my life to him&mdash;I say, all these
+stared in my face, and I frequently argued with myself
+upon the obligation I was under to him, and
+how base would it be now too, after so many obligations
+and engagements, to cast him off.</p>
+
+<p>But the title of highness, and of a princess, and
+all those fine things, as they came in, weighed down
+all this; and the sense of gratitude vanished as if it
+had been a shadow.</p>
+
+<p>At other times I considered the wealth I was mistress
+of; that I was able to live like a princess, though
+not a princess; and that my merchant (for he had
+told me all the affair of his misfortunes) was far from
+being poor, or even mean; that together we were
+able to make up an estate of between three and four
+thousand pounds a year, which was in itself equal to
+some princes abroad. But though this was true, yet
+the name of princess, and the flutter of it&mdash;in a
+word, the pride&mdash;weighed them down; and all these
+arguings generally ended to the disadvantage of my
+merchant; so that, in short, I resolved to drop him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>
+and give him a final answer at his next coming;
+namely, that something had happened in my affairs
+which had caused me to alter my measures unexpectedly,
+and, in a word, to desire him to trouble
+himself no farther.</p>
+
+<p>I think, verily, this rude treatment of him was for
+some time the effect of a violent fermentation in my
+blood; for the very motion which the steady contemplation
+of my fancied greatness had put my spirits
+into had thrown me into a kind of fever, and I scarce
+knew what I did.</p>
+
+<p>I have wondered since that it did not make me
+mad; nor do I now think it strange to hear of those
+who have been quite lunatic with their pride, that
+fancied themselves queens and empresses, and have
+made their attendants serve them upon the knee,
+given visitors their hand to kiss, and the like; for
+certainly, if pride will not turn the brain, nothing can.</p>
+
+<p>However, the next time my gentleman came, I had
+not courage enough, or not ill nature enough, to
+treat him in the rude manner I had resolved to do,
+and it was very well I did not; for soon after, I had
+another letter from Amy, in which was the mortifying
+news, and indeed surprising to me, that my prince
+(as I, with a secret pleasure, had called him) was very
+much hurt by a bruise he had received in hunting
+and engaging with a wild boar, a cruel and desperate
+sport which the noblemen of Germany, it seems,
+much delight in.</p>
+
+<p>This alarmed me indeed, and the more because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>
+Amy wrote me word that his gentleman was gone
+away express to him, not without apprehensions that
+he should find his master was dead before his coming
+home; but that he (the gentleman) had promised her
+that as soon as he arrived he would send back the
+same courier to her with an account of his master's
+health, and of the main affair; and that he had
+obliged Amy to stay at Paris fourteen days for his
+return; she having promised him before to make it
+her business to go to England and to find me out for
+his lord if he sent her such orders; and he was to
+send her a bill for fifty pistoles for her journey. So
+Amy told me she waited for the answer.</p>
+
+<p>This was a blow to me several ways; for, first, I
+was in a state of uncertainty as to his person, whether
+he was alive or dead; and I was not unconcerned in
+that part, I assure you; for I had an inexpressible
+affection remaining for his person, besides the degree
+to which it was revived by the view of a firmer
+interest in him. But this was not all, for in losing
+him I forever lost the prospect of all the gaiety and
+glory that had made such an impression upon my
+imagination.</p>
+
+<p>In this state of uncertainty, I say, by Amy's
+letter, I was like still to remain another fortnight;
+and had I now continued the resolution of using
+my merchant in the rude manner I once intended,
+I had made perhaps a sorry piece of work of it
+indeed, and it was very well my heart failed me as
+it did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>However, I treated him with a great many shuffles,
+and feigned stories to keep him off from any closer
+conferences than we had already had, that I might
+act afterwards as occasion might offer, one way or
+other. But that which mortified me most was, that
+Amy did not write, though the fourteen days were
+expired. At last, to my great surprise, when I was,
+with the utmost impatience, looking out at the
+window, expecting the postman that usually brought
+the foreign letters&mdash;I say I was agreeably surprised
+to see a coach come to the yard-gate where we lived,
+and my woman Amy alight out of it and come
+towards the door, having the coachman bringing
+several bundles after her.</p>
+
+<p>I flew like lightning downstairs to speak to her,
+but was soon damped with her news. "Is the
+prince alive or dead, Amy?" says I. She spoke
+coldly and slightly. "He is alive, madam," said
+she. "But it is not much matter; I had as lieu he
+had been dead." So we went upstairs again to my
+chamber, and there we began a serious discourse of
+the whole matter.</p>
+
+<p>First, she told me a long story of his being hurt by
+a wild boar, and of the condition he was reduced to,
+so that every one expected he should die, the anguish
+of the wound having thrown him into a fever, with
+abundance of circumstances too long to relate here;
+how he recovered of that extreme danger, but continued
+very weak; how the gentleman had been
+<i>homme de parole</i>, and had sent back the courier as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>
+punctually as if it had been to the king; that he had
+given a long account of his lord, and of his illness
+and recovery; but the sum of the matter, as to me,
+was, that as to the lady, his lord was turned penitent,
+was under some vows for his recovery, and could not
+think any more on that affair; and especially, the
+lady being gone, and that it had not been offered to
+her, so there was no breach of honour; but that his
+lord was sensible of the good offices of Mrs. Amy,
+and had sent her the fifty pistoles for her trouble, as
+if she had really gone the journey.</p>
+
+<p>I was, I confess, hardly able to bear the first surprise
+of this disappointment. Amy saw it, and gapes
+out (as was her way), "Lawd, madam! never be concerned
+at it; you see he is gotten among the priests,
+and I suppose they have saucily imposed some penance
+upon him, and, it may be, sent him of an errand barefoot
+to some Madonna or N&ocirc;tredame, or other; and
+he is off of his amours for the present. I'll warrant
+you he'll be as wicked again as ever he was when he
+is got thorough well, and gets but out of their hands
+again. I hate this out-o'-season repentance. What
+occasion had he, in his repentance, to be off of taking
+a good wife? I should have been glad to see you
+have been a princess, and all that; but if it can't be,
+never afflict yourself; you are rich enough to be a
+princess to yourself; you don't want him, that's the
+best of it."</p>
+
+<p>Well, I cried for all that, and was heartily vexed,
+and that a great while; but as Amy was always at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>
+my elbow, and always jogging it out of my head
+with her mirth and her wit, it wore off again.</p>
+
+<p>Then I told Amy all the story of my merchant,
+and how he had found me out when I was in such a
+concern to find him; how it was true that he lodged
+in St. Laurence Pountney's Lane; and how I had
+had all the story of his misfortune, which she had
+heard of, in which he had lost above &pound;8000 sterling;
+and that he had told me frankly of it before she had
+sent me any account of it, or at least before I had
+taken any notice that I had heard of it.</p>
+
+<p>Amy was very joyful at that part. "Well,
+madam, then," says Amy, "what need you value the
+story of the prince, and going I know not whither
+into Germany to lay your bones in another world,
+and learn the devil's language, called High Dutch?
+You are better here by half," says Amy. "Lawd,
+madam!" says she; "why, are you not as rich as
+Cr&oelig;sus?"</p>
+
+<p>Well, it was a great while still before I could bring
+myself off of this fancied sovereignty; and I, that
+was so willing once to be mistress to a king, was now
+ten thousand times more fond of being wife to a
+prince.</p>
+
+<p>So fast a hold has pride and ambition upon our
+minds, that when once it gets admission, nothing is
+so chimerical but, under this possession, we can form
+ideas of in our fancy and realise to our imagination.
+Nothing can be so ridiculous as the simple steps we
+take in such cases; a man or a woman becomes a mere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>
+<i>malade imaginaire</i>, and, I believe, may as easily die
+with grief or run mad with joy (as the affair in his
+fancy appears right or wrong) as if all was real, and
+actually under the management of the person.</p>
+
+<p>I had indeed two assistants to deliver me from
+this snare, and these were, first, Amy, who knew
+my disease, but was able to do nothing as to the
+remedy; the second, the merchant, who really brought
+the remedy, but knew nothing of the distemper.</p>
+
+<p>I remember, when all these disorders were upon
+my thoughts, in one of the visits my friend the
+merchant made me, he took notice that he perceived
+I was under some unusual disorder; he believed, he
+said, that my distemper, whatever it was, lay much
+in my head, and it being summer weather and very
+hot, proposed to me to go a little way into the air.</p>
+
+<p>I started at his expression. "What!" says I;
+"do you think, then, that I am crazed? You should,
+then, propose a madhouse for my cure." "No, no,"
+says he, "I do not mean anything like that; I hope
+the head may be distempered and not the brain."
+Well, I was too sensible that he was right, for I
+knew I had acted a strange, wild kind of part with
+him; but he insisted upon it, and pressed me to go
+into the country. I took him short again. "What
+need you," says I, "send me out of your way? It is
+in your power to be less troubled with me, and with
+less inconvenience to us both."</p>
+
+<p>He took that ill, and told me I used to have a
+better opinion of his sincerity, and desired to know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>
+what he had done to forfeit my charity. I mention
+this only to let you see how far I had gone in my
+measures of quitting him&mdash;that is to say, how near
+I was of showing him how base, ungrateful, and how
+vilely I could act; but I found I had carried the jest
+far enough, and that a little matter might have
+made him sick of me again, as he was before; so I
+began by little and little to change my way of talking
+to him, and to come to discourse to the purpose
+again as we had done before.</p>
+
+<p>A while after this, when we were very merry and
+talking familiarly together, he called me, with an air
+of particular satisfaction, his princess. I coloured at
+the word, for it indeed touched me to the quick;
+but he knew nothing of the reason of my being
+touched with it. "What d'ye mean by that?"
+said I. "Nay," says he, "I mean nothing but that
+you are a princess to me." "Well," says I, "as to
+that I am content, and yet I could tell you I might
+have been a princess if I would have quitted you,
+and believe I could be so still." "It is not in my
+power to make you a princess," says he, "but I can
+easily make you a lady here in England, and a
+countess too if you will go out of it."</p>
+
+<p>I heard both with a great deal of satisfaction, for
+my pride remained though it had been balked, and I
+thought with myself that this proposal would make
+me some amends for the loss of the title that had so
+tickled my imagination another way, and I was impatient
+to understand what he meant, but I would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>
+not ask him by any means; so it passed off for that
+time.</p>
+
+<p>When he was gone I told Amy what he had said,
+and Amy was as impatient to know the manner how
+it could be as I was; but the next time (perfectly
+unexpected to me) he told me that he had accidentally
+mentioned a thing to me last time he was with
+me, having not the least thought of the thing itself;
+but not knowing but such a thing might be of some
+weight to me, and that it might bring me respect
+among people where I might appear, he had thought
+since of it, and was resolved to ask me about it.</p>
+
+<p>I made light of it, and told him that, as he knew
+I had chosen a retired life, it was of no value to me
+to be called lady or countess either; but that if he
+intended to drag me, as I might call it, into the
+world again, perhaps it might be agreeable to him;
+but, besides that, I could not judge of the thing,
+because I did not understand how either of them
+was to be done.</p>
+
+<p>He told me that money purchased titles of honour
+in almost all parts of the world, though money could
+not give principles of honour, they must come by
+birth and blood; that, however, titles sometimes
+assist to elevate the soul and to infuse generous
+principles into the mind, and especially where there
+was a good foundation laid in the persons; that he
+hoped we should neither of us misbehave if we came
+to it; and that as we knew how to wear a title
+without undue elevations, so it might sit as well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>
+upon us as on another; that as to England, he had
+nothing to do but to get an act of naturalisation in
+his favour, and he knew where to purchase a patent
+for baronet&mdash;that is say, to have the honour and
+title transferred to him; but if I intended to go
+abroad with him, he had a nephew, the son of his
+eldest brother, who had the title of count, with the
+estate annexed, which was but small, and that he
+had frequently offered to make it over to him for a
+thousand pistoles, which was not a great deal of
+money, and considering it was in the family already,
+he would, upon my being willing, purchase it
+immediately.</p>
+
+<p>I told him I liked the last best, but then I would
+not let him buy it unless he would let me pay the
+thousand pistoles. "No, no," says he, "I refused a
+thousand pistoles that I had more right to have
+accepted than that, and you shall not be at so much
+expense now." "Yes," says I, "you did refuse it,
+and perhaps repented it afterwards." "I never
+complained," said he. "But I did," says I, "and
+often repented it for you." "I do not understand
+you," says he. "Why," said I, "I repented that I
+suffered you to refuse it." "Well, well," said he,
+"we may talk of that hereafter, when you shall
+resolve which part of the world you will make your
+settled residence in." Here he talked very handsomely
+to me, and for a good while together; how
+it had been his lot to live all his days out of his
+native country, and to be often shifting and chang<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>ing
+the situation of his affairs; and that I myself
+had not always had a fixed abode, but that now, as
+neither of us was very young, he fancied I would be
+for taking up our abode where, if possible, we might
+remove no more; that as to his part, he was of that
+opinion entirely, only with this exception, that the
+choice of the place should be mine, for that all
+places in the world were alike to him, only with this
+single addition, namely, that I was with him.</p>
+
+<p>I heard him with a great deal of pleasure, as well
+for his being willing to give me the choice as for that
+I resolved to live abroad, for the reason I have mentioned
+already, namely, lest I should at any time be
+known in England, and all that story of Roxana and
+the balls should come out; as also I was not a little
+tickled with the satisfaction of being still a countess,
+though I could not be a princess.</p>
+
+<p>I told Amy all this story, for she was still my privy
+councillor; but when I asked her opinion, she made
+me laugh heartily. "Now, which of the two shall I
+take, Amy?" said I. "Shall I be a lady&mdash;that is, a
+baronet's lady in England, or a countess in Holland?"
+The ready-witted jade, that knew the pride of my
+temper too, almost as well as I did myself, answered
+(without the least hesitation), "Both, madam. Which
+of them?" says she (repeating the words). "Why
+not both of them? and then you will be really a
+princess; for, sure, to be a lady in English and a
+countess in Dutch may make a princess in High
+Dutch." Upon the whole, though Amy was in jest,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>
+she put the thought into my head, and I resolved
+that, in short, I would be both of them, which I
+managed as you shall hear.</p>
+
+<p>First, I seemed to resolve that I would live and
+settle in England, only with this condition, namely,
+that I would not live in London. I pretended that
+it would choke me up; that I wanted breath when I
+was in London, but that anywhere else I would be
+satisfied; and then I asked him whether any seaport
+town in England would not suit him; because I knew,
+though he seemed to leave off, he would always love
+to be among business, and conversing with men of
+business; and I named several places, either nearest
+for business with France or with Holland; as Dover
+or Southampton, for the first; and Ipswich, or
+Yarmouth, or Hull for the last; but I took care
+that we would resolve upon nothing; only by
+this it seemed to be certain that we should live in
+England.</p>
+
+<p>It was time now to bring things to a conclusion,
+and so in about six weeks' time more we settled all
+our preliminaries; and, among the rest, he let me
+know that he should have the bill for his naturalisation
+passed time enough, so that he would be (as he
+called it) an Englishman before we married. That
+was soon perfected, the Parliament being then sitting,
+and several other foreigners joining in the said bill
+to save the expense.</p>
+
+<p>It was not above three or four days after, but
+that, without giving me the least notice that he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>
+so much as been about the patent for baronet, he
+brought it me in a fine embroidered bag, and saluting
+me by the name of my Lady &mdash;&mdash; (joining his own
+surname to it), presented it to me with his picture
+set with diamonds, and at the same time gave me a
+breast-jewel worth a thousand pistoles, and the next
+morning we were married. Thus I put an end to all
+the intriguing part of my life&mdash;a life full of prosperous
+wickedness; the reflections upon which were
+so much the more afflicting as the time had been
+spent in the grossest crimes, which, the more I looked
+back upon, the more black and horrid they appeared,
+effectually drinking up all the comfort and satisfaction
+which I might otherwise have taken in that part
+of life which was still before me.</p>
+
+<p>The first satisfaction, however, that I took in the
+new condition I was in was in reflecting that at
+length the life of crime was over, and that I was like
+a passenger coming back from the Indies, who, having,
+after many years' fatigues and hurry in business,
+gotten a good estate, with innumerable difficulties
+and hazards, is arrived safe at London with all his
+effects, and has the pleasure of saying he shall never
+venture upon the seas any more.</p>
+
+<p>When we were married we came back immediately
+to my lodgings (for the church was but just by), and
+we were so privately married that none but Amy
+and my friend the Quaker was acquainted with it.
+As soon as we came into the house he took me in
+his arms, and kissing me, "Now you are my own,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>
+says he. "Oh that you had been so good to have
+done this eleven years ago!" "Then," said I, "you,
+perhaps, would have been tired of me long ago; it is
+much better now, for now all our happy days are to
+come. Besides," said I, "I should not have been
+half so rich;" but that I said to myself, for there
+was no letting him into the reason of it. "Oh!"
+says he, "I should not have been tired of you; but,
+besides having the satisfaction of your company, it
+had saved me that unlucky blow at Paris, which was
+a dead loss to me of above eight thousand pistoles,
+and all the fatigues of so many years' hurry and business;"
+and then he added, "But I'll make you pay
+for it all, now I have you." I started a little at the
+words. "Ay," said I, "do you threaten already?
+Pray what d'ye mean by that?" and began to look
+a little grave.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you," says he, "very plainly what I
+mean;" and still he held me fast in his arms. "I
+intend from this time never to trouble myself with
+any more business, so I shall never get one shilling
+for you more than I have already; all that you will
+lose one way. Next, I intend not to trouble myself
+with any of the care or trouble of managing what
+either you have for me or what I have to add to it;
+but you shall e'en take it all upon yourself, as the
+wives do in Holland; so you will pay for it that way
+too, for all the drudgery shall be yours. Thirdly, I
+intend to condemn you to the constant bondage of
+my impertinent company, for I shall tie you like a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>
+pedlar's pack at my back. I shall scarce ever be
+from you; for I am sure I can take delight in nothing
+else in this world." "Very well," says I; "but
+I am pretty heavy. I hope you'll set me down sometimes
+when you are aweary." "As for that," says
+he, "tire me if you can."</p>
+
+<p>This was all jest and allegory; but it was all true,
+in the moral of the fable, as you shall hear in its
+place. We were very merry the rest of the day, but
+without any noise or clutter; for he brought not one
+of his acquaintance or friends, either English or foreigner.
+The honest Quaker provided us a very noble
+dinner indeed, considering how few we were to eat it;
+and every day that week she did the like, and would
+at last have it be all at her own charge, which I was
+utterly averse to; first, because I knew her circumstances
+not to be very great, though not very low;
+and next, because she had been so true a friend, and
+so cheerful a comforter to me, ay, and counsellor too,
+in all this affair, that I had resolved to make her a
+present that should be some help to her when all was
+over.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to the circumstances of our wedding.
+After being very merry, as I have told you, Amy
+and the Quaker put us to bed, the honest Quaker
+little thinking we had been abed together eleven
+years before. Nay, that was a secret which, as it
+happened, Amy herself did not know. Amy grinned
+and made faces, as if she had been pleased; but it
+came out in so many words, when he was not by,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>
+the sum of her mumbling and muttering was, that
+this should have been done ten or a dozen years
+before; that it would signify little now; that was to
+say, in short, that her mistress was pretty near fifty,
+and too old to have any children. I chid her; the
+Quaker laughed, complimented me upon my not
+being so old as Amy pretended, that I could not be
+above forty, and might have a house full of children
+yet. But Amy and I too knew better than she how
+it was, for, in short, I was old enough to have done
+breeding, however I looked; but I made her hold
+her tongue.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning my Quaker landlady came and
+visited us before we were up, and made us eat cakes
+and drink chocolate in bed; and then left us again,
+and bid us take a nap upon it, which I believe we
+did. In short, she treated us so handsomely, and
+with such an agreeable cheerfulness, as well as plenty,
+as made it appear to me that Quakers may, and that
+this Quaker did, understand good manners as well as
+any other people.</p>
+
+<p>I resisted her offer, however, of treating us for the
+whole week; and I opposed it so long that I saw
+evidently that she took it ill, and would have thought
+herself slighted if we had not accepted it. So I said
+no more, but let her go on, only told her I would be
+even with her; and so I was. However, for that
+week she treated us as she said she would, and did it
+so very fine, and with such a profusion of all sorts of
+good things, that the greatest burthen to her was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>
+how to dispose of things that were left; for she
+never let anything, how dainty or however large, be
+so much as seen twice among us.</p>
+
+<p>I had some servants indeed, which helped her off a
+little; that is to say, two maids, for Amy was now a
+woman of business, not a servant, and ate always with
+us. I had also a coachman and a boy. My Quaker
+had a man-servant too, but had but one maid; but
+she borrowed two more of some of her friends for
+the occasion, and had a man-cook for dressing the
+victuals.</p>
+
+<p>She was only at a loss for plate, which she gave
+me a whisper of; and I made Amy fetch a large
+strong-box, which I had lodged in a safe hand, in
+which was all the fine plate which I had provided on
+a worse occasion, as is mentioned before; and I put
+it into the Quaker's hand, obliging her not to use it
+as mine, but as her own, for a reason I shall mention
+presently.</p>
+
+<p>I was now my Lady &mdash;&mdash;, and I must own I was
+exceedingly pleased with it; 'twas so big and so
+great to hear myself called "her ladyship," and
+"your ladyship," and the like, that I was like the
+Indian king at Virginia, who, having a house built
+for him by the English, and a lock put upon the
+door, would sit whole days together with the key in
+his hand, locking and unlocking, and double-locking,
+the door, with an unaccountable pleasure at the
+novelty; so I could have sat a whole day together
+to hear Amy talk to me, and call me "your lady<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>ship"
+at every word; but after a while the novelty
+wore off and the pride of it abated, till at last truly
+I wanted the other title as much as I did that of
+ladyship before.</p>
+
+<p>We lived this week in all the innocent mirth
+imaginable, and our good-humoured Quaker was so
+pleasant in her way that it was particularly entertaining
+to us. We had no music at all, or dancing;
+only I now and then sung a French song to divert
+my spouse, who desired it, and the privacy of our
+mirth greatly added to the pleasure of it. I did not
+make many clothes for my wedding, having always a
+great many rich clothes by me, which, with a little
+altering for the fashion, were perfectly new. The
+next day he pressed me to dress, though we had no
+company. At last, jesting with him, I told him I
+believed I was able to dress me so, in one kind of
+dress that I had by me, that he would not know his
+wife when he saw her, especially if anybody else was
+by. No, he said, that was impossible, and he longed
+to see that dress. I told him I would dress me in it,
+if he would promise me never to desire me to appear
+in it before company. He promised he would not,
+but wanted to know why too; as husbands, you
+know, are inquisitive creatures, and love to inquire
+after anything they think is kept from them; but I
+had an answer ready for him. "Because," said I,
+"it is not a decent dress in this country, and would
+not look modest." Neither, indeed, would it, for
+it was but one degree off from appearing in one's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>
+shift, but was the usual wear in the country where
+they were used. He was satisfied with my answer,
+and gave me his promise never to ask me to be seen
+in it before company. I then withdrew, taking only
+Amy and the Quaker with me; and Amy dressed me
+in my old Turkish habit which I danced in formerly,
+&amp;c., as before. The Quaker was charmed with the
+dress, and merrily said, that if such a dress should
+come to be worn here, she should not know what
+to do; she should be tempted not to dress in the
+Quaker's way any more.</p>
+
+<p>When all the dress was put on, I loaded it with
+jewels, and in particular I placed the large breast-jewel
+which he had given me of a thousand pistoles
+upon the front of the <i>tyhaia</i>, or head-dress, where it
+made a most glorious show indeed. I had my own
+diamond necklace on, and my hair was <i>tout brilliant</i>,
+all glittering with jewels.</p>
+
+<p>His picture set with diamonds I had placed stitched
+to my vest, just, as might be supposed, upon my
+heart (which is the compliment in such cases among
+the Eastern people); and all being open at the breast,
+there was no room for anything of a jewel there.</p>
+
+<p>In this figure, Amy holding the train of my robe,
+I came down to him. He was surprised, and perfectly
+astonished. He knew me, to be sure, because
+I had prepared him, and because there was nobody
+else there but the Quaker and Amy; but he by no
+means knew Amy, for she had dressed herself in the
+habit of a Turkish slave, being the garb of my little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>
+Turk which I had at Naples, as I have said; she had
+her neck and arms bare, was bareheaded, and her
+hair braided in a long tassel hanging down her back;
+but the jade could neither hold her countenance or
+her chattering tongue, so as to be concealed long.</p>
+
+<p>Well, he was so charmed with this dress that he
+would have me sit and dine in it; but it was so thin,
+and so open before, and the weather being also sharp,
+that I was afraid of taking cold; however, the fire
+being enlarged and the doors kept shut, I sat to
+oblige him, and he professed he never saw so fine a
+dress in his life. I afterwards told him that my
+husband (so he called the jeweller that was killed)
+bought it for me at Leghorn, with a young Turkish
+slave which I parted with at Paris; and that it was
+by the help of that slave that I learned how to dress
+in it, and how everything was to be worn, and many
+of the Turkish customs also, with some of their language.
+This story agreeing with the fact, only
+changing the person, was very natural, and so it
+went off with him; but there was good reason why
+I should not receive any company in this dress&mdash;that
+is to say, not in England. I need not repeat
+it; you will hear more of it.</p>
+
+<p>But when I came abroad I frequently put it on,
+and upon two or three occasions danced in it, but
+always at his request.</p>
+
+<p>We continued at the Quaker's lodgings for above
+a year; for now, making as though it was difficult to
+determine where to settle in England to his satisfac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>tion,
+unless in London, which was not to mine, I pretended
+to make him an offer, that, to oblige him, I
+began to incline to go and live abroad with him;
+that I knew nothing could be more agreeable to him,
+and that as to me, every place was alike; that, as I
+had lived abroad without a husband so many years,
+it could be no burthen to me to live abroad again,
+especially with him. Then we fell to straining our
+courtesies upon one another. He told me he was
+perfectly easy at living in England, and had squared
+all his affairs accordingly; for that, as he had told
+me he intended to give over all business in the world,
+as well the care of managing it as the concern about
+it, seeing we were both in condition neither to want
+it or to have it be worth our while, so I might see it
+was his intention, by his getting himself naturalised,
+and getting the patent of baronet, &amp;c. Well, for all
+that, I told him I accepted his compliment, but I
+could not but know that his native country, where
+his children were breeding up, must be most agreeable
+to him, and that, if I was of such value to him,
+I would be there then, to enhance the rate of his satisfaction;
+that wherever he was would be a home to
+me, and any place in the world would be England to
+me if he was with me; and thus, in short, I brought
+him to give me leave to oblige him with going to live
+abroad, when, in truth, I could not have been perfectly
+easy at living in England, unless I had kept
+constantly within doors, lest some time or other the
+dissolute life I had lived here should have come to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>
+known, and all those wicked things have been known
+too, which I now began to be very much ashamed of.</p>
+
+<p>When we closed up our wedding week, in which
+our Quaker had been so very handsome to us, I told
+him how much I thought we were obliged to her for
+her generous carriage to us; how she had acted the
+kindest part through the whole, and how faithful a
+friend she had been to me upon all occasions; and
+then letting him know a little of her family unhappiness,
+I proposed that I thought I not only ought
+to be grateful to her, but really to do something
+extraordinary for her, towards making her easy in
+her affairs. And I added, that I had no hangers-on
+that should trouble him; that there was nobody belonged
+to me but what was thoroughly provided for,
+and that, if I did something for this honest woman
+that was considerable, it should be the last gift I
+would give to anybody in the world but Amy; and
+as for her, we were not agoing to turn her adrift, but
+whenever anything offered for her, we would do as
+we saw cause; that, in the meantime, Amy was not
+poor, that she had saved together between seven and
+eight hundred pounds. By the way, I did not tell
+him how, and by what wicked ways she got it, but
+that she had it; and that was enough to let him
+know she would never be in want of us.</p>
+
+<p>My spouse was exceedingly pleased with my discourse
+about the Quaker, made a kind of a speech
+to me upon the subject of gratitude, told me it was
+one of the brightest parts of a gentlewoman, that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span>
+was so twisted with honesty, nay, and even with religion
+too, that he questioned whether either of them
+could be found where gratitude was not to be found;
+that in this act there was not only gratitude, but
+charity; and that to make the charity still more
+Christian-like, the object too had real merit to
+attract it; he therefore agreed to the thing with all
+his heart, only would have had me let him pay it
+out of his effects.</p>
+
+<p>I told him, as for that, I did not design, whatever
+I had said formerly, that we should have two
+pockets; and that though I had talked to him of
+being a free woman, and an independent, and the
+like, and he had offered and promised that I should
+keep all my own estate in my own hands; yet, that
+since I had taken him, I would e'en do as other
+honest wives did&mdash;where I thought fit to give
+myself, I should give what I had too; that if I
+reserved anything, it should be only in case of mortality,
+and that I might give it to his children afterwards,
+as my own gift; and that, in short, if he
+thought fit to join stocks, we would see to-morrow
+morning what strength we could both make up in
+the world, and bringing it all together, consider,
+before we resolved upon the place of removing, how
+we should dispose of what we had, as well as of ourselves.
+This discourse was too obliging, and he too
+much of a man of sense not to receive it as it was
+meant. He only answered, we would do in that as
+we should both agree; but the thing under our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>
+present care was to show not gratitude only, but
+charity and affection too, to our kind friend the
+Quaker; and the first word he spoke of was to settle
+a thousand pounds upon her for her life&mdash;that is
+to say, sixty pounds a year&mdash;but in such a manner
+as not to be in the power of any person to reach but
+herself. This was a great thing, and indeed showed
+the generous principles of my husband, and for that
+reason I mention it; but I thought that a little too
+much too, and particularly because I had another
+thing in view for her about the plate; so I told him
+I thought, if he gave her a purse with a hundred
+guineas as a present first, and then made her a compliment
+of &pound;40 per annum for her life, secured any
+such way as she should desire, it would be very
+handsome.</p>
+
+<p>He agreed to that; and the same day, in the
+evening, when we were just going to bed, he took
+my Quaker by the hand, and, with a kiss, told her
+that we had been very kindly treated by her from
+the beginning of this affair, and his wife before, as
+she (meaning me) had informed him; and that he
+thought himself bound to let her see that she had
+obliged friends who knew how to be grateful; that
+for his part of the obligation he desired she would
+accept of that, for an acknowledgment in part only
+(putting the gold into her hand), and that his wife
+would talk with her about what farther he had to
+say to her; and upon that, not giving her time
+hardly to say "Thank ye," away he went upstairs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>
+into our bedchamber, leaving her confused and not
+knowing what to say.</p>
+
+<p>When he was gone she began to make very handsome
+and obliging representations of her goodwill
+to us both, but that it was without expectation of
+reward; that I had given her several valuable
+presents before&mdash;and so, indeed, I had; for, besides
+the piece of linen which I had given her at first, I
+had given her a suit of damask table-linen, of the
+linen I bought for my balls, viz., three table-cloths
+and three dozen of napkins; and at another time I
+gave her a little necklace of gold beads, and the
+like; but that is by the way. But she mentioned
+them, I say, and how she was obliged by me on
+many other occasions; that she was not in condition
+to show her gratitude any other way, not being able
+to make a suitable return; and that now we took from
+her all opportunity, to balance my former friendship,
+and left her more in debt than she was before.
+She spoke this in a very good kind of manner, in her
+own way, but which was very agreeable indeed, and
+had as much apparent sincerity, and I verily believe
+as real as was possible to be expressed; but I put a
+stop to it, and bade her say no more, but accept of
+what my spouse had given her, which was but in
+part, as she had heard him say. "And put it up,"
+says I, "and come and sit down here, and give me
+leave to say something else to you on the same head,
+which my spouse and I have settled between ourselves
+in your behalf." "What dost thee mean?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>
+says she, and blushed, and looked surprised, but did
+not stir. She was going to speak again, but I interrupted
+her, and told her she should make no
+more apologies of any kind whatever, for I had
+better things than all this to talk to her of; so I
+went on, and told her, that as she had been so
+friendly and kind to us on every occasion, and that
+her house was the lucky place where we came together,
+and that she knew I was from her own mouth
+acquainted in part with her circumstances, we were
+resolved she should be the better for us as long as
+she lived. Then I told what we had resolved to do
+for her, and that she had nothing more to do but to
+consult with me how it should be effectually secured
+for her, distinct from any of the effects which were
+her husband's; and that if her husband did so supply
+her that she could live comfortably, and not want it
+for bread or other necessaries, she should not make
+use of it, but lay up the income of it, and add it
+every year to the principal, so to increase the annual
+payment, which in time, and perhaps before she
+might come to want it, might double itself; that we
+were very willing whatever she should so lay up
+should be to herself, and whoever she thought fit
+after her; but that the forty pounds a year must
+return to our family after her life, which we both
+wished might be long and happy.</p>
+
+<p>Let no reader wonder at my extraordinary concern
+for this poor woman, or at my giving my bounty to
+her a place in this account. It is not, I assure you,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>
+to make a pageantry of my charity, or to value myself
+upon the greatness of my soul, that should give
+in so profuse a manner as this, which was above my
+figure, if my wealth had been twice as much as it
+was; but there was another spring from whence all
+flowed, and 'tis on that account I speak of it. Was
+it possible I could think of a poor desolate woman
+with four children, and her husband gone from her,
+and perhaps good for little if he had stayed&mdash;I say,
+was I, that had tasted so deep of the sorrows of such
+a kind of widowhood, able to look on her, and think
+of her circumstances, and not be touched in an
+uncommon manner? No, no; I never looked on
+her and her family, though she was not left so helpless
+and friendless as I had been, without remembering
+my own condition, when Amy was sent out to
+pawn or sell my pair of stays to buy a breast of
+mutton and a bunch of turnips; nor could I look on
+her poor children, though not poor and perishing,
+like mine, without tears; reflecting on the dreadful
+condition that mine were reduced to, when poor
+Amy sent them all into their aunt's in Spitalfields,
+and run away from them. These were the original
+springs, or fountain-head, from whence my affectionate
+thoughts were moved to assist this poor
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>When a poor debtor, having lain long in the
+Compter, or Ludgate, or the King's Bench for debt,
+afterwards gets out, rises again in the world, and
+grows rich, such a one is a certain benefactor to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>
+prisoners there, and perhaps to every prison he passes
+by as long as he lives, for he remembers the dark
+days of his own sorrow; and even those who never
+had the experience of such sorrows to stir up their
+minds to acts of charity would have the same charitable,
+good disposition did they as sensibly remember
+what it is that distinguishes them from others
+by a more favourable and merciful Providence.</p>
+
+<p>This, I say, was, however, the spring of my concern
+for this honest, friendly, and grateful Quaker; and
+as I had so plentiful a fortune in the world, I resolved
+she should taste the fruit of her kind usage
+to me in a manner that she could not expect.</p>
+
+<p>All the while I talked to her I saw the disorder of
+her mind; the sudden joy was too much for her, and
+she coloured, trembled, changed, and at last grew
+pale, and was indeed near fainting, when she hastily
+rung a little bell for her maid, who coming in immediately,
+she beckoned to her&mdash;for speak she
+could not&mdash;to fill her a glass of wine; but she had
+no breath to take it in, and was almost choked with
+that which she took in her mouth. I saw she was
+ill, and assisted her what I could, and with spirits
+and things to smell to just kept her from fainting,
+when she beckoned to her maid to withdraw, and
+immediately burst out in crying, and that relieved
+her. When she recovered herself a little she flew to
+me, and throwing her arms about my neck, "Oh!"
+says she, "thou hast almost killed me;" and there
+she hung, laying her head in my neck for half a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>
+quarter of an hour, not able to speak, but sobbing
+like a child that had been whipped.</p>
+
+<p>I was very sorry that I did not stop a little in
+the middle of my discourse and make her drink a
+glass of wine before it had put her spirits into such
+a violent motion; but it was too late, and it was ten
+to one odds but that it had killed her.</p>
+
+<p>But she came to herself at last, and began to say
+some very good things in return for my kindness. I
+would not let her go on, but told her I had more to say
+to her still than all this, but that I would let it alone
+till another time. My meaning was about the box
+of plate, good part of which I gave her, and some
+I gave to Amy; for I had so much plate, and some
+so large, that I thought if I let my husband see it
+he might be apt to wonder what occasion I could
+ever have for so much, and for plate of such a kind
+too; as particularly a great cistern for bottles, which
+cost a hundred and twenty pounds, and some
+large candlesticks too big for any ordinary use.
+These I caused Amy to sell; in short, Amy sold
+above three hundred pounds' worth of plate; what I
+gave the Quaker was worth above sixty pounds, and I
+gave Amy above thirty pounds' worth, and yet I had
+a great deal left for my husband.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did our kindness to the Quaker end with the
+forty pounds a year, for we were always, while we
+stayed with her, which was above ten months, giving
+her one good thing or another; and, in a word,
+instead of lodging with her, she boarded with us, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>
+I kept the house, and she and all her family ate and
+drank with us, and yet we paid her the rent of the
+house too; in short, I remembered my widowhood,
+and I made this widow's heart glad many a day the
+more upon that account.</p>
+
+<p>And now my spouse and I began to think of going
+over to Holland, where I had proposed to him to
+live, and in order to settle all the preliminaries of our
+future manner of living, I began to draw in my
+effects, so as to have them all at command upon
+whatever occasion we thought fit; after which, one
+morning I called my spouse up to me: "Hark ye,
+sir," said I to him, "I have two very weighty questions
+to ask of you. I don't know what answer you
+will give to the first, but I doubt you will be able to
+give but a sorry answer to the other, and yet, I
+assure you, it is of the last importance to yourself,
+and towards the future part of your life, wherever it
+is to be."</p>
+
+<p>He did not seem to be much alarmed, because he
+could see I was speaking in a kind of merry way.
+"Let's hear your questions, my dear," says he, "and
+I'll give the best answer I can to them." "Why,
+first," says I:</p>
+
+<p>"I. You have married a wife here, made her a
+lady, and put her in expectation of being something
+else still when she comes abroad. Pray have you
+examined whether you are able to supply all her
+extravagant demands when she comes abroad, and
+maintain an expensive Englishwoman in all her pride<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>
+and vanity? In short, have you inquired whether
+you are able to keep her?</p>
+
+<p>"II. You have married a wife here, and given her
+a great many fine things, and you maintain her like
+a princess, and sometimes call her so. Pray what
+portion have you had with her? what fortune has
+she been to you? and where does her estate lie, that
+you keep her so fine? I am afraid that you keep
+her in a figure a great deal above her estate, at least
+above all that you have seen of it yet. Are you sure
+you han't got a bite, and that you have not made a
+beggar a lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says he, "have you any more questions to
+ask? Let's have them all together; perhaps they
+may be all answered in a few words, as well as these
+two." "No," says I, "these are the two grand
+questions&mdash;at least for the present." "Why, then,"
+says he, "I'll answer you in a few words; that I am
+fully master of my own circumstances, and, without
+farther inquiry, can let my wife you speak of know,
+that as I have made her a lady I can maintain her as
+a lady, wherever she goes with me; and this whether
+I have one pistole of her portion, or whether she has
+any portion or no; and as I have not inquired
+whether she has any portion or not, so she shall not
+have the less respect showed her from me, or be
+obliged to live meaner, or be anyways straitened on
+that account; on the contrary, if she goes abroad to
+live with me in my own country, I will make her
+more than a lady, and support the expense of it too,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>
+without meddling with anything she has; and this,
+I suppose," says he, "contains an answer to both
+your questions together."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke this with a great deal more earnestness in
+his countenance than I had when I proposed my
+questions, and said a great many kind things upon
+it, as the consequence of former discourses, so that I
+was obliged to be in earnest too. "My dear," says
+I, "I was but in jest in my questions; but they
+were proposed to introduce what I am going to say
+to you in earnest; namely, that if I am to go abroad,
+'tis time I should let you know how things stand,
+and what I have to bring you with your wife; how
+it is to be disposed and secured, and the like; and
+therefore come," says I, "sit down, and let me show
+you your bargain here; I hope you will find that
+you have not got a wife without a fortune."</p>
+
+<p>He told me then, that since he found I was in
+earnest, he desired that I would adjourn it till to-morrow,
+and then we would do as the poor people do
+after they marry, feel in their pockets, and see how
+much money they can bring together in the world.
+"Well," says I, "with all my heart;" and so we
+ended our talk for that time.</p>
+
+<p>As this was in the morning, my spouse went out
+after dinner to his goldsmith's, as he said, and about
+three hours after returns with a porter and two large
+boxes with him; and his servant brought another
+box, which I observed was almost as heavy as the
+two that the porter brought, and made the poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>
+fellow sweat heartily; he dismissed the porter, and
+in a little while after went out again with his man,
+and returning at night, brought another porter with
+more boxes and bundles, and all was carried up, and
+put into a chamber, next to our bedchamber; and in
+the morning he called for a pretty large round table,
+and began to unpack.</p>
+
+<p>When the boxes were opened, I found they were
+chiefly full of books, and papers, and parchments, I
+mean books of accounts, and writings, and such things
+as were in themselves of no moment to me, because
+I understood them not; but I perceived he took them
+all out, and spread them about him upon the table
+and chairs, and began to be very busy with them; so
+I withdrew and left him; and he was indeed so busy
+among them, that he never missed me till I had been
+gone a good while; but when he had gone through
+all his papers, and come to open a little box, he
+called for me again. "Now," says he, and called
+me his countess, "I am ready to answer your first
+question; if you will sit down till I have opened this
+box, we will see how it stands."</p>
+
+<p>So we opened the box; there was in it indeed what
+I did not expect, for I thought he had sunk his estate
+rather than raised it; but he produced me in goldsmiths'
+bills, and stock in the English East India
+Company, about sixteen thousand pounds sterling;
+then he gave into my hands nine assignments upon the
+Bank of Lyons in France, and two upon the rents
+of the town-house in Paris, amounting in the whole to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>
+5800 crowns per annum, or annual rent, as it is called
+there; and lastly, the sum of 30,000 rixdollars in the
+Bank of Amsterdam; besides some jewels and gold in
+the box to the value of about &pound;1500 or &pound;1600,
+among which was a very good necklace of pearl of
+about &pound;200 value; and that he pulled out and tied
+about my neck, telling me that should not be reckoned
+into the account.</p>
+
+<p>I was equally pleased and surprised, and it was with
+an inexpressible joy that I saw him so rich.</p>
+
+<p>"You might well tell me," said I, "that you were
+able to make me countess, and maintain me as such."
+In short, he was immensely rich; for besides all this,
+he showed me, which was the reason of his being so
+busy among the books, I say, he showed me several
+adventures he had abroad in the business of his
+merchandise; as particularly an eighth share in an
+East India ship then abroad; an account-courant
+with a merchant at Cadiz in Spain; about &pound;3000
+lent upon bottomry, upon ships gone to the Indies;
+and a large cargo of goods in a merchant's hands,
+for sale at Lisbon in Portugal; so that in his books
+there was about &pound;12,000 more; all which put together,
+made about &pound;27,000 sterling, and &pound;1320 a
+year.</p>
+
+<p>I stood amazed at this account, as well I might,
+and said nothing to him for a good while, and the
+rather because I saw him still busy looking over his
+books. After a while, as I was going to express my
+wonder, "Hold, my dear," says he, "this is not all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>
+neither;" then he pulled me out some old seals, and
+small parchment rolls, which I did not understand;
+but he told me they were a right of reversion which
+he had to a paternal estate in his family, and a mortgage
+of 14,000 rixdollars, which he had upon it, in
+the hands of the present possessor; so that was about
+&pound;3000 more.</p>
+
+<p>"But now hold again," says he, "for I must pay
+my debts out of all this, and they are very great, I
+assure you;" and the first he said was a black article
+of 8000 pistoles, which he had a lawsuit about at
+Paris, but had it awarded against him, which was the
+loss he had told me of, and which made him leave
+Paris in disgust; that in other accounts he owed
+about &pound;5300 sterling; but after all this, upon the
+whole, he had still &pound;17,000 clear stock in money, and
+&pound;1320 a year in rent.</p>
+
+<p>After some pause, it came to my turn to speak.
+"Well," says I, "'tis very hard a gentleman with
+such a fortune as this should come over to England,
+and marry a wife with nothing; it shall never," says
+I, "be said, but what I have, I'll bring into the
+public stock;" so I began to produce.</p>
+
+<p>First, I pulled out the mortgage which good Sir
+Robert had procured for me, the annual rent &pound;700
+per annum; the principal money &pound;14,000.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, I pulled out another mortgage upon
+land, procured by the same faithful friend, which at
+three times had advanced &pound;12,000.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, I pulled him out a parcel of little securi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>ties,
+procured by several hands, by fee-farm rents,
+and such petty mortgages as those times afforded,
+amounting to &pound;10,800 principal money, and paying
+six hundred and thirty-six pounds a-year. So that
+in the whole there was two thousand and fifty-six
+pounds a year ready money constantly coming in.</p>
+
+<p>When I had shown him all these, I laid them
+upon the table, and bade him take them, that he
+might be able to give me an answer to the second
+question. What fortune he had with his wife? And
+laughed a little at it.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at them awhile, and then handed them
+all back again to me: "I will not touch them," says
+he, "nor one of them, till they are all settled in
+trustees' hands for your own use, and the management
+wholly your own."</p>
+
+<p>I cannot omit what happened to me while all this
+was acting; though it was cheerful work in the main,
+yet I trembled every joint of me, worse for aught I
+know than ever Belshazzar did at the handwriting
+on the wall, and the occasion was every way as just.
+"Unhappy wretch," said I to myself, "shall my ill-got
+wealth, the product of prosperous lust, and of a
+vile and vicious life of whoredom and adultery, be
+intermingled with the honest well-gotten estate of
+this innocent gentleman, to be a moth and a caterpillar
+among it, and bring the judgments of heaven
+upon him, and upon what he has, for my sake? Shall
+my wickedness blast his comforts? Shall I be fire
+in his flax? and be a means to provoke heaven to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>
+curse his blessings? God forbid! I'll keep them
+asunder if it be possible."</p>
+
+<p>This is the true reason why I have been so particular
+in the account of my vast acquired stock; and
+how his estate, which was perhaps the product of
+many years' fortunate industry, and which was equal
+if not superior to mine at best, was, at my request,
+kept apart from mine, as is mentioned above.</p>
+
+<p>I have told you how he gave back all my writings
+into my own hands again. "Well," says I, "seeing
+you will have it be kept apart, it shall be so, upon
+one condition, which I have to propose, and no other."
+"And what is the condition?" says he. "Why,"
+says I, "all the pretence I can have for the making
+over my own estate to me is, that in case of your
+mortality, I may have it reserved for me, if I outlive
+you." "Well," says he, "that is true" "But then,"
+said I, "the annual income is always received by the
+husband, during his life, as 'tis supposed, for the
+mutual subsistence of the family; now," says I, "here
+is &pound;2000 a year, which I believe is as much as we
+shall spend, and I desire none of it may be saved;
+and all the income of your own estate, the interest
+of the &pound;17,000 and the &pound;1320 a year, may be constantly
+laid by for the increase of your estate; and
+so," added I, "by joining the interest every year to
+the capital you will perhaps grow as rich as you
+would do if you were to trade with it all, if you were
+obliged to keep house out of it too."</p>
+
+<p>He liked the proposal very well, and said it should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>
+be so; and this way I, in some measure, satisfied myself
+that I should not bring my husband under the
+blast of a just Providence, for mingling my cursed
+ill-gotten wealth with his honest estate. This was
+occasioned by the reflections which, at some certain
+intervals of time, came into my thoughts of the justice
+of heaven, which I had reason to expect would
+some time or other still fall upon me or my effects,
+for the dreadful life I had lived.</p>
+
+<p>And let nobody conclude from the strange success
+I met with in all my wicked doings, and the vast
+estate which I had raised by it, that therefore I either
+was happy or easy. No, no, there was a dart struck
+into the liver; there was a secret hell within, even
+all the while, when our joy was at the highest; but
+more especially now, after it was all over, and when,
+according to all appearance, I was one of the happiest
+women upon earth; all this while, I say, I had
+such constant terror upon my mind, as gave me every
+now and then very terrible shocks, and which made
+me expect something very frightful upon every accident
+of life.</p>
+
+<p>In a word, it never lightened or thundered, but
+I expected the next flash would penetrate my vitals,
+and melt the sword (soul) in this scabbard of flesh;
+it never blew a storm of wind, but I expected the
+fall of some stack of chimneys, or some part of the
+house, would bury me in its ruins; and so of other
+things.</p>
+
+<p>But I shall perhaps have occasion to speak of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>
+these things again by-and-by; the case before us was
+in a manner settled; we had full four thousand
+pounds per annum for our future subsistence, besides
+a vast sum in jewels and plate; and besides this, I
+had about eight thousand pounds reserved in money
+which I kept back from him, to provide for my two
+daughters, of whom I have much yet to say.</p>
+
+<p>With this estate, settled as you have heard, and
+with the best husband in the world, I left England
+again; I had not only, in human prudence, and by
+the nature of the thing, being now married and settled
+in so glorious a manner,&mdash;I say, I had not only
+abandoned all the gay and wicked course which I had
+gone through before, but I began to look back upon
+it with that horror and that detestation which is the
+certain companion, if not the forerunner, of repentance.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the wonders of my present circumstances
+would work upon me, and I should have some
+raptures upon my soul, upon the subject of my coming
+so smoothly out of the arms of hell, that I was not
+ingulfed in ruin, as most who lead such lives are, first
+or last; but this was a flight too high for me; I was
+not come to that repentance that is raised from a
+sense of Heaven's goodness; I repented of the crime,
+but it was of another and lower kind of repentance,
+and rather moved by my fears of vengeance, than
+from a sense of being spared from being punished,
+and landed safe after a storm.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing which happened after our coming
+to the Hague (where we lodged for a while) was, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>
+my spouse saluted me one morning with the title of
+countess, as he said he intended to do, by having the
+inheritance to which the honour was annexed made
+over to him. It is true, it was a reversion, but it
+soon fell, and in the meantime, as all the brothers of
+a count are called counts, so I had the title by courtesy,
+about three years before I had it in reality.</p>
+
+<p>I was agreeably surprised at this coming so soon,
+and would have had my spouse have taken the
+money which it cost him out of my stock, but he
+laughed at me, and went on.</p>
+
+<p>I was now in the height of my glory and prosperity,
+and I was called the Countess de &mdash;&mdash;; for I had
+obtained that unlooked for, which I secretly aimed
+at, and was really the main reason of my coming
+abroad. I took now more servants, lived in a kind
+of magnificence that I had not been acquainted with,
+was called "your honour" at every word, and had a
+coronet behind my coach; though at the same time
+I knew little or nothing of my new pedigree.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing that my spouse took upon him to
+manage, was to declare ourselves married eleven years
+before our arriving in Holland; and consequently
+to acknowledge our little son, who was yet in
+England, to be legitimate; order him to be brought
+over, and added to his family, and acknowledge him
+to be our own.</p>
+
+<p>This was done by giving notice to his people at
+Nimeguen, where his children (which were two sons
+and a daughter) were brought up, that he was come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>
+over from England, and that he was arrived at the
+Hague with his wife, and should reside there some
+time, and that he would have his two sons brought
+down to see him; which accordingly was done, and
+where I entertained them with all the kindness and
+tenderness that they could expect from their mother-in-law;
+and who pretended to be so ever since they
+were two or three years old.</p>
+
+<p>This supposing us to have been so long married
+was not difficult at all, in a country where we had
+been seen together about that time, viz., eleven years
+and a half before, and where we had never been seen
+afterwards till we now returned together: this being
+seen together was also openly owned and acknowledged,
+of course, by our friend the merchant at
+Rotterdam, and also by the people in the house
+where we both lodged in the same city, and where
+our first intimacies began, and who, as it happened,
+were all alive; and therefore, to make it the more
+public, we made a tour to Rotterdam again, lodged
+in the same house, and was visited there by our
+friend the merchant, and afterwards invited frequently
+to his house, where he treated us very
+handsomely.</p>
+
+<p>This conduct of my spouse, and which he managed
+very cleverly, was indeed a testimony of a wonderful
+degree of honesty and affection to our little son; for
+it was done purely for the sake of the child.</p>
+
+<p>I call it an honest affection, because it was from
+a principle of honesty that he so earnestly concerned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>
+himself to prevent the scandal which would otherwise
+have fallen upon the child, who was itself innocent;
+and as it was from this principle of justice
+that he so earnestly solicited me, and conjured me
+by the natural affections of a mother, to marry him
+when it was yet young within me and unborn, that
+the child might not suffer for the sin of its father
+and mother; so, though at the same time he really
+loved me very well, yet I had reason to believe that
+it was from this principle of justice to the child that
+he came to England again to seek me with design
+to marry me, and, as he called it, save the innocent
+lamb from infamy worse than death.</p>
+
+<p>It was with a just reproach to myself that I must
+repeat it again, that I had not the same concern for
+it, though it was the child of my own body; nor
+had I ever the hearty affectionate love to the child
+that he had. What the reason of it was I cannot
+tell; and, indeed, I had shown a general neglect of
+the child through all the gay years of my London
+revels, except that I sent Amy to look upon it now
+and then, and to pay for its nursing; as for me, I
+scarce saw it four times in the first four years of its
+life, and often wished it would go quietly out of the
+world; whereas a son which I had by the jeweller, I
+took a different care of, and showed a different concern
+for, though I did not let him know me; for I
+provided very well for him, had him put out very
+well to school, and when he came to years fit for it,
+let him go over with a person of honesty and good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>
+business, to the Indies; and after he had lived there
+some time, and began to act for himself, sent him
+over the value of &pound;2000, at several times, with
+which he traded and grew rich; and, as 'tis to be
+hoped, may at last come over again with forty or
+fifty thousand pounds in his pocket, as many do who
+have not such encouragement at their beginning.</p>
+
+<p>I also sent him over a wife, a beautiful young
+lady, well-bred, an exceeding good-natured pleasant
+creature; but the nice young fellow did not like her,
+and had the impudence to write to me, that is, to
+the person I employed to correspond with him, to
+send him another, and promised that he would marry
+her I had sent him, to a friend of his, who liked her
+better than he did; but I took it so ill, that I would
+not send him another, and withal, stopped another
+article of &pound;1000 which I had appointed to send him.
+He considered of it afterwards, and offered to take
+her; but then truly she took so ill the first affront
+he put upon her, that she would not have him, and
+I sent him word I thought she was very much in the
+right. However, after courting her two years, and
+some friends interposing, she took him, and made
+him an excellent wife, as I knew she would, but I
+never sent him the thousand pounds cargo, so that
+he lost that money for misusing me, and took the
+lady at last without it.</p>
+
+<p>My new spouse and I lived a very regular, contemplative
+life; and, in itself, certainly a life filled
+with all human felicity. But if I looked upon my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span>
+present situation with satisfaction, as I certainly
+did, so, in proportion, I on all occasions looked back
+on former things with detestation, and with the
+utmost affliction; and now, indeed, and not till now,
+those reflections began to prey upon my comforts,
+and lessen the sweets of my other enjoyments. They
+might be said to have gnawed a hole in my heart
+before; but now they made a hole quite through it:
+now they ate into all my pleasant things, made bitter
+every sweet, and mixed my sighs with every smile.</p>
+
+<p>Not all the affluence of a plentiful fortune; not
+a hundred thousand pounds estate (for, between us,
+we had little less); not honour and titles, attendants
+and equipages; in a word, not all the things we call
+pleasure, could give me any relish, or sweeten the
+taste of things to me; at least, not so much but I
+grew sad, heavy, pensive, and melancholy; slept
+little, and ate little; dreamed continually of the
+most frightful and terrible things imaginable: nothing
+but apparitions of devils and monsters, falling
+into gulfs, and off from steep and high precipices,
+and the like; so that in the morning, when I should
+rise, and be refreshed with the blessing of rest, I was
+hag-ridden with frights and terrible things formed
+merely in the imagination, and was either tired and
+wanted sleep, or overrun with vapours, and not fit
+for conversing with my family, or any one else.</p>
+
+<p>My husband, the tenderest creature in the world,
+and particularly so to me, was in great concern for
+me, and did everything that lay in his power to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>
+comfort and restore me; strove to reason me out
+of it; then tried all the ways possible to divert me:
+but it was all to no purpose, or to but very little.</p>
+
+<p>My only relief was sometimes to unbosom myself
+to poor Amy, when she and I was alone; and she
+did all she could to comfort me. But all was to
+little effect there; for, though Amy was the better
+penitent before, when we had been in the storm,
+Amy was just where she used to be now, a wild, gay,
+loose wretch, and not much the graver for her age;
+for Amy was between forty and fifty by this time
+too.</p>
+
+<p>But to go on with my own story. As I had no
+comforter, so I had no counsellor; it was well, as I
+often thought, that I was not a Roman Catholic;
+for what a piece of work should I have made, to
+have gone to a priest with such a history as I had to
+tell him; and what penance would any father confessor
+have obliged me to perform, especially if he
+had been honest, and true to his office!</p>
+
+<p>However, as I had none of the recourse, so I had
+none of the absolution, by which the criminal confessing
+goes away comforted; but I went about with
+a heart loaded with crime, and altogether in the dark
+as to what I was to do; and in this condition I languished
+near two years. I may well call it languishing,
+for if Providence had not relieved me, I should
+have died in little time. But of that hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>I must now go back to another scene, and join it
+to this end of my story, which will complete all my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>
+concern with England, at least all that I shall bring
+into this account.</p>
+
+<p>I have hinted at large what I had done for my two
+sons, one at Messina, and the other in the Indies;
+but I have not gone through the story of my two
+daughters. I was so in danger of being known by
+one of them, that I durst not see her, so as to let her
+know who I was; and for the other, I could not well
+know how to see her, and own her, and let her see
+me, because she must then know that I would not
+let her sister know me, which would look strange;
+so that, upon the whole, I resolved to see neither of
+them at all. But Amy managed all that for me;
+and when she had made gentlewomen of them both,
+by giving them a good, though late education, she
+had like to have blown up the whole case, and herself
+and me too, by an unhappy discovery of herself
+to the last of them, that is, to her who was our cook-maid,
+and who, as I said before, Amy had been
+obliged to turn away, for fear of the very discovery
+which now happened. I have observed already in
+what manner Amy managed her by a third person;
+and how the girl, when she was set up for a lady, as
+above, came and visited Amy at my lodgings; after
+which, Amy going, as was her custom, to see the
+girl's brother (my son) at the honest man's house in
+Spitalfields, both the girls were there, merely by accident,
+at the same time; and the other girl unawares
+discovered the secret, namely, that this was the lady
+that had done all this for them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Amy was greatly surprised at it; but as she saw
+there was no remedy, she made a jest of it, and so
+after that conversed openly, being still satisfied that
+neither of them could make much of it, as long as
+they knew nothing of me. So she took them together
+one time, and told them the history, as she
+called it, of their mother, beginning at the miserable
+carrying them to their aunt's; she owned she was
+not their mother herself, but described her to them.
+However, when she said she was not their mother,
+one of them expressed herself very much surprised,
+for the girl had taken up a strong fancy that Amy
+was really her mother, and that she had, for some
+particular reasons, concealed it from her; and therefore,
+when she told her frankly that she was not her
+mother, the girl fell a-crying, and Amy had much
+ado to keep life in her. This was the girl who was
+at first my cook-maid in the Pall Mall. When Amy
+had brought her to again a little, and she had recovered
+her first disorder, Amy asked what ailed her?
+The poor girl hung about her, and kissed her, and
+was in such a passion still, though she was a great
+wench of nineteen or twenty years old, that she
+could not be brought to speak a great while. At
+last, having recovered her speech, she said still,
+"But oh! Do not say you a'n't my mother! I'm
+sure you are my mother;" and then the girl cried
+again like to kill herself. Amy could not tell what
+to do with her a good while; she was loth to say
+again she was not her mother, because she would not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>
+throw her into a fit of crying again; but she went
+round about a little with her. "Why, child," says she,
+"why would you have me be your mother? If it be
+because I am so kind to you, be easy, my dear," says
+Amy; "I'll be as kind to you still, as if I was your
+mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but," says the girl, "I am sure you are my
+mother too; and what have I done that you won't
+own me, and that you will not be called my mother?
+Though I am poor, you have made me a gentlewoman,"
+says she, "and I won't do anything to disgrace
+you; besides," added she, "I can keep a
+secret, too, especially for my own mother, sure;"
+then she calls Amy her dear mother, and hung about
+her neck again, crying still vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>This last part of the girl's words alarmed Amy,
+and, as she told me, frighted her terribly; nay, she
+was so confounded with it, that she was not able to
+govern herself, or to conceal her disorder from the
+girl herself, as you shall hear. Amy was at a full
+stop, and confused to the last degree; and the girl, a
+sharp jade, turned it upon her. "My dear mother,"
+says she, "do not be uneasy about it; I know it all;
+but do not be uneasy, I won't let my sister know a
+word of it, or my brother either, without you giving
+me leave; but don't disown me now you have found
+me; don't hide yourself from me any longer; I can't
+bear that," says she, "it will break my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"I think the girl's mad," says Amy; "why, child,
+I tell thee, if I was thy mother I would not disown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>
+thee; don't you see I am as kind to you as if I was
+your mother?" Amy might as well have sung a
+song to a kettledrum, as talk to her. "Yes," says
+the girl, "you are very good to me indeed;" and
+that was enough to make anybody believe she was
+her mother too; but, however, that was not the
+case, she had other reasons to believe, and to know,
+that she was her mother; and it was a sad thing she
+would not let her call her mother, who was her own
+child.</p>
+
+<p>Amy was so heart-full with the disturbance of it,
+that she did not enter farther with her into the
+inquiry, as she would otherwise have done; I mean,
+as to what made the girl so positive; but comes
+away, and tells me the whole story.</p>
+
+<p>I was thunderstruck with the story at first, and
+much more afterwards, as you shall hear; but, I say,
+I was thunderstruck at first, and amazed, and said
+to Amy, "There must be something or other in it
+more than we know of." But, having examined
+farther into it, I found the girl had no notion of
+anybody but of Amy; and glad I was that I was
+not concerned in the pretence, and that the girl had
+no notion of me in it. But even this easiness did
+not continue long; for the next time Amy went to
+see her, she was the same thing, and rather more
+violent with Amy than she was before. Amy endeavoured
+to pacify her by all the ways imaginable:
+first, she told her she took it ill that she would not
+believe her; and told her, if she would not give over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span>
+such a foolish whimsey, she would leave her to the
+wide world as she found her.</p>
+
+<p>This put the girl into fits, and she cried ready to
+kill herself, and hung about Amy again like a child.
+"Why," says Amy, "why can you not be easy with
+me, then, and compose yourself, and let me go on to
+do you good, and show you kindness, as I would
+do, and as I intend to do? Can you think that if I
+was your mother, I would not tell you so? What
+whimsey is this that possesses your mind?" says
+Amy. Well, the girl told her in a few words (but
+those few such as frighted Amy out of her wits, and
+me too) that she knew well enough how it was. "I
+know," says she, "when you left &mdash;&mdash;," naming the
+village, "where I lived when my father went away
+from us all, that you went over to France; I know
+that too, and who you went with," says the girl;
+"did not my Lady Roxana come back again with
+you? I know it all well enough; though I was but
+a child, I have heard it all." And thus she run on
+with such discourse as put Amy out of all temper
+again; and she raved at her like a bedlam, and told
+her she would never come near her any more; she
+might go a-begging again if she would; she'd have
+nothing to do with her. The girl, a passionate
+wench, told her she knew the worst of it, she could
+go to service again, and if she would not own her
+own child, she must do as she pleased; then she fell
+into a passion of crying again, as if she would kill
+herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In short, this girl's conduct terrified Amy to the
+last degree, and me too; and was it not that we
+knew the girl was quite wrong in some things, she
+was yet so right in some other, that it gave me a
+great deal of perplexity; but that which put Amy
+the most to it, was that the girl (my daughter) told
+her that she (meaning me, her mother) had gone
+away with the jeweller, and into France too; she did
+not call him the jeweller, but with the landlord of the
+house; who, after her mother fell into distress, and
+that Amy had taken all the children from her, made
+much of her, and afterwards married her.</p>
+
+<p>In short, it was plain the girl had but a broken
+account of things, but yet that she had received
+some accounts that had a reality in the bottom of
+them, so that, it seems, our first measures, and the
+amour with the jeweller, were not so concealed as
+I thought they had been; and, it seems, came in
+a broken manner to my sister-in-law, who Amy
+carried the children to, and she made some bustle,
+it seems, about it. But, as good luck was, it was
+too late, and I was removed and gone, none knew
+whither, or else she would have sent all the children
+home to me again, to be sure.</p>
+
+<p>This we picked out of the girl's discourse, that is
+to say, Amy did, at several times; but it all consisted
+of broken fragments of stories, such as the
+girl herself had heard so long ago, that she herself
+could make very little of it; only that in the main,
+that her mother had played the whore; had gone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span>
+away with the gentleman that was landlord of the
+house; that he married her; that she went into
+France. And, as she had learned in my family,
+where she was a servant, that Mrs. Amy and her
+Lady Roxana had been in France together, so she
+put all these things together, and joining them with
+the great kindness that Amy now showed her,
+possessed the creature that Amy was really her
+mother, nor was it possible for Amy to conquer it
+for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>But this, after I had searched into it, as far as by
+Amy's relation I could get an account of it, did not
+disquiet me half so much as that the young slut had
+got the name of Roxana by the end, and that she
+knew who her Lady Roxana was, and the like;
+though this, neither, did not hang together, for then
+she would not have fixed upon Amy for her mother.
+But some time after, when Amy had almost persuaded
+her out of it, and that the girl began to be
+so confounded in her discourses of it, that she made
+neither head nor tail, at last the passionate creature
+flew out in a kind of rage, and said to Amy, that if
+she was not her mother, Madam Roxana was her
+mother then, for one of them, she was sure, was her
+mother; and then all this that Amy had done for
+her was by Madam Roxana's order. "And I am
+sure," says she, "it was my Lady Roxana's coach
+that brought the gentlewoman, whoever it was, to
+my uncle's in Spitalfields, for the coachman told me
+so." Amy fell a-laughing at her aloud, as was her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>
+usual way; but, as Amy told me, it was but on one
+side of her mouth, for she was so confounded at
+her discourse, that she was ready to sink into the
+ground; and so was I too when she told it me.</p>
+
+<p>However, Amy brazened her out of it all; told
+her, "Well, since you think you are so high-born as
+to be my Lady Roxana's daughter, you may go to
+her and claim your kindred, can't you? I suppose,"
+says Amy, "you know where to find her?" She said
+she did not question to find her, for she knew where
+she was gone to live privately; but, though, she
+might be removed again. "For I know how it is,"
+says she, with a kind of a smile or a grin; "I know
+how it all is, well enough."</p>
+
+<p>Amy was so provoked, that she told me, in short,
+she began to think it would be absolutely necessary
+to murder her. That expression filled me with
+horror, all my blood ran chill in my veins, and a fit
+of trembling seized me, that I could not speak a
+good while; at last. "What, is the devil in you,
+Amy?" said I. "Nay, nay," says she, "let it be
+the devil or not the devil, if I thought she knew one
+tittle of your history, I would despatch her if she
+were my own daughter a thousand times." "And
+I," says I in a rage, "as well as I love you, would
+be the first that should put the halter about your
+neck, and see you hanged with more satisfaction than
+ever I saw you in my life; nay," says I, "you would
+not live to be hanged, I believe I should cut your
+throat with my own hand; I am almost ready to do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span>
+it," said I, "as 'tis, for your but naming the thing."
+With that, I called her cursed devil, and bade her
+get out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>I think it was the first time that ever I was angry
+with Amy in all my life; and when all was done,
+though she was a devilish jade in having such a
+thought, yet it was all of it the effect of her excess
+of affection and fidelity to me.</p>
+
+<p>But this thing gave me a terrible shock, for it
+happened just after I was married, and served to
+hasten my going over to Holland; for I would not
+have been seen, so as to be known by the name of
+Roxana, no, not for ten thousand pounds; it would
+have been enough to have ruined me to all intents and
+purposes with my husband, and everybody else too;
+I might as well have been the "German princess."</p>
+
+<p>Well, I set Amy to work; and give Amy her due,
+she set all her wits to work to find out which way
+this girl had her knowledge, but, more particularly,
+how much knowledge she had&mdash;that is to say, what
+she really knew, and what she did not know, for this
+was the main thing with me; how she could say she
+knew who Madam Roxana was, and what notions
+she had of that affair, was very mysterious to me,
+for it was certain she could not have a right notion
+of me, because she would have it be that Amy was
+her mother.</p>
+
+<p>I scolded heartily at Amy for letting the girl ever
+know her, that is to say, know her in this affair; for
+that she knew her could not be hid, because she, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span>
+I might say, served Amy, or rather under Amy, in
+my family, as is said before; but she (Amy) talked
+with her at first by another person, and not by
+herself; and that secret came out by an accident, as
+I have said above.</p>
+
+<p>Amy was concerned at it as well as I, but could
+not help it; and though it gave us great uneasiness,
+yet, as there was no remedy, we were bound to
+make as little noise of it as we could, that it might
+go no farther. I bade Amy punish the girl for it,
+and she did so, for she parted with her in a huff, and
+told her she should see she was not her mother, for
+that she could leave her just where she found her;
+and seeing she could not be content to be served by
+the kindness of a friend, but that she would needs
+make a mother of her, she would, for the future, be
+neither mother or friend, and so bid her go to service
+again, and be a drudge as she was before.</p>
+
+<p>The poor girl cried most lamentably, but would
+not be beaten out of it still; but that which dumbfoundered
+Amy more than all the rest was that
+when she had berated the poor girl a long time, and
+could not beat her out of it, and had, as I have
+observed, threatened to leave her, the girl kept to
+what she said before, and put this turn to it again,
+that she was sure, if Amy wa'n't, my Lady Roxana
+was her mother, and that she would go find her out;
+adding, that she made no doubt but she could do it,
+for she knew where to inquire the name of her new
+husband.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Amy came home with this piece of news in her
+mouth to me. I could easily perceive when she came
+in that she was mad in her mind, and in a rage at
+something or other, and was in great pain to get it
+out; for when she came first in, my husband was in
+the room. However, Amy going up to undress her,
+I soon made an excuse to follow her, and coming
+into the room, "What the d&mdash;l is the matter,
+Amy?" says I; "I am sure you have some bad
+news." "News," says Amy aloud; "ay, so I have;
+I think the d&mdash;l is in that young wench. She'll
+ruin us all and herself too; there's no quieting
+her." So she went on and told me all the particulars;
+but sure nothing was so astonished as I was
+when she told me that the girl knew I was married,
+that she knew my husband's name, and would endeavour
+to find me out. I thought I should have
+sunk down at the very words. In the middle of all
+my amazement, Amy starts up and runs about the
+room like a distracted body. "I must put an end to it,
+that I will; I can't bear it&mdash;I must murder her,
+I'll kill the b&mdash;&mdash;;" and swears by her Maker, in
+the most serious tone in the world, and then repeated
+it over three or four times, walking to and again in
+the room. "I will, in short, I will kill her, if there
+was not another wench in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Prithee hold thy tongue, Amy," says I; "why,
+thou art mad." "Ay, so I am," says she, "stark
+mad; but I'll be the death of her for all that, and
+then I shall be sober again." "But you sha'n't,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>
+says I, "you sha'n't hurt a hair of her head; why,
+you ought to be hanged for what you have done
+already, for having resolved on it is doing it; as to
+the guilt of the fact you are a murderer already, as
+much as if you had done it already."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that," says Amy, "and it can be no
+worse; I'll put you out of your pain, and her too;
+she shall never challenge you for her mother in this
+world, whatever she may in the next." "Well, well,"
+says I, "be quiet, and do not talk thus, I can't bear
+it." So she grew a little soberer after a while.</p>
+
+<p>I must acknowledge, the notion of being discovered
+carried with it so many frightful ideas, and
+hurried my thoughts so much, that I was scarce myself
+any more than Amy, so dreadful a thing is a
+load of guilt upon the mind.</p>
+
+<p>And yet when Amy began the second time to
+talk thus abominably of killing the poor child, of
+murdering her, and swore by her Maker that she
+would, so that I began to see that she was in earnest,
+I was farther terrified a great deal, and it helped to
+bring me to myself again in other cases.</p>
+
+<p>We laid our heads together then to see if it was
+possible to discover by what means she had learned
+to talk so, and how she (I mean my girl) came to
+know that her mother had married a husband; but it
+would not do, the girl would acknowledge nothing,
+and gave but a very imperfect account of things
+still, being disgusted to the last degree with Amy's
+leaving her so abruptly as she did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Well, Amy went to the house where the boy was;
+but it was all one, there they had only heard a confused
+story of the lady somebody, they knew not
+who, which the same wench had told them, but they
+gave no heed to it at all. Amy told them how
+foolishly the girl had acted, and how she had carried
+on the whimsey so far, in spite of all they could say
+to her; that she had taken it so ill, she would see
+her no more, and so she might e'en go to service
+again if she would, for she (Amy) would have
+nothing to do with her unless she humbled herself
+and changed her note, and that quickly too.</p>
+
+<p>The good old gentleman, who had been the benefactor
+to them all, was greatly concerned at it, and the
+good woman his wife was grieved beyond all expressing,
+and begged her ladyship (meaning Amy), not to
+resent it; they promised, too, they would talk with her
+about it, and the old gentlewoman added, with some
+astonishment, "Sure she cannot be such a fool but
+she will be prevailed with to hold her tongue, when
+she has it from your own mouth that you are not her
+mother, and sees that it disobliges your ladyship to
+have her insist upon it." And so Amy came away
+with some expectation that it would be stopped here.</p>
+
+<p>But the girl was such a fool for all that, and
+persisted in it obstinately, notwithstanding all they
+could say to her; nay, her sister begged and entreated
+her not to play the fool, for that it would
+ruin her too, and that the lady (meaning Amy)
+would abandon them both.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Well, notwithstanding this, she insisted, I say,
+upon it, and which was worse, the longer it lasted
+the more she began to drop Amy's ladyship, and
+would have it that the Lady Roxana was her
+mother, and that she had made some inquiries about
+it, and did not doubt but she should find her out.</p>
+
+<p>When it was come to this, and we found there
+was nothing to be done with the girl, but that she
+was so obstinately bent upon the search after me,
+that she ventured to forfeit all she had in view; I
+say, when I found it was come to this, I began to
+be more serious in my preparations of my going
+beyond sea, and particularly, it gave me some reason
+to fear that there was something in it. But the
+following accident put me beside all my measures,
+and struck me into the greatest confusion that ever
+I was in my life.</p>
+
+<p>I was so near going abroad that my spouse and
+I had taken measures for our going off; and because
+I would be sure not to go too public, but so as to
+take away all possibility of being seen, I had made
+some exception to my spouse against going in the
+ordinary public passage boats. My pretence to him
+was the promiscuous crowds in those vessels, want
+of convenience, and the like. So he took the hint,
+and found me out an English merchant-ship, which
+was bound for Rotterdam, and getting soon acquainted
+with the master, he hired his whole ship,
+that is to say, his great cabin, for I do not mean
+his ship for freight, that so we had all the conven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span>iences
+possible for our passage; and all things being
+near ready, he brought home the captain one day
+to dinner with him, that I might see him, and be
+acquainted a little with him. So we came after
+dinner to talk of the ship and the conveniences on
+board, and the captain pressed me earnestly to come
+on board and see the ship, intimating that he would
+treat us as well as he could; and in discourse I happened
+to say I hoped he had no other passengers.
+He said no, he had not; but, he said, his wife had
+courted him a good while to let her go over to
+Holland with him, for he always used that trade,
+but he never could think of venturing all he had
+in one bottom; but if I went with him he thought
+to take her and her kinswoman along with him this
+voyage, that they might both wait upon me; and
+so added, that if we would do him the honour to
+dine on board the next day, he would bring his wife
+on board, the better to make us welcome.</p>
+
+<p>Who now could have believed the devil had any
+snare at the bottom of all this? or that I was in any
+danger on such an occasion, so remote and out of the
+way as this was? But the event was the oddest that
+could be thought of. As it happened, Amy was not
+at home when we accepted this invitation, and so she
+was left out of the company; but instead of Amy, we
+took our honest, good-humoured, never-to-be-omitted
+friend the Quaker, one of the best creatures that ever
+lived, sure; and who, besides a thousand good qualities
+unmixed with one bad one, was particularly excellent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>
+for being the best company in the world; though I
+think I had carried Amy too, if she had not been
+engaged in this unhappy girl's affair. For on a sudden
+the girl was lost, and no news was to be heard of her;
+and Amy had haunted her to every place she could
+think of, that it was likely to find her in; but all the
+news she could hear of her was, that she was gone to
+an old comrade's house of hers, which she called sister,
+and who was married to a master of a ship, who lived
+at Redriff; and even this the jade never told me. It
+seems, when this girl was directed by Amy to get her
+some breeding, go to the boarding-school, and the like,
+she was recommended to a boarding-school at Camberwell,
+and there she contracted an acquaintance with a
+young lady (so they are all called), her bedfellow, that
+they called sisters, and promised never to break off
+their acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>But judge you what an unaccountable surprise I
+must be in when I came on board the ship and was
+brought into the captain's cabin, or what they call
+it, the great cabin of the ship, to see his lady or wife,
+and another young person with her, who, when I came
+to see her near hand, was my old cook-maid in the
+Pall Mall, and, as appeared by the sequel of the
+story, was neither more or less than my own daughter.
+That I knew her was out of doubt; for though she
+had not had opportunity to see me very often, yet I
+had often seen her, as I must needs, being in my own
+family so long.</p>
+
+<p>If ever I had need of courage, and a full presence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span>
+of mind, it was now; it was the only valuable
+secret in the world to me, all depended upon this
+occasion; if the girl knew me, I was undone; and to
+discover any surprise or disorder had been to make
+her know me, or guess it, and discover herself.</p>
+
+<p>I was once going to feign a swooning and fainting
+away, and so falling on the ground, or floor, put them
+all into a hurry and fright, and by that means to get an
+opportunity to be continually holding something to
+my nose to smell to, and so hold my hand or my
+handkerchief, or both, before my mouth; then pretend
+I could not bear the smell of the ship, or the
+closeness of the cabin. But that would have been
+only to remove into a clearer air upon the quarter-deck,
+where we should, with it, have had a clearer
+light too; and if I had pretended the smell of the
+ship, it would have served only to have carried us all
+on shore to the captain's house, which was hard by;
+for the ship lay so close to the shore, that we only
+walked over a plank to go on board, and over
+another ship which lay within her; so this not
+appearing feasible, and the thought not being two
+minutes old, there was no time, for the two ladies
+rose up, and we saluted, so that I was bound to come
+so near my girl as to kiss her, which I would not have
+done had it been possible to have avoided it, but there
+was no room to escape.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot but take notice here, that notwithstanding
+there was a secret horror upon my mind, and I
+was ready to sink when I came close to her to salute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>
+her, yet it was a secret inconceivable pleasure to me
+when I kissed her, to know that I kissed my own
+child, my own flesh and blood, born of my body, and
+who I had never kissed since I took the fatal farewell
+of them all, with a million of tears, and a heart almost
+dead with grief, when Amy and the good woman
+took them all away, and went with them to Spitalfields.
+No pen can describe, no words can express,
+I say, the strange impression which this thing made
+upon my spirits. I felt something shoot through
+my blood, my heart fluttered, my head flashed, and
+was dizzy, and all within me, as I thought, turned
+about, and much ado I had not to abandon myself
+to an excess of passion at the first sight of her, much
+more when my lips touched her face. I thought I
+must have taken her in my arms and kissed her again
+a thousand times, whether I would or no.</p>
+
+<p>But I roused up my judgment, and shook it off,
+and with infinite uneasiness in my mind, I sat down.
+You will not wonder if upon this surprise I was not
+conversable for some minutes, and that the disorder
+had almost discovered itself. I had a complication
+of severe things upon me, I could not conceal my disorder
+without the utmost difficulty, and yet upon my
+concealing it depended the whole of my prosperity;
+so I used all manner of violence with myself to prevent
+the mischief which was at the door.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I saluted her, but as I went first forward to
+the captain's lady, who was at the farther end of the
+cabin, towards the light, I had the occasion offered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span>
+to stand with my back to the light, when I turned
+about to her, who stood more on my left hand, so
+that she had not a fair sight of me, though I was
+so near her. I trembled, and knew neither what I
+did or said, I was in the utmost extremity, between
+so many particular circumstances as lay upon me,
+for I was to conceal my disorder from everybody at
+the utmost peril, and at the same time expected
+everybody would discern it. I was to expect she
+would discover that she knew me, and yet was, by
+all means possible, to prevent it. I was to conceal
+myself, if possible, and yet had not the least room to
+do anything towards it. In short, there was no
+retreat, no shifting anything off, no avoiding or
+preventing her having a full sight of me, nor was
+there any counterfeiting my voice, for then my
+husband would have perceived it. In short, there
+was not the least circumstance that offered me any
+assistance, or any favourable thing to help me in
+this exigence.</p>
+
+<p>After I had been upon the rack for near half-an-hour,
+during which I appeared stiff and reserved, and
+a little too formal, my spouse and the captain fell
+into discourses about the ship and the sea, and business
+remote from us women; and by-and-by the captain
+carried him out upon the quarter-deck, and left
+us all by ourselves in the great cabin. Then we began
+to be a little freer one with another, and I began
+to be a little revived by a sudden fancy of my own&mdash;namely,
+I thought I perceived that the girl did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span>
+know me, and the chief reason of my having such a
+notion was because I did not perceive the least disorder
+in her countenance, or the least change in her
+carriage, no confusion, no hesitation in her discourse;
+nor, which I had my eye particularly upon, did I
+observe that she fixed her eyes much upon me, that
+is to say, not singling me out to look steadily at me,
+as I thought would have been the case, but that she
+rather singled out my friend the Quaker, and chatted
+with her on several things; but I observed, too, that
+it was all about indifferent matters.</p>
+
+<p>This greatly encouraged me, and I began to be a
+little cheerful; but I was knocked down again as
+with a thunderclap, when turning to the captain's
+wife, and discoursing of me, she said to her, "Sister,
+I cannot but think my lady to be very much like
+such a person." Then she named the person, and
+the captain's wife said she thought so too. The girl
+replied again, she was sure she had seen me before,
+but she could not recollect where; I answered (though
+her speech was not directed to me) that I fancied she
+had not seen me before in England, but asked if she
+had lived in Holland. She said, No, no, she had
+never been out of England, and I added, that she
+could not then have known me in England, unless it
+was very lately, for I had lived at Rotterdam a great
+while. This carried me out of that part of the broil
+pretty well, and to make it go off better, when a
+little Dutch boy came into the cabin, who belonged
+to the captain, and who I easily perceived to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span>
+Dutch, I jested and talked Dutch to him, and was
+merry about the boy, that is to say, as merry as the
+consternation I was still in would let me be.</p>
+
+<p>However, I began to be thoroughly convinced by
+this time that the girl did not know me, which was
+an infinite satisfaction to me, or, at least, that though
+she had some notion of me, yet that she did not
+think anything about my being who I was, and
+which, perhaps, she would have been as glad to have
+known as I would have been surprised if she had;
+indeed, it was evident that, had she suspected anything
+of the truth, she would not have been able to
+have concealed it.</p>
+
+<p>Thus this meeting went off, and, you may be sure,
+I was resolved, if once I got off of it, she should
+never see me again to revive her fancy; but I was
+mistaken there too, as you shall hear. After we had
+been on board, the captain's lady carried us home to
+her house, which was but just on shore, and treated
+us there again very handsomely, and made us promise
+that we would come again and see her before we went
+to concert our affairs for the voyage and the like, for
+she assured us that both she and her sister went the
+voyage at that time for our company, and I thought
+to myself, "Then you'll never go the voyage at all;"
+for I saw from that moment that it would be no way
+convenient for my ladyship to go with them, for that
+frequent conversation might bring me to her mind,
+and she would certainly claim her kindred to me in
+a few days, as indeed would have been the case.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is hardly possible for me to conceive what would
+have been our part in this affair had my woman Amy
+gone with me on board this ship; it had certainly
+blown up the whole affair, and I must for ever after
+have been this girl's vassal, that is to say, have let
+her into the secret, and trusted to her keeping it too,
+or have been exposed and undone. The very thought
+filled me with horror.</p>
+
+<p>But I was not so unhappy neither, as it fell out,
+for Amy was not with us, and that was my deliverance
+indeed; yet we had another chance to get over
+still. As I resolved to put off the voyage, so I resolved
+to put off the visit, you may be sure, going
+upon this principle, namely, that I was fixed in it
+that the girl had seen her last of me, and should
+never see me more.</p>
+
+<p>However, to bring myself well off, and, withal, to
+see, if I could, a little farther into the matter, I sent
+my friend the Quaker to the captain's lady to make
+the visit promised, and to make my excuse that I
+could not possibly wait on her, for that I was very
+much out of order; and in the end of the discourse
+I bade her insinuate to them that she was afraid I
+should not be able to get ready to go the voyage as
+soon as the captain would be obliged to go, and that
+perhaps we might put it off to his next voyage. I
+did not let the Quaker into any other reason for it
+than that I was indisposed; and not knowing what
+other face to put upon that part, I made her believe
+that I thought I was a-breeding.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was easy to put that into her head, and she of
+course hinted to the captain's lady that she found
+me so very ill that she was afraid I would miscarry,
+and then, to be sure, I could not think of
+going.</p>
+
+<p>She went, and she managed that part very dexterously,
+as I knew she would, though she knew not a
+word of the grand reason of my indisposition; but
+I was all sunk and dead-hearted again when she told
+me she could not understand the meaning of one
+thing in her visit, namely, that the young woman, as
+she called her, that was with the captain's lady, and
+who she called sister, was most impertinently inquisitive
+into things; as who I was? how long I had been
+in England? where I had lived? and the like; and
+that, above all the rest, she inquired if I did not live
+once at the other end of the town.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought her inquiries so out of the way," says
+the honest Quaker, "that I gave her not the least
+satisfaction; but as I saw by thy answers on board
+the ship, when she talked of thee, that thou didst
+not incline to let her be acquainted with thee, so I
+was resolved that she should not be much the wiser
+for me; and when she asked me if thou ever lived'st
+here or there, I always said, No, but that thou wast
+a Dutch lady, and was going home again to thy
+family, and lived abroad."</p>
+
+<p>I thanked her very heartily for that part, and
+indeed she served me in it more than I let her know
+she did: in a word, she thwarted the girl so cleverly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>
+that if she had known the whole affair she could not
+have done it better.</p>
+
+<p>But, I must acknowledge, all this put me upon the
+rack again, and I was quite discouraged, not at all
+doubting but that the jade had a right scent of things,
+and that she knew and remembered my face, but had
+artfully concealed her knowledge of me till she might
+perhaps do it more to my disadvantage. I told all
+this to Amy, for she was all the relief I had. The
+poor soul (Amy) was ready to hang herself, that, as
+she said, she had been the occasion of it all; and
+that if I was ruined (which was the word I always
+used to her), she had ruined me; and she tormented
+herself about it so much, that I was sometimes fain
+to comfort her and myself too.</p>
+
+<p>What Amy vexed herself at was, chiefly, that she
+should be surprised so by the girl, as she called her;
+I mean surprised into a discovery of herself to the
+girl; which indeed was a false step of Amy's, and so
+I had often told her. But it was to no purpose to
+talk of that now, the business was, how to get clear
+of the girl's suspicions, and of the girl too, for it
+looked more threatening every day than other; and
+if I was uneasy at what Amy had told me of her
+rambling and rattling to her (Amy), I had a thousand
+times as much reason to be uneasy now, when
+she had chopped upon me so unhappily as this; and
+not only had seen my face, but knew too where I
+lived, what name I went by, and the like.</p>
+
+<p>And I am not come to the worst of it yet neither,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span>
+for a few days after my friend the Quaker had made
+her visit, and excused me on the account of indisposition,
+as if they had done it in over and above
+kindness, because they had been told I was not well,
+they come both directly to my lodgings to visit me:
+the captain's wife and my daughter (who she called
+sister), and the captain, to show them the place; the
+captain only brought them to the door, put them
+in, and went away upon some business.</p>
+
+<p>Had not the kind Quaker, in a lucky moment,
+come running in before them, they had not only
+clapped in upon me, in the parlour, as it had been a
+surprise, but which would have been a thousand
+times worse, had seen Amy with me; I think if that
+had happened, I had had no remedy but to take the
+girl by herself, and have made myself known to her,
+which would have been all distraction.</p>
+
+<p>But the Quaker, a lucky creature to me, happened
+to see them come to the door, before they
+rung the bell, and instead of going to let them in,
+came running in with some confusion in her countenance,
+and told me who was a-coming; at which
+Amy run first and I after her, and bid the Quaker
+come up as soon as she had let them in.</p>
+
+<p>I was going to bid her deny me, but it came into
+my thoughts, that having been represented so much
+out of order, it would have looked very odd; besides,
+I knew the honest Quaker, though she would
+do anything else for me, would not lie for me, and it
+would have been hard to have desired it of her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After she had let them in, and brought them into
+the parlour, she came up to Amy and I, who were
+hardly out of the fright, and yet were congratulating
+one another that Amy was not surprised again.</p>
+
+<p>They paid their visit in form, and I received them
+as formally, but took occasion two or three times to
+hint that I was so ill that I was afraid I should not
+be able to go to Holland, at least not so soon as the
+captain must go off; and made my compliment how
+sorry I was to be disappointed of the advantage of
+their company and assistance in the voyage; and
+sometimes I talked as if I thought I might stay till
+the captain returned, and would be ready to go
+again; then the Quaker put in, that then I might
+be too far gone, meaning with child, that I should
+not venture at all; and then (as if she should be
+pleased with it) added, she hoped I would stay and
+lie in at her house; so as this carried its own face
+with it, 'twas well enough.</p>
+
+<p>But it was now high time to talk of this to my
+husband, which, however, was not the greatest difficulty
+before me; for after this and other chat had
+taken up some time, the young fool began her tattle
+again; and two or three times she brought it in,
+that I was so like a lady that she had the honour to
+know at the other end of the town, that she could
+not put that lady out of her mind when I was by,
+and once or twice I fancied the girl was ready to
+cry; by and by she was at it again, and at last
+I plainly saw tears in her eyes; upon which I asked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>
+her if the lady was dead, because she seemed to be
+in some concern for her. She made me much easier
+by her answer than ever she did before; she said
+she did not really know, but she believed she was
+dead.</p>
+
+<p>This, I say, a little relieved my thoughts, but I
+was soon down again; for, after some time, the jade
+began to grow talkative; and as it was plain that
+she had told all that her head could retain of
+Roxana, and the days of joy which I had spent at
+that part of the town, another accident had like to
+have blown us all up again.</p>
+
+<p>I was in a kind of dishabille when they came,
+having on a loose robe, like a morning-gown, but
+much after the Italian way; and I had not altered
+it when I went up, only dressed my head a little;
+and as I had been represented as having been lately
+very ill, so the dress was becoming enough for a
+chamber.</p>
+
+<p>This morning vest, or robe, call it as you please,
+was more shaped to the body than we wear them
+since, showing the body in its true shape, and perhaps
+a little too plainly if it had been to be worn
+where any men were to come; but among ourselves
+it was well enough, especially for hot weather; the
+colour was green, figured, and the stuff a French
+damask, very rich.</p>
+
+<p>This gown or vest put the girl's tongue a running
+again, and her sister, as she called her, prompted it;
+for as they both admired my vest, and were taken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>
+up much about the beauty of the dress, the charming
+damask, the noble trimming, and the like, my
+girl puts in a word to the sister (captain's wife),
+"This is just such a thing as I told you," says she,
+"the lady danced in." "What," says the captain's
+wife, "the Lady Roxana that you told me of?
+Oh! that's a charming story," says she, "tell it my
+lady." I could not avoid saying so too, though
+from my soul I wished her in heaven for but naming
+it; nay, I won't say but if she had been carried
+t'other way it had been much as one to me, if I
+could but have been rid of her, and her story too,
+for when she came to describe the Turkish dress, it
+was impossible but the Quaker, who was a sharp,
+penetrating creature, should receive the impression
+in a more dangerous manner than the girl, only that
+indeed she was not so dangerous a person; for if she
+had known it all, I could more freely have trusted
+her than I could the girl, by a great deal, nay, I
+should have been perfectly easy in her.</p>
+
+<p>However, as I have said, her talk made me dreadfully
+uneasy, and the more when the captain's wife
+mentioned but the name of Roxana. What my face
+might do towards betraying me I knew not, because
+I could not see myself, but my heart beat as if it
+would have jumped out at my mouth, and my passion
+was so great, that, for want of vent, I thought I
+should have burst. In a word, I was in a kind of a
+silent rage, for the force I was under of restraining
+my passion was such as I never felt the like of. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span>
+had no vent, nobody to open myself to, or to make
+a complaint to, for my relief; I durst not leave the
+room by any means, for then she would have told all
+the story in my absence, and I should have been
+perpetually uneasy to know what she had said, or
+had not said; so that, in a word, I was obliged to
+sit and hear her tell all the story of Roxana, that is
+to say, of myself, and not know at the same time
+whether she was in earnest or in jest, whether she
+knew me or no; or, in short, whether I was to be
+exposed, or not exposed.</p>
+
+<p>She began only in general with telling where she
+lived, what a place she had of it, how gallant a company
+her lady had always had in the house; how
+they used to sit up all night in the house gaming
+and dancing; what a fine lady her mistress was, and
+what a vast deal of money the upper servants got;
+as for her, she said, her whole business was in the
+next house, so that she got but little, except one
+night that there was twenty guineas given to be
+divided among the servants, when, she said, she got
+two guineas and a half for her share.</p>
+
+<p>She went on, and told them how many servants
+there was, and how they were ordered; but, she
+said, there was one Mrs. Amy who was over them
+all; and that she, being the lady's favourite, got a
+great deal. She did not know, she said, whether
+Amy was her Christian name or her surname, but she
+supposed it was her surname; that they were told
+she got threescore pieces of gold at one time, being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span>
+the same night that the rest of the servants had the
+twenty guineas divided among them.</p>
+
+<p>I put in at that word, and said it was a vast deal
+to give away. "Why," says I, "it was a portion
+for a servant." "O madam!" says she, "it was
+nothing to what she got afterwards; we that were
+servants hated her heartily for it; that is to say, we
+wished it had been our lot in her stead." Then I
+said again, "Why, it was enough to get her a good
+husband, and settle her for the world, if she had
+sense to manage it." "So it might, to be sure,
+madam," says she, "for we were told she laid up
+above &pound;500; but, I suppose, Mrs. Amy was too
+sensible that her character would require a good
+portion to put her off."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said I, "if that was the case it was another
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," says she, "I don't know, but they talked
+very much of a young lord that was very great with
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"And pray what came of her at last?" said I, for
+I was willing to hear a little (seeing she would talk
+of it) what she had to say, as well of Amy as of
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, madam," said she, "I never heard
+of her for several years, till t'other day I happened
+to see her."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you indeed?" says I (and made mighty
+strange of it); "what! and in rags, it may be," said
+I; "that's often the end of such creatures."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Just the contrary, madam," says she. "She
+came to visit an acquaintance of mine, little thinking,
+I suppose, to see me, and, I assure you, she came in
+her coach."</p>
+
+<p>"In her coach!" said I; "upon my word, she had
+made her market then; I suppose she made hay
+while the sun shone. Was she married, pray?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe she had been married, madam," says
+she, "but it seems she had been at the East Indies;
+and if she was married, it was there, to be sure. I
+think she said she had good luck in the Indies."</p>
+
+<p>"That is, I suppose," said I, "had buried her
+husband there."</p>
+
+<p>"I understood it so, madam," says she, "and that
+she had got his estate."</p>
+
+<p>"Was that her good luck?" said I; "it might be
+good to her, as to the money indeed, but it was but
+the part of a jade to call it good luck."</p>
+
+<p>Thus far our discourse of Mrs. Amy went, and no
+farther, for she knew no more of her; but then the
+Quaker unhappily, though undesignedly, put in a
+question, which the honest good-humoured creature
+would have been far from doing if she had known
+that I had carried on the discourse of Amy on purpose
+to drop Roxana out of the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>But I was not to be made easy too soon. The
+Quaker put in, "But I think thou saidst something
+was behind of thy mistress; what didst thou call
+her? Roxana, was it not? Pray, what became of
+her?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, Roxana," says the captain's wife; "pray,
+sister, let's hear the story of Roxana; it will divert
+my lady, I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a damned lie," said I to myself; "if you
+knew how little 't would divert me, you would have
+too much advantage over me." Well, I saw no
+remedy, but the story must come on, so I prepared
+to hear the worst of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Roxana!" says she, "I know not what to say of
+her; she was so much above us, and so seldom seen,
+that we could know little of her but by report; but
+we did sometimes see her too; she was a charming
+woman indeed, and the footmen used to say that she
+was to be sent for to court."</p>
+
+<p>"To court!" said I; "why, she was at court,
+wasn't she? the Pall Mall is not far from Whitehall."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, madam," says she, "but I mean another
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand thee," says the Quaker; "thou
+meanest, I suppose, to be mistress to the king."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, madam," said she.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot help confessing what a reserve of pride
+still was left in me; and though I dreaded the sequel
+of the story, yet when she talked how handsome and
+how fine a lady this Roxana was, I could not help
+being pleased and tickled with it, and put in questions
+two or three times of how handsome she was;
+and was she really so fine a woman as they talked of;
+and the like, on purpose to hear her repeat what the
+people's opinion of me was, and how I had behaved.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Indeed," says she, at last, "she was a most beautiful
+creature as ever I saw in my life." "But then,"
+said I, "you never had the opportunity to see her
+but when she was set out to the best advantage."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, madam," says she, "I have seen her
+several times in her <i>d&eacute;shabille</i>. And I can assure
+you, she was a very fine woman; and that which
+was more still, everybody said she did not paint."</p>
+
+<p>This was still agreeable to me one way; but there
+was a devilish sting in the tail of it all, and this last
+article was one; wherein she said she had seen me
+several times in my <i>d&eacute;shabille</i>. This put me in mind
+that then she must certainly know me, and it would
+come out at last; which was death to me but to
+think of.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but, sister," says the captain's wife, "tell
+my lady about the ball; that's the best of all the
+story; and of Roxana's dancing in a fine outlandish
+dress."</p>
+
+<p>"That's one of the brightest parts of her story
+indeed," says the girl. "The case was this: we had
+balls and meetings in her ladyship's apartments every
+week almost; but one time my lady invited all the
+nobles to come such a time, and she would give them
+a ball; and there was a vast crowd indeed," says
+she.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you said the king was there, sister,
+didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, madam," says she, "that was the second
+time, when they said the king had heard how finely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span>
+the Turkish lady danced, and that he was there to
+see her; but the king, if his Majesty was there, came
+disguised."</p>
+
+<p>"That is, what they call incog.," says my friend
+the Quaker; "thou canst not think the king would
+disguise himself." "Yes," says the girl, "it was so;
+he did not come in public with his guards, but we
+all knew which was the king well enough, that is to
+say, which they said was the king."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says the captain's wife, "about the
+Turkish dress; pray let us hear that." "Why,"
+says she, "my lady sat in a fine little drawing-room,
+which opened into the great room, and where she
+received the compliments of the company; and when
+the dancing began, a great lord," says she, "I forget
+who they called him (but he was a very great lord or
+duke, I don't know which), took her out, and danced
+with her; but after a while, my lady on a sudden
+shut the drawing-room, and ran upstairs with her
+woman, Mrs. Amy; and though she did not stay
+long (for I suppose she had contrived it all beforehand),
+she came down dressed in the strangest
+figure that ever I saw in my life; but it was exceeding
+fine."</p>
+
+<p>Here she went on to describe the dress, as I have
+done already; but did it so exactly, that I was surprised
+at the manner of her telling it; there was
+not a circumstance of it left out.</p>
+
+<p>I was now under a new perplexity, for this young
+slut gave so complete an account of everything in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span>
+the dress, that my friend the Quaker coloured at it,
+and looked two or three times at me, to see if I did
+not do so too; for (as she told me afterwards) she
+immediately perceived it was the same dress that she
+had seen me have on, as I have said before. However,
+as she saw I took no notice of it, she kept her
+thought private to herself; and I did so too, as well
+as I could.</p>
+
+<p>I put in two or three times, that she had a good
+memory, that could be so particular in every part of
+such a thing.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, madam!" says she, "we that were servants,
+stood by ourselves in a corner, but so as we could see
+more than some strangers; besides," says she, "it was
+all our conversation for several days in the family,
+and what one did not observe another did." "Why,"
+says I to her, "this was no Persian dress; only,
+I suppose your lady was some French comedian, that
+is to say, a stage Amazon, that put on a counterfeit
+dress to please the company, such as they used in the
+play of Tamerlane at Paris, or some such."</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed, madam," says she, "I assure you my
+lady was no actress; she was a fine modest lady, fit
+to be a princess; everybody said if she was a mistress,
+she was fit to be a mistress to none but the
+king; and they talked her up for the king as if it
+had really been so. Besides, madam," says she, "my
+lady danced a Turkish dance; all the lords and gentry
+said it was so; and one of them swore he had seen it
+danced in Turkey himself, so that it could not come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span>
+from the theatre at Paris; and then the name Roxana,"
+says she, "was a Turkish name."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said I, "but that was not your lady's
+name, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, madam," said she, "I know that. I
+know my lady's name and family very well; Roxana
+was not her name, that's true, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>Here she run me aground again, for I durst not
+ask her what was Roxana's real name, lest she had
+really dealt with the devil, and had boldly given my
+own name in for answer; so that I was still more and
+more afraid that the girl had really gotten the secret
+somewhere or other; though I could not imagine
+neither how that could be.</p>
+
+<p>In a word, I was sick of the discourse, and endeavoured
+many ways to put an end to it, but it was
+impossible; for the captain's wife, who called her
+sister, prompted her, and pressed her to tell it, most
+ignorantly thinking that it would be a pleasant tale
+to all of us.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three times the Quaker put in, that this
+Lady Roxana had a good stock of assurance; and
+that it was likely, if she had been in Turkey, she had
+lived with, or been kept by, some great bashaw there.
+But still she would break in upon all such discourse,
+and fly out into the most extravagant praises of her
+mistress, the famed Roxana. I run her down as
+some scandalous woman; that it was not possible to
+be otherwise; but she would not hear of it; her lady
+was a person of such and such qualifications that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span>
+nothing but an angel was like her, to be sure; and
+yet, after all she could say, her own account brought
+her down to this, that, in short, her lady kept little
+less than a gaming ordinary; or, as it would be
+called in the times since that, an assembly for gallantry
+and play.</p>
+
+<p>All this while I was very uneasy, as I said before,
+and yet the whole story went off again without any
+discovery, only that I seemed a little concerned that
+she should liken me to this gay lady, whose character
+I pretended to run down very much, even upon the
+foot of her own relation.</p>
+
+<p>But I was not at the end of my mortifications yet,
+neither, for now my innocent Quaker threw out an
+unhappy expression, which put me upon the tenters
+again. Says she to me, "This lady's habit, I fancy,
+is just such a one as thine, by the description of it;"
+and then turning to the captain's wife, says she, "I
+fancy my friend has a finer Turkish or Persian dress,
+a great deal." "Oh," says the girl, "'tis impossible
+to be finer; my lady's," says she, "was all covered
+with gold and diamonds; her hair and head-dress, I
+forget the name they gave it," said she, "shone like
+the stars, there were so many jewels in it."</p>
+
+<p>I never wished my good friend the Quaker out of
+my company before now; but, indeed, I would have
+given some guineas to have been rid of her just now;
+for beginning to be curious in the comparing the two
+dresses, she innocently began a description of mine;
+and nothing terrified me so much as the apprehen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span>sion
+lest she should importune me to show it, which
+I was resolved I would never agree to. But before
+it came to this, she pressed my girl to describe the
+tyhaia, or head-dress, which she did so cleverly that
+the Quaker could not help saying mine was just such
+a one; and after several other similitudes, all very
+vexatious to me, out comes the kind motion to me
+to let the ladies see my dress; and they joined their
+eager desires of it, even to importunity.</p>
+
+<p>I desired to be excused, though I had little to say
+at first why I declined it; but at last it came into
+my head to say it was packed up with my other
+clothes that I had least occasion for, in order to be
+sent on board the captain's ship; but that if we lived
+to come to Holland together (which, by the way, I
+resolved should never happen), then, I told them, at
+unpacking my clothes, they should see me dressed in
+it; but they must not expect I should dance in it,
+like the Lady Roxana in all her fine things.</p>
+
+<p>This carried it off pretty well; and getting over
+this, got over most of the rest, and I began to be
+easy again; and, in a word, that I may dismiss the
+story too, as soon as may be, I got rid at last of my
+visitors, who I had wished gone two hours sooner
+than they intended it.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as they were gone, I ran up to Amy, and
+gave vent to my passions by telling her the whole
+story, and letting her see what mischiefs one false
+step of hers had like, unluckily, to have involved us
+all in; more, perhaps, than we could ever have lived<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span>
+to get through. Amy was sensible of it enough,
+and was just giving her wrath a vent another way,
+viz., by calling the poor girl all the damned jades
+and fools (and sometimes worse names) that she could
+think of, in the middle of which up comes my honest,
+good Quaker, and put an end to our discourse. The
+Quaker came in smiling (for she was always soberly
+cheerful). "Well," says she, "thou art delivered at
+last; I come to joy thee of it; I perceived thou wert
+tired grievously of thy visitors."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed," says I, "so I was; that foolish young
+girl held us all in a Canterbury story; I thought
+she would never have done with it." "Why, truly,
+I thought she was very careful to let thee know she
+was but a cook-maid." "Ay," says I, "and at a
+gaming-house, or gaming-ordinary, and at t'other
+end of the town too; all which (by the way) she
+might know would add very little to her good name
+among us citizens."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't think," says the Quaker, "but she had
+some other drift in that long discourse; there's
+something else in her head," says she, "I am satisfied
+of that." Thought I, "Are you satisfied of it? I
+am sure I am the less satisfied for that; at least 'tis
+but small satisfaction to me to hear you say so.
+What can this be?" says I; "and when will my uneasiness
+have an end?" But this was silent, and to
+myself, you may be sure. But in answer to my friend
+the Quaker, I returned by asking her a question or
+two about it; as what she thought was in it, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span>
+why she thought there was anything in it. "For,"
+says I, "she can have nothing in it relating to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," says the kind Quaker, "if she had any
+view towards thee, that's no business of mine; and I
+should be far from desiring thee to inform me."</p>
+
+<p>This alarmed me again; not that I feared trusting
+the good-humoured creature with it, if there had
+been anything of just suspicion in her; but this affair
+was a secret I cared not to communicate to anybody.
+However, I say, this alarmed me a little;
+for as I had concealed everything from her, I was
+willing to do so still; but as she could not but
+gather up abundance of things from the girl's discourse,
+which looked towards me, so she was too penetrating
+to be put off with such answers as might
+stop another's mouth. Only there was this double
+felicity in it, first, that she was not inquisitive to
+know or find anything out, and not dangerous if she
+had known the whole story. But, as I say, she
+could not but gather up several circumstances from
+the girl's discourse, as particularly the name of Amy,
+and the several descriptions of the Turkish dress
+which my friend the Quaker had seen, and taken so
+much notice of, as I have said above.</p>
+
+<p>As for that, I might have turned it off by jesting
+with Amy, and asking her who she lived with before
+she came to live with me. But that would not do,
+for we had unhappily anticipated that way of talking,
+by having often talked how long Amy had lived with
+me; and, which was still worse, by having owned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span>
+formerly that I had had lodgings in the Pall Mall;
+so that all those things corresponded too well.
+There was only one thing that helped me out with
+the Quaker, and that was the girl's having reported
+how rich Mrs. Amy was grown, and that she kept
+her coach. Now, as there might be many more Mrs.
+Amys besides mine, so it was not likely to be my
+Amy, because she was far from such a figure as
+keeping her coach; and this carried it off from the
+suspicions which the good friendly Quaker might
+have in her head.</p>
+
+<p>But as to what she imagined the girl had in her
+head, there lay more real difficulty in that part a
+great deal, and I was alarmed at it very much, for
+my friend the Quaker told me that she observed
+the girl was in a great passion when she talked
+of the habit, and more when I had been importuned
+to show her mine, but declined it. She said she
+several times perceived her to be in disorder, and
+to restrain herself with great difficulty; and once
+or twice she muttered to herself that she had found
+it out, or that she would find it out, she could not
+tell whether; and that she often saw tears in her
+eyes; that when I said my suit of Turkish clothes
+was put up, but that she should see it when we
+arrived in Holland, she heard her say softly she
+would go over on purpose then.</p>
+
+<p>After she had ended her observations, I added:
+"I observed, too, that the girl talked and looked
+oddly, and that she was mighty inquisitive, but I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span>
+could not imagine what it was she aimed at."
+"Aimed at," says the Quaker, "'tis plain to me
+what she aims at. She believes thou art the same
+Lady Roxana that danced in the Turkish vest, but
+she is not certain." "Does she believe so?" says I;
+"if I had thought that, I would have put her out
+of her pain." "Believe so!" says the Quaker;
+"yes, and I began to think so too, and should have
+believed so still, if thou had'st not satisfied me to
+the contrary by thy taking no notice of it, and by
+what thou hast said since." "Should you have
+believed so?" said I warmly; "I am very sorry for
+that. Why, would you have taken me for an
+actress, or a French stage-player?" "No," says the
+good kind creature, "thou carriest it too far; as
+soon as thou madest thy reflections upon her, I knew
+it could not be; but who could think any other when
+she described the Turkish dress which thou hast here,
+with the head-tire and jewels, and when she named
+thy maid Amy too, and several other circumstances
+concurring? I should certainly have believed it,"
+said she, "if thou hadst not contradicted it; but as
+soon as I heard thee speak, I concluded it was
+otherwise." "That was very kind," said I, "and I
+am obliged to you for doing me so much justice;
+it is more, it seems, than that young talking creature
+does." "Nay," says the Quaker, "indeed she
+does not do thee justice; for she as certainly believes
+it still as ever she did." "Does she?" said I.
+"Ay," says the Quaker; "and I warrant thee she'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span>
+make thee another visit about it." "Will she?"
+said I; "then I believe I shall downright affront her."
+"No, thou shalt not affront her," says she (full of
+her good-humour and temper), "I'll take that part
+off thy hands, for I'll affront her for thee, and not
+let her see thee." I thought that was a very kind
+offer, but was at a loss how she would be able to do
+it; and the thought of seeing her there again half
+distracted me, not knowing what temper she would
+come in, much less what manner to receive her in;
+but my fast friend and constant comforter, the
+Quaker, said she perceived the girl was impertinent,
+and that I had no inclination to converse with her,
+and she was resolved I should not be troubled with
+her. But I shall have occasion to say more of this
+presently, for this girl went farther yet than I
+thought she had.</p>
+
+<p>It was now time, as I said before, to take measures
+with my husband, in order to put off my voyage; so
+I fell into talk with him one morning as he was dressing,
+and while I was in bed. I pretended I was very
+ill; and as I had but too easy a way to impose upon
+him, because he so absolutely believed everything
+I said, so I managed my discourse as that he should
+understand by it I was a-breeding, though I did not
+tell him so.</p>
+
+<p>However, I brought it about so handsomely that,
+before he went out of the room, he came and sat
+down by my bedside, and began to talk very seriously
+to me upon the subject of my being so every day ill,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span>
+and that, as he hoped I was with child, he would
+have me consider well of it, whether I had not best
+alter my thoughts of the voyage to Holland; for
+that being sea-sick, and which was worse, if a storm
+should happen, might be very dangerous to me. And
+after saying abundance of the kindest things that the
+kindest of husbands in the world could say, he concluded
+that it was his request to me, that I would
+not think any more of going till after all should be
+over; but that I would, on the contrary, prepare to
+lie-in where I was, and where I knew, as well as he, I
+could be very well provided, and very well assisted.</p>
+
+<p>This was just what I wanted, for I had, as you have
+heard, a thousand good reasons why I should put off
+the voyage, especially with that creature in company;
+but I had a mind the putting it off should be at his
+motion, not my own; and he came into it of himself,
+just as I would have had it. This gave me an opportunity
+to hang back a little, and to seem as if I was
+unwilling. I told him I could not abide to put him to
+difficulties and perplexities in his business; that now
+he had hired the great cabin in the ship, and, perhaps,
+paid some of the money, and, it may be, taken freight
+for goods; and to make him break it all off again
+would be a needless charge to him, or, perhaps, a
+damage to the captain.</p>
+
+<p>As to that, he said, it was not to be named, and
+he would not allow it to be any consideration at all;
+that he could easily pacify the captain of the ship by
+telling him the reason of it, and that if he did make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span>
+him some satisfaction for the disappointment, it
+should not be much.</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear," says I, "you ha'n't heard me say
+I am with child, neither can I say so; and if it should
+not be so at last, then I shall have made a fine piece
+of work of it indeed; besides," says I, "the two
+ladies, the captain's wife and her sister, they depend
+upon our going over, and have made great preparations,
+and all in compliment to me; what must I say
+to them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear," says he, "if you should not be
+with child, though I hope you are, yet there is no
+harm done; the staying three or four months longer
+in England will be no damage to me, and we can go
+when we please, when we are sure you are not with
+child, or, when it appearing that you are with child,
+you shall be down and up again; and as for the captain's
+wife and sister, leave that part to me; I'll
+answer for it there shall be no quarrel raised upon
+that subject. I'll make your excuse to them by the
+captain himself, so all will be well enough there, I'll
+warrant you."</p>
+
+<p>This was as much as I could desire, and thus it
+rested for awhile. I had indeed some anxious thoughts
+about this impertinent girl, but believed that putting
+off the voyage would have put an end to it all, so I
+began to be pretty easy; but I found myself mistaken,
+for I was brought to the point of destruction
+by her again, and that in the most unaccountable
+manner imaginable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My husband, as he and I had agreed, meeting the
+captain of the ship, took the freedom to tell him that
+he was afraid he must disappoint him, for that something
+had fallen out which had obliged him to alter
+his measures, and that his family could not be ready
+to go time enough for him.</p>
+
+<p>"I know the occasion, sir," says the captain; "I
+hear your lady has got a daughter more than she expected;
+I give you joy of it." "What do you mean
+by that?" says my spouse. "Nay, nothing," says
+the captain, "but what I hear the women tattle over
+the tea-table. I know nothing, but that you don't
+go the voyage upon it, which I am sorry for; but
+you know your own affairs," added the captain,
+"that's no business of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but," says my husband, "I must make you
+some satisfaction for the disappointment," and so pulls
+out his money. "No, no," says the captain; and so
+they fell to straining their compliments one upon another;
+but, in short, my spouse gave him three or
+four guineas, and made him take it. And so the first
+discourse went off again, and they had no more of it.</p>
+
+<p>But it did not go off so easily with me, for now, in
+a word, the clouds began to thicken about me, and I
+had alarms on every side. My husband told me what
+the captain had said, but very happily took it that
+the captain had brought a tale by halves, and having
+heard it one way, had told it another; and that
+neither could he understand the captain, neither did
+the captain understand himself, so he contented him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span>self
+to tell me, he said, word for word, as the captain
+delivered it.</p>
+
+<p>How I kept my husband from discovering my disorder
+you shall hear presently; but let it suffice to
+say just now, that if my husband did not understand
+the captain, nor the captain understand himself, yet I
+understood them both very well; and, to tell the truth,
+it was a worse shock than ever I had yet. Invention
+supplied me, indeed, with a sudden motion to avoid
+showing my surprise; for as my spouse and I was
+sitting by a little table near the fire, I reached out
+my hand, as if I had intended to take a spoon which
+lay on the other side, and threw one of the candles off
+of the table; and then snatching it up, started up
+upon my feet, and stooped to the lap of my gown
+and took it in my hand. "Oh!" says I, "my gown's
+spoiled; the candle has greased it prodigiously."
+This furnished me with an excuse to my spouse to
+break off the discourse for the present, and call Amy
+down; and Amy not coming presently, I said to him,
+"My dear, I must run upstairs and put it off, and
+let Amy clean it a little." So my husband rose up
+too, and went into a closet where he kept his papers
+and books, and fetched a book out, and sat down
+by himself to read.</p>
+
+<p>Glad I was that I had got away, and up I run to
+Amy, who, as it happened, was alone. "Oh, Amy!"
+says I, "we are all utterly undone." And with that
+I burst out a-crying, and could not speak a word for
+a great while.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I cannot help saying that some very good reflections
+offered themselves upon this head. It presently
+occurred, what a glorious testimony it is to
+the justice of Providence, and to the concern Providence
+has in guiding all the affairs of men (even the
+least as well as the greatest), that the most secret
+crimes are, by the most unforeseen accidents, brought
+to light and discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Another reflection was, how just it is that sin and
+shame follow one another so constantly at the heels;
+that they are not like attendants only, but, like
+cause and consequence, necessarily connected one
+with another; that the crime going before, the
+scandal is certain to follow; and that 'tis not in the
+power of human nature to conceal the first, or avoid
+the last.</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I do, Amy?" said I, as soon as I
+could speak, "and what will become of me?" And
+then I cried again so vehemently that I could say
+no more a great while. Amy was frighted almost
+out of her wits, but knew nothing what the matter
+was; but she begged to know, and persuaded me to
+compose myself, and not cry so. "Why, madam, if
+my master should come up now," says she, "he will
+see what a disorder you are in; he will know you
+have been crying, and then he will want to know
+the cause of it." With that I broke out again.
+"Oh, he knows it already, Amy," says I, "he knows
+all! 'Tis all discovered, and we are undone!" Amy
+was thunderstruck now indeed. "Nay," says Amy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span>
+"if that be true, we are undone indeed; but that
+can never be; that's impossible, I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," says I, "'tis far from impossible, for I
+tell you 'tis so." And by this time, being a little
+recovered, I told her what discourse my husband
+and the captain had had together, and what the
+captain had said. This put Amy into such a hurry
+that she cried, she raved, she swore and cursed like a
+mad thing; then she upbraided me that I would not
+let her kill the girl when she would have done it,
+and that it was all my own doing, and the like.
+Well, however, I was not for killing the girl yet.
+I could not bear the thoughts of that neither.</p>
+
+<p>We spent half-an-hour in these extravagances,
+and brought nothing out of them neither; for indeed
+we could do nothing or say nothing that was to the
+purpose; for if anything was to come out-of-the-way,
+there was no hindering it, or help for it; so
+after thus giving a vent to myself by crying, I began
+to reflect how I had left my spouse below, and what
+I had pretended to come up for; so I changed my
+gown that I pretended the candle fell upon, and put
+on another, and went down.</p>
+
+<p>When I had been down a good while, and found
+my spouse did not fall into the story again, as I expected,
+I took heart, and called for it. "My dear,"
+said I, "the fall of the candle put you out of your
+history, won't you go on with it?" "What history?"
+says he. "Why," says I, "about the captain."
+"Oh," says he, "I had done with it. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span>
+know no more than that the captain told a broken
+piece of news that he had heard by halves, and told
+more by halves than he heard it,&mdash;namely, of your
+being with child, and that you could not go the
+voyage."</p>
+
+<p>I perceived my husband entered not into the thing
+at all, but took it for a story, which, being told
+two or three times over, was puzzled, and come
+to nothing, and that all that was meant by it was
+what he knew, or thought he knew already&mdash;viz.,
+that I was with child, which he wished might be
+true.</p>
+
+<p>His ignorance was a cordial to my soul, and I
+cursed them in my thoughts that should ever undeceive
+him; and as I saw him willing to have the
+story end there, as not worth being farther mentioned,
+I closed it too, and said I supposed the
+captain had it from his wife; she might have found
+somebody else to make her remarks upon; and so it
+passed off with my husband well enough, and I was
+still safe there, where I thought myself in most
+danger. But I had two uneasinesses still; the first
+was lest the captain and my spouse should meet
+again, and enter into farther discourse about it; and
+the second was lest the busy impertinent girl should
+come again, and when she came, how to prevent her
+seeing Amy, which was an article as material as any
+of the rest; for seeing Amy would have been as fatal
+to me as her knowing all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>As to the first of these, I knew the captain could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span>
+not stay in town above a week, but that his ship
+being already full of goods, and fallen down the
+river, he must soon follow, so I contrived to carry
+my husband somewhere out of town for a few days,
+that they might be sure not to meet.</p>
+
+<p>My greatest concern was where we should go. At
+last I fixed upon North Hall; not, I said, that I
+would drink the waters, but that I thought the air
+was good, and might be for my advantage. He,
+who did everything upon the foundation of obliging
+me, readily came into it, and the coach was appointed
+to be ready the next morning; but as we were settling
+matters, he put in an ugly word that thwarted
+all my design, and that was, that he had rather I
+would stay till afternoon, for that he should speak
+to the captain the next morning if he could, to give
+him some letters, which he could do, and be back
+again about twelve o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>I said, "Ay, by all means." But it was but a
+cheat on him, and my voice and my heart differed;
+for I resolved, if possible, he should not come near
+the captain, nor see him, whatever came of it.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, therefore, a little before we went
+to bed, I pretended to have altered my mind, and
+that I would not go to North Hall, but I had a
+mind to go another way, but I told him I was afraid
+his business would not permit him. He wanted to
+know where it was. I told him, smiling, I would
+not tell him, lest it should oblige him to hinder his
+business. He answered with the same temper, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span>
+with infinitely more sincerity, that he had no business
+of so much consequence as to hinder him going
+with me anywhere that I had a mind to go. "Yes,"
+says I, "you want to speak with the captain before
+he goes away." "Why, that's true," says he, "so I
+do," and paused awhile; and then added, "but I'll
+write a note to a man that does business for me to
+go to him; 'tis only to get some bills of loading
+signed, and he can do it." When I saw I had gained
+my point, I seemed to hang back a little. "My
+dear," says I, "don't hinder an hour's business for
+me; I can put it off for a week or two rather than
+you shall do yourself any prejudice." "No, no,"
+says he, "you shall not put it off an hour for me,
+for I can do my business by proxy with anybody but
+my wife." And then he took me in his arms and
+kissed me. How did my blood flush up into my
+face when I reflected how sincerely, how affectionately,
+this good-humoured gentleman embraced the
+most cursed piece of hypocrisy that ever came into
+the arms of an honest man! His was all tenderness,
+all kindness, and the utmost sincerity; mine all
+grimace and deceit;&mdash;a piece of mere manage and
+framed conduct to conceal a past life of wickedness,
+and prevent his discovering that he had in his arms
+a she-devil, whose whole conversation for twenty-five
+years had been black as hell, a complication of crime,
+and for which, had he been let into it, he must have
+abhorred me and the very mention of my name.
+But there was no help for me in it; all I had to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span>
+satisfy myself was that it was my business to be
+what I was, and conceal what I had been; that all
+the satisfaction I could make him was to live virtuously
+for the time to come, not being able to retrieve
+what had been in time past; and this I resolved
+upon, though, had the great temptation offered,
+as it did afterwards, I had reason to question my
+stability. But of that hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>After my husband had kindly thus given up his
+measures to mine, we resolved to set out in the
+morning early. I told him that my project, if he
+liked it, was to go to Tunbridge, and he, being
+entirely passive in the thing, agreed to it with the
+greatest willingness; but said if I had not named
+Tunbridge, he would have named Newmarket, there
+being a great court there, and abundance of fine
+things to be seen. I offered him another piece of
+hypocrisy here, for I pretended to be willing to go
+thither, as the place of his choice, but indeed I
+would not have gone for a thousand pounds; for
+the court being there at that time, I durst not run
+the hazard of being known at a place where there
+were so many eyes that had seen me before. So
+that, after some time, I told my husband that I
+thought Newmarket was so full of people at that
+time, that we should get no accommodation; that
+seeing the court and the crowd was no entertainment
+at all to me, unless as it might be so to him, that if
+he thought fit, we would rather put it off to another
+time; and that if, when we went to Holland, we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span>
+should go by Harwich, we might take a round by
+Newmarket and Bury, and so come down to Ipswich,
+and go from thence to the seaside. He was easily
+put off from this, as he was from anything else that
+I did not approve; and so, with all imaginable
+facility, he appointed to be ready early in the morning
+to go with me for Tunbridge.</p>
+
+<p>I had a double design in this, viz., first, to get
+away my spouse from seeing the captain any more;
+and secondly, to be out of the way myself, in case
+this impertinent girl, who was now my plague, should
+offer to come again, as my friend the Quaker believed
+she would, and as indeed happened within two or
+three days afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus secured my going away the next
+day, I had nothing to do but to furnish my faithful
+agent the Quaker with some instructions what to
+say to this tormentor (for such she proved afterwards),
+and how to manage her, if she made any
+more visits than ordinary.</p>
+
+<p>I had a great mind to leave Amy behind too, as
+an assistant, because she understood so perfectly well
+what to advise upon any emergence; and Amy importuned
+me to do so. But I know not what secret
+impulse prevailed over my thoughts against it; I
+could not do it for fear the wicked jade should make
+her away, which my very soul abhorred the thoughts
+of; which, however, Amy found means to bring
+to pass afterwards, as I may in time relate more
+particularly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is true I wanted as much to be delivered from
+her as ever a sick man did from a third-day ague;
+and had she dropped into the grave by any fair way,
+as I may call it, I mean, had she died by any
+ordinary distemper, I should have shed but very few
+tears for her. But I was not arrived to such a pitch
+of obstinate wickedness as to commit murder, especially
+such as to murder my own child, or so much
+as to harbour a thought so barbarous in my mind.
+But, as I said, Amy effected all afterwards without
+my knowledge, for which I gave her my hearty curse,
+though I could do little more; for to have fallen
+upon Amy had been to have murdered myself. But
+this tragedy requires a longer story than I have
+room for here. I return to my journey.</p>
+
+<p>My dear friend the Quaker was kind, and yet
+honest, and would do anything that was just and
+upright to serve me, but nothing wicked or dishonourable.
+That she might be able to say boldly to
+the creature, if she came, she did not know where I
+was gone, she desired I would not let her know; and
+to make her ignorance the more absolutely safe to
+herself, and likewise to me, I allowed her to say that
+she heard us talk of going to Newmarket, &amp;c. She
+liked that part, and I left all the rest to her, to act
+as she thought fit; only charged her, that if the girl
+entered into the story of the Pall Mall, she should
+not entertain much talk about it, but let her understand
+that we all thought she spoke of it a little too
+particularly; and that the lady (meaning me) took<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span>
+it a little ill to be so likened to a public mistress, or
+a stage-player, and the like; and so to bring her, if
+possible, to say no more of it. However, though I
+did not tell my friend the Quaker how to write to
+me, or where I was, yet I left a sealed paper with her
+maid to give her, in which I gave her a direction how
+to write to Amy, and so, in effect, to myself.</p>
+
+<p>It was but a few days after I was gone, but the
+impatient girl came to my lodgings on pretence to
+see how I did, and to hear if I intended to go the
+voyage, and the like. My trusty agent was at home,
+and received her coldly at the door; but told her
+that the lady, which she supposed she meant, was
+gone from her house.</p>
+
+<p>This was a full stop to all she could say for a good
+while; but as she stood musing some time at the
+door, considering what to begin a talk upon, she
+perceived my friend the Quaker looked a little uneasy,
+as if she wanted to go in and shut the door,
+which stung her to the quick; and the wary Quaker
+had not so much as asked her to come in; for seeing
+her alone she expected she would be very impertinent,
+and concluded that I did not care how coldly
+she received her.</p>
+
+<p>But she was not to be put off so. She said if the
+Lady &mdash;&mdash; was not to be spoken with, she desired to
+speak two or three words with her, meaning my
+friend the Quaker. Upon that the Quaker civilly
+but coldly asked her to walk in, which was what she
+wanted. Note.&mdash;She did not carry her into her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span>
+best parlour, as formerly, but into a little outer
+room, where the servants usually waited.</p>
+
+<p>By the first of her discourse she did not stick to
+insinuate as if she believed I was in the house, but
+was unwilling to be seen; and pressed earnestly that
+she might speak but two words with me; to which
+she added earnest entreaties, and at last tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry," says my good creature the Quaker,
+"thou hast so ill an opinion of me as to think I
+would tell thee an untruth, and say that the Lady
+&mdash;&mdash; was gone from my house if she was not! I
+assure thee I do not use any such method; nor does
+the Lady &mdash;&mdash; desire any such kind of service from
+me, as I know of. If she had been in the house, I
+should have told thee so."</p>
+
+<p>She said little to that, but said it was business of
+the utmost importance that she desired to speak with
+me about, and then cried again very much.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou seem'st to be sorely afflicted," says the
+Quaker, "I wish I could give thee any relief; but if
+nothing will comfort thee but seeing the Lady &mdash;&mdash;,
+it is not in my power."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope it is," says she again; "to be sure it is of
+great consequence to me, so much that I am undone
+without it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou troublest me very much to hear thee
+say so," says the Quaker; "but why, then, didst
+thou not speak to her apart when thou wast here
+before?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had no opportunity," says she, "to speak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span>
+to her alone, and I could not do it in company;
+if I could have spoken but two words to her alone,
+I would have thrown myself at her foot, and asked
+her blessing."</p>
+
+<p>"I am surprised at thee; I do not understand thee,"
+says the Quaker.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says she, "stand my friend if you have
+any charity, or if you have any compassion for the
+miserable; for I am utterly undone!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thou terrifiest me," says the Quaker, "with such
+passionate expressions, for verily I cannot comprehend
+thee!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says she, "she is my mother! she is my
+mother! and she does not own me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thy mother!" says the Quaker, and began to be
+greatly moved indeed. "I am astonished at thee:
+what dost thou mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean nothing but what I say," says she. "I
+say again, she is my mother, and will not own me;"
+and with that she stopped with a flood of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Not own thee!" says the Quaker; and the
+tender good creature wept too. "Why," says she,
+"she does not know thee, and never saw thee
+before."</p>
+
+<p>"No," says the girl, "I believe she does not know
+me, but I know her; and I know that she is my
+mother."</p>
+
+<p>"It's impossible, thou talk'st mystery!" says
+the Quaker; "wilt thou explain thyself a little to
+me?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," says she, "I can explain it well enough.
+I am sure she is my mother, and I have broke my
+heart to search for her; and now to lose her again,
+when I was so sure I had found her, will break my
+heart more effectually."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but if she be thy mother," says the Quaker,
+"how can it be that she should not know thee?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas!" says she, "I have been lost to her ever
+since I was a child; she has never seen me."</p>
+
+<p>"And hast thou never seen her?" says the Quaker.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says she, "I have seen her; often enough
+I saw her; for when she was the Lady Roxana I was
+her housemaid, being a servant, but I did not know
+her then, nor she me; but it has all come out since.
+Has she not a maid named Amy?" Note.&mdash;The
+honest Quaker was&mdash;nonplussed, and greatly surprised
+at that question.</p>
+
+<p>"Truly," says she, "the Lady &mdash;&mdash; has several
+women servants, but I do not know all their names."</p>
+
+<p>"But her woman, her favourite," adds the girl;
+"is not her name Amy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, truly," says the Quaker, with a very happy
+turn of wit, "I do not like to be examined; but lest
+thou shouldest take up any mistakes by reason of my
+backwardness to speak, I will answer thee for once,
+that what her woman's name is I know not, but they
+call her Cherry."</p>
+
+<p><i>N.B.</i>&mdash;My husband gave her that name in jest
+on our wedding-day, and we had called her by it ever
+after; so that she spoke literally true at that time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The girl replied very modestly that she was sorry
+if she gave her any offence in asking; that she did
+not design to be rude to her, or pretend to examine
+her; but that she was in such an agony at this
+disaster that she knew not what she did or said;
+and that she should be very sorry to disoblige her,
+but begged of her again, as she was a Christian and a
+woman, and had been a mother of children, that she
+would take pity on her, and, if possible, assist her,
+so that she might but come to me and speak a few
+words to me.</p>
+
+<p>The tender-hearted Quaker told me the girl spoke
+this with such moving eloquence that it forced tears
+from her; but she was obliged to say that she
+neither knew where I was gone or how to write to
+me; but that if she did ever see me again she would
+not fail to give me an account of all she had said to
+her, or that she should yet think fit to say, and to
+take my answer to it, if I thought fit to give any.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Quaker took the freedom to ask a few
+particulars about this wonderful story, as she called
+it; at which the girl, beginning at the first distresses
+of my life, and indeed of her own, went
+through all the history of her miserable education,
+her service under the Lady Roxana, as she called me,
+and her relief by Mrs. Amy, with the reasons she
+had to believe that as Amy owned herself to be the
+same that lived with her mother, and especially that
+Amy was the Lady Roxana's maid too, and came
+out of France with her, she was by those circum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span>stances,
+and several others in her conversation, as
+fully convinced that the Lady Roxana was her
+mother, as she was that the Lady &mdash;&mdash; at her house
+(the Quaker's) was the very same Roxana that she
+had been servant to.</p>
+
+<p>My good friend the Quaker, though terribly
+shocked at the story, and not well knowing what to
+say, yet was too much my friend to seem convinced
+in a thing which she did not know to be true, and
+which, if it was true, she could see plainly I had a
+mind should not be known; so she turned her discourse
+to argue the girl out of it. She insisted
+upon the slender evidence she had of the fact itself,
+and the rudeness of claiming so near a relation of
+one so much above her, and of whose concern in it
+she had no knowledge, at least no sufficient proof;
+that as the lady at her house was a person above any
+disguises, so she could not believe that she would
+deny her being her daughter, if she was really her
+mother; that she was able sufficiently to have provided
+for her if she had not a mind to have her
+known; and, therefore, seeing she had heard all she
+had said of the Lady Roxana, and was so far from
+owning herself to be the person, so she had censured
+that sham lady as a cheat and a common woman;
+and that 'twas certain she could never be brought
+to own a name and character she had so justly
+exposed.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, she told her that her lodger, meaning me,
+was not a sham lady, but the real wife of a knight-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span>baronet;
+and that she knew her to be honestly
+such, and far above such a person as she had
+described. She then added that she had another
+reason why it was not very possible to be true.
+"And that is," says she, "thy age is in the way;
+for thou acknowledgest that thou art four-and
+twenty years old, and that thou wast the youngest
+of three of thy mother's children; so that, by thy
+account, thy mother must be extremely young, or
+this lady cannot be thy mother; for thou seest,"
+says she, "and any one may see, she is but a young
+woman now, and cannot be supposed to be above forty
+years old, if she is so much; and is now big with
+child at her going into the country; so that I cannot
+give any credit to thy notion of her being thy
+mother; and if I might counsel thee, it should be to
+give over that thought, as an improbable story that
+does but serve to disorder thee, and disturb thy
+head; for," added she, "I perceive thou art much
+disturbed indeed."</p>
+
+<p>But this was all nothing; she could be satisfied
+with nothing but seeing me; but the Quaker defended
+herself very well, and insisted on it that she
+could not give her any account of me; and finding
+her still importunate, she affected at last being a
+little disgusted that she should not believe her, and
+added, that indeed, if she had known where I was
+gone, she would not have given any one an account
+of it, unless I had given her orders to do so. "But
+seeing she has not acquainted me," says she, "where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span>
+she has gone, 'tis an intimation to me she was not
+desirous it should be publicly known;" and with
+this she rose up, which was as plain a desiring her
+to rise up too and begone as could be expressed,
+except the downright showing her the door.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the girl rejected all this, and told her she
+could not indeed expect that she (the Quaker) should
+be affected with the story she had told her, however
+moving, or that she should take any pity on her.
+That it was her misfortune, that when she was at the
+house before, and in the room with me, she did not
+beg to speak a word with me in private, or throw
+herself upon the floor at my feet, and claim what the
+affection of a mother would have done for her; but
+since she had slipped her opportunity, she would wait
+for another; that she found by her (the Quaker's)
+talk, that she had not quite left her lodgings, but
+was gone into the country, she supposed for the air;
+and she was resolved she would take so much knight-errantry
+upon her, that she would visit all the airing-places
+in the nation, and even all the kingdom over,
+ay, and Holland too, but she would find me; for she
+was satisfied she could so convince me that she was
+my own child, that I would not deny it; and she was
+sure I was so tender and compassionate, I would not
+let her perish after I was convinced that she was my
+own flesh and blood; and in saying she would visit
+all the airing-places in England, she reckoned them
+all up by name, and began with Tunbridge, the very
+place I was gone to; then reckoning up Epsom,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span>
+North Hall, Barnet, Newmarket, Bury, and at last,
+the Bath; and with this she took her leave.</p>
+
+<p>My faithful agent the Quaker failed not to write
+to me immediately; but as she was a cunning as well
+as an honest woman, it presently occurred to her that
+this was a story which, whether true or false, was not
+very fit to come to my husband's knowledge; that as
+she did not know what I might have been, or might
+have been called in former times, and how far there
+might have been something or nothing in it, so she
+thought if it was a secret I ought to have the telling
+it myself; and if it was not, it might as well be public
+afterwards as now; and that, at least, she ought to
+leave it where she found it, and not hand it forwards
+to anybody without my consent. These prudent
+measures were inexpressibly kind, as well as seasonable;
+for it had been likely enough that her letter
+might have come publicly to me, and though my
+husband would not have opened it, yet it would have
+looked a little odd that I should conceal its contents
+from him, when I had pretended so much to communicate
+all my affairs.</p>
+
+<p>In consequence of this wise caution, my good friend
+only wrote me in few words, that the impertinent
+young woman had been with her, as she expected she
+would; and that she thought it would be very convenient
+that, if I could spare Cherry, I would send
+her up (meaning Amy), because she found there
+might be some occasion for her.</p>
+
+<p>As it happened, this letter was enclosed to Amy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span>
+herself, and not sent by the way I had at first ordered;
+but it came safe to my hands; and though I was
+alarmed a little at it, yet I was not acquainted with
+the danger I was in of an immediate visit from this
+teasing creature till afterwards; and I ran a greater
+risk, indeed, than ordinary, in that I did not send
+Amy up under thirteen or fourteen days, believing
+myself as much concealed at Tunbridge as if I had
+been at Vienna.</p>
+
+<p>But the concern of my faithful spy (for such my
+Quaker was now, upon the mere foot of her own sagacity),
+I say, her concern for me, was my safety in this
+exigence, when I was, as it were, keeping no guard
+for myself; for, finding Amy not come up, and that
+she did not know how soon this wild thing might
+put her designed ramble in practice, she sent a messenger
+to the captain's wife's house, where she lodged,
+to tell her that she wanted to speak with her. She
+was at the heels of the messenger, and came eager for
+some news; and hoped, she said, the lady (meaning
+me) had been come to town.</p>
+
+<p>The Quaker, with as much caution as she was mistress
+of, not to tell a downright lie, made her believe
+she expected to hear of me very quickly; and frequently,
+by the by, speaking of being abroad to
+take the air, talked of the country about Bury, how
+pleasant it was, how wholesome, and how fine an
+air; how the downs about Newmarket were exceeding
+fine, and what a vast deal of company there was,
+now the court was there; till at last, the girl be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span>gan
+to conclude that my ladyship was gone thither;
+for, she said, she knew I loved to see a great deal
+of company.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," says my friend, "thou takest me wrong; I
+did not suggest," says she, "that the person thou inquirest
+after is gone thither, neither do I believe she
+is, I assure thee." Well, the girl smiled, and let her
+know that she believed it for all that; so, to clench
+it fast, "Verily," says she, with great seriousness,
+"thou dost not do well, for thou suspectest everything
+and believest nothing. I speak solemnly to
+thee that I do not believe they are gone that way;
+so if thou givest thyself the trouble to go that way,
+and art disappointed, do not say that I have deceived
+thee." She knew well enough that if this did abate
+her suspicion it would not remove it, and that it
+would do little more than amuse her; but by this
+she kept her in suspense till Amy came up, and that
+was enough.</p>
+
+<p>When Amy came up, she was quite confounded to
+hear the relation which the Quaker gave her, and
+found means to acquaint me of it; only letting me
+know, to my great satisfaction, that she would not
+come to Tunbridge first, but that she would certainly
+go to Newmarket or Bury first.</p>
+
+<p>However, it gave me very great uneasiness; for as
+she resolved to ramble in search after me over the
+whole country, I was safe nowhere, no, not in Holland
+itself. So indeed I did not know what to do
+with her; and thus I had a bitter in all my sweet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span>
+for I was continually perplexed with this hussy, and
+thought she haunted me like an evil spirit.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Amy was next door to stark-mad
+about her; she durst not see her at my lodgings for
+her life; and she went days without number to Spitalfields,
+where she used to come, and to her former
+lodging, and could never meet with her. At length
+she took up a mad resolution that she would go
+directly to the captain's house in Redriff and speak
+with her. It was a mad step, that's true; but as
+Amy said she was mad, so nothing she could do could
+be otherwise. For if Amy had found her at Redriff,
+she (the girl) would have concluded presently that
+the Quaker had given her notice, and so that we were
+all of a knot; and that, in short, all she had said
+was right. But as it happened, things came to hit
+better than we expected; for that Amy going out of
+a coach to take water at Tower Wharf, meets the
+girl just come on shore, having crossed the water from
+Redriff. Amy made as if she would have passed by
+her, though they met so full that she did not pretend
+she did not see her, for she looked fairly upon her
+first, but then turning her head away with a slight,
+offered to go from her; but the girl stopped, and
+spoke first, and made some manners to her.</p>
+
+<p>Amy spoke coldly to her, and a little angry; and
+after some words, standing in the street or passage,
+the girl saying she seemed to be angry, and would
+not have spoken to her, "Why," says Amy, "how
+can you expect I should have any more to say to you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span>
+after I had done so much for you, and you have
+behaved so to me?" The girl seemed to take no
+notice of that now, but answered, "I was going to
+wait on you now." "Wait on me!" says Amy;
+"what do you mean by that?" "Why," says she
+again, with a kind of familiarity, "I was going to
+your lodgings."</p>
+
+<p>Amy was provoked to the last degree at her, and
+yet she thought it was not her time to resent, because
+she had a more fatal and wicked design in her
+head against her; which, indeed, I never knew till
+after it was executed, nor durst Amy ever communicate
+it to me; for as I had always expressed myself
+vehemently against hurting a hair of her head, so
+she was resolved to take her own measures without
+consulting me any more.</p>
+
+<p>In order to this, Amy gave her good words, and
+concealed her resentment as much as she could; and
+when she talked of going to her lodging, Amy smiled
+and said nothing, but called for a pair of oars to go
+to Greenwich; and asked her, seeing she said she
+was going to her lodging, to go along with her, for
+she was going home, and was all alone.</p>
+
+<p>Amy did this with such a stock of assurance that
+the girl was confounded, and knew not what to say;
+but the more she hesitated, the more Amy pressed
+her to go; and talking very kindly to her, told her
+if she did not go to see her lodgings she might go to
+keep her company, and she would pay a boat to
+bring her back again; so, in a word, Amy prevailed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span>
+on her to go into the boat with her, and carried her
+down to Greenwich.</p>
+
+<p>'Tis certain that Amy had no more business at
+Greenwich than I had, nor was she going thither;
+but we were all hampered to the last degree with
+the impertinence of this creature; and, in particular,
+I was horribly perplexed with it.</p>
+
+<p>As they were in the boat, Amy began to reproach
+her with ingratitude in treating her so rudely who
+had done so much for her, and been so kind to her;
+and to ask her what she had got by it, or what she
+expected to get. Then came in my share, the Lady
+Roxana. Amy jested with that, and bantered her a
+little, and asked her if she had found her yet.</p>
+
+<p>But Amy was both surprised and enraged when
+the girl told her roundly that she thanked her for
+what she had done for her, but that she would not
+have her think she was so ignorant as not to know
+that what she (Amy) had done was by her mother's
+order, and who she was beholden to for it. That
+she could never make instruments pass for principals,
+and pay the debt to the agent when the obligation
+was all to the original. That she knew well enough
+who she was, and who she was employed by. That
+she knew the Lady &mdash;&mdash; very well (naming the name
+that I now went by), which was my husband's true
+name, and by which she might know whether she
+had found out her mother or no.</p>
+
+<p>Amy wished her at the bottom of the Thames;
+and had there been no watermen in the boat, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span>
+nobody in sight, she swore to me she would have
+thrown her into the river. I was horribly disturbed
+when she told me this story, and began to think this
+would, at last, all end in my ruin; but when Amy
+spoke of throwing her into the river and drowning
+her, I was so provoked at her that all my rage
+turned against Amy, and I fell thoroughly out with
+her. I had now kept Amy almost thirty years, and
+found her on all occasions the faithfullest creature to
+me that ever woman had&mdash;I say, faithful to me;
+for, however wicked she was, still she was true to
+me; and even this rage of hers was all upon my
+account, and for fear any mischief should befall
+me.</p>
+
+<p>But be that how it would, I could not bear the
+mention of her murdering the poor girl, and it put
+me so beside myself, that I rose up in a rage, and
+bade her get out of my sight, and out of my house;
+told her I had kept her too long, and that I would
+never see her face more. I had before told her that
+she was a murderer, and a bloody-minded creature;
+that she could not but know that I could not bear
+the thought of it, much less the mention of it; and
+that it was the impudentest thing that ever was
+known to make such a proposal to me, when she
+knew that I was really the mother of this girl, and
+that she was my own child; that it was wicked
+enough in her, but that she must conclude I was ten
+times wickeder than herself if I could come into it;
+that the girl was in the right, and I had nothing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span>
+blame her for; but that it was owing to the wickedness
+of my life that made it necessary for me to keep
+her from a discovery; but that I would not murder
+my child, though I was otherwise to be ruined by it.
+Amy replied, somewhat rough and short, Would I
+not? but she would, she said, if she had an opportunity;
+and upon these words it was that I bade
+her get out of my sight and out of my house; and it
+went so far that Amy packed up her alls, and marched
+off; and was gone for almost good and all. But of
+that in its order; I must go back to her relation of
+the voyage which they made to Greenwich together.</p>
+
+<p>They held on the wrangle all the way by water;
+the girl insisted upon her knowing that I was her
+mother, and told her all the history of my life in the
+Pall Mall, as well after her being turned away as
+before, and of my marriage since; and which was
+worse, not only who my present husband was, but
+where he had lived, viz., at Rouen in France. She
+knew nothing of Paris or of where we was going to
+live, namely, at Nimeguen; but told her in so many
+words that if she could not find me here, she would
+go to Holland after me.</p>
+
+<p>They landed at Greenwich, and Amy carried her
+into the park with her, and they walked above two
+hours there in the farthest and remotest walks;
+which Amy did because, as they talked with great
+heat, it was apparent they were quarrelling, and the
+people took notice of it.</p>
+
+<p>They walked till they came almost to the wilder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span>ness
+at the south side of the park; but the girl, perceiving
+Amy offered to go in there among the woods
+and trees, stopped short there, and would go no
+further; but said she would not go in there.</p>
+
+<p>Amy smiled, and asked her what was the matter?
+She replied short, she did not know where she was,
+nor where she was going to carry her, and she would
+go no farther; and without any more ceremony,
+turns back, and walks apace away from her. Amy
+owned she was surprised, and came back too, and
+called to her, upon which the girl stopped, and Amy
+coming up to her, asked her what she meant?</p>
+
+<p>The girl boldly replied she did not know but she
+might murder her; and that, in short, she would not
+trust herself with her, and never would come into her
+company again alone.</p>
+
+<p>It was very provoking, but, however, Amy kept
+her temper with much difficulty, and bore it, knowing
+that much might depend upon it; so she mocked
+her foolish jealousy, and told her she need not be uneasy
+for her, she would do her no harm, and would
+have done her good if she would have let her; but
+since she was of such a refractory humour, she should
+not trouble herself, for she should never come into
+her company again; and that neither she or her
+brother or sister should ever hear from her or see
+her any more; and so she should have the satisfaction
+of being the ruin of her brother and sisters as
+well as of herself.</p>
+
+<p>The girl seemed a little mollified at that, and said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span>
+that for herself, she knew the worst of it, she could
+seek her fortune; but it was hard her brother and
+sister should suffer on her score; and said something
+that was tender and well enough on that account.
+But Amy told her it was for her to take that into
+consideration; for she would let her see that it was
+all her own; that she would have done them all
+good, but that having been used thus, she would do
+no more for any of them; and that she should not
+need to be afraid to come into her company again,
+for she would never give her occasion for it any
+more. This, by the way, was false in the girl too;
+for she did venture into Amy's company again after
+that, once too much, as I shall relate by itself.</p>
+
+<p>They grew cooler, however, afterwards, and Amy
+carried her into a house at Greenwich, where she
+was acquainted, and took an occasion to leave the
+girl in a room awhile, to speak to the people in the
+house, and so prepare them to own her as a lodger
+in the house; and then going in to her again told
+her there she lodged, if she had a mind to find her
+out, or if anybody else had anything to say to her.
+And so Amy dismissed her, and got rid of her again;
+and finding an empty hackney-coach in the town,
+came away by land to London, and the girl, going
+down to the water-side, came by boat.</p>
+
+<p>This conversation did not answer Amy's end at
+all, because it did not secure the girl from pursuing
+her design of hunting me out; and though my indefatigable
+friend the Quaker amused her three or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span>
+four days, yet I had such notice of it at last that I
+thought fit to come away from Tunbridge upon it.
+And where to go I knew not; but, in short, I went
+to a little village upon Epping Forest, called Woodford,
+and took lodgings in a private house, where I
+lived retired about six weeks, till I thought she
+might be tired of her search, and have given me
+over.</p>
+
+<p>Here I received an account from my trusty Quaker
+that the wench had really been at Tunbridge, had
+found out my lodgings, and had told her tale there
+in a most dismal tone; that she had followed us, as
+she thought, to London; but the Quaker had answered
+her that she knew nothing of it, which was
+indeed true; and had admonished her to be easy,
+and not hunt after people of such fashion as we
+were, as if we were thieves; that she might be
+assured, that since I was not willing to see her, I
+would not be forced to it; and treating me thus
+would effectually disoblige me. And with such
+discourses as these she quieted her; and she (the
+Quaker) added that she hoped I should not be
+troubled much more with her.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this time that Amy gave me the history
+of her Greenwich voyage, when she spoke of drowning
+and killing the girl in so serious a manner, and
+with such an apparent resolution of doing it, that, as
+I said, put me in a rage with her, so that I effectually
+turned her away from me, as I have said above, and
+she was gone; nor did she so much as tell me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span>
+whither or which way she was gone. On the other
+hand, when I came to reflect on it that now I had
+neither assistant or confidant to speak to, or receive
+the least information from, my friend the Quaker
+excepted, it made me very uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>I waited and expected and wondered from day to
+day, still thinking Amy would one time or other
+think a little and come again, or at least let me hear
+of her; but for ten days together I heard nothing of
+her. I was so impatient that I got neither rest by
+day or sleep by night, and what to do I knew not.
+I durst not go to town to the Quaker's for fear of
+meeting that vexatious creature, my girl, and I could
+get no intelligence where I was; so I got my spouse,
+upon pretence of wanting her company, to take the
+coach one day and fetch my good Quaker to me.</p>
+
+<p>When I had her, I durst ask her no questions, nor
+hardly knew which end of the business to begin to
+talk of; but of her own accord she told me that the
+girl had been three or four times haunting her for
+news from me; and that she had been so troublesome
+that she had been obliged to show herself a little
+angry with her; and at last told her plainly that she
+need give herself no trouble in searching after me by
+her means, for she (the Quaker) would not tell her if
+she knew; upon which she refrained awhile. But,
+on the other hand, she told me it was not safe for
+me to send my own coach for her to come in, for she
+had some reason to believe that she (my daughter)
+watched her door night and day; nay, and watched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span>
+her too every time she went in and out; for she was
+so bent upon a discovery that she spared no pains,
+and she believed she had taken a lodging very near
+their house for that purpose.</p>
+
+<p>I could hardly give her a hearing of all this for my
+eagerness to ask for Amy; but I was confounded
+when she told me she had heard nothing of her. It
+is impossible to express the anxious thoughts that
+rolled about in my mind, and continually perplexed
+me about her; particularly I reproached myself with
+my rashness in turning away so faithful a creature
+that for so many years had not only been a servant
+but an agent; and not only an agent, but a friend,
+and a faithful friend too.</p>
+
+<p>Then I considered too that Amy knew all the
+secret history of my life; had been in all the intrigues
+of it, and been a party in both evil and good; and
+at best there was no policy in it; that as it was
+very ungenerous and unkind to run things to such
+an extremity with her, and for an occasion, too, in
+which all the fault she was guilty of was owing to
+her excessive care for my safety, so it must be only
+her steady kindness to me, and an excess of generous
+friendship for me, that should keep her from ill-using
+me in return for it; which ill-using me was enough
+in her power, and might be my utter undoing.</p>
+
+<p>These thoughts perplexed me exceedingly, and
+what course to take I really did not know. I began,
+indeed, to give Amy quite over, for she had now been
+gone above a fortnight, and as she had taken away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span>
+all her clothes, and her money too, which was not a
+little, and so had no occasion of that kind to come
+any more, so she had not left any word where she was
+gone, or to which part of the world I might send to
+hear of her.</p>
+
+<p>And I was troubled on another account too, viz.,
+that my spouse and I too had resolved to do very
+handsomely for Amy, without considering what she
+might have got another way at all; but we had said
+nothing of it to her, and so I thought, as she had
+not known what was likely to fall in her way, she
+had not the influence of that expectation to make
+her come back.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the whole, the perplexity of this girl, who
+hunted me as if, like a hound, she had had a hot
+scent, but was now at a fault, I say, that perplexity,
+and this other part of Amy being gone, issued in
+this&mdash;I resolved to be gone, and go over to Holland;
+there, I believed, I should be at rest. So I took
+occasion one day to tell my spouse that I was afraid
+he might take it ill that I had amused him thus long,
+and that at last I doubted I was not with child; and
+that since it was so, our things being packed up, and
+all in order for going to Holland, I would go away
+now when he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>My spouse, who was perfectly easy whether in
+going or staying, left it all entirely to me; so I considered
+of it, and began to prepare again for my
+voyage. But, alas! I was irresolute to the last degree.
+I was, for want of Amy, destitute; I had lost my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span>
+right hand; she was my steward, gathered in my rents
+(I mean my interest money) and kept my accounts,
+and, in a word, did all my business; and without
+her, indeed, I knew not how to go away nor how
+to stay. But an accident thrust itself in here, and
+that even in Amy's conduct too, which frighted me
+away, and without her too, in the utmost horror
+and confusion.</p>
+
+<p>I have related how my faithful friend the Quaker
+was come to me, and what account she gave me of
+her being continually haunted by my daughter; and
+that, as she said, she watched her very door night and
+day. The truth was, she had set a spy to watch so
+effectually that she (the Quaker) neither went in or
+out but she had notice of it.</p>
+
+<p>This was too evident when, the next morning after
+she came to me (for I kept her all night), to my unspeakable
+surprise I saw a hackney-coach stop at the
+door where I lodged, and saw her (my daughter) in
+the coach all alone. It was a very good chance, in
+the middle of a bad one, that my husband had taken
+out the coach that very morning, and was gone to
+London. As for me, I had neither life or soul left
+in me; I was so confounded I knew not what to do
+or to say.</p>
+
+<p>My happy visitor had more presence of mind than
+I, and asked me if I had made no acquaintance
+among the neighbours. I told her, yes, there was a
+lady lodged two doors off that I was very intimate
+with. "But hast thou no way out backward to go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span>
+to her?" says she. Now it happened there was a
+back-door in the garden, by which we usually went
+and came to and from the house, so I told her of it.
+"Well, well," says she, "go out and make a visit
+then, and leave the rest to me." Away I run, told
+the lady (for I was very free there) that I was a
+widow to-day, my spouse being gone to London, so I
+came not to visit her, but to dwell with her that day,
+because also our landlady had got strangers come
+from London. So having framed this orderly lie, I
+pulled some work out of my pocket, and added I did
+not come to be idle.</p>
+
+<p>As I went out one way, my friend the Quaker went
+the other to receive this unwelcome guest. The girl
+made but little ceremony, but having bid the coachman
+ring at the gate, gets down out of the coach
+and comes to the door, a country girl going to the
+door (belonging to the house), for the Quaker forbid
+any of my maids going. Madam asked for my
+Quaker by name, and the girl asked her to walk in.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this, my Quaker, seeing there was no hanging
+back, goes to her immediately, but put all the
+gravity upon her countenance that she was mistress
+of, and that was not a little indeed.</p>
+
+<p>When she (the Quaker) came into the room (for
+they had showed my daughter into a little parlour),
+she kept her grave countenance, but said not a word,
+nor did my daughter speak a good while; but after
+some time my girl began and said, "I suppose you
+know me, madam?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says the Quaker, "I know thee." And so
+the dialogue went on.</p>
+
+<p><i>Girl.</i> Then you know my business too?</p>
+
+<p><i>Quaker.</i> No, verily, I do not know any business
+thou canst have here with me.</p>
+
+<p><i>Girl.</i> Indeed, my business is not chiefly with you.</p>
+
+<p><i>Qu.</i> Why, then, dost thou come after me thus far?</p>
+
+<p><i>Girl.</i> You know whom I seek. [<i>And with that she cried.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Qu.</i> But why shouldst thou follow me for her,
+since thou know'st that I assured thee more than
+once that I knew not where she was?</p>
+
+<p><i>Girl.</i> But I hoped you could.</p>
+
+<p><i>Qu.</i> Then thou must hope that I did not speak
+the truth, which would be very wicked.</p>
+
+<p><i>Girl.</i> I doubt not but she is in this house.</p>
+
+<p><i>Qu.</i> If those be thy thoughts, thou may'st inquire
+in the house; so thou hast no more business with
+me. Farewell! [<i>Offers to go.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Girl.</i> I would not be uncivil; I beg you to let me
+see her.</p>
+
+<p><i>Qu.</i> I am here to visit some of my friends, and I
+think thou art not very civil in following me hither.</p>
+
+<p><i>Girl.</i> I came in hopes of a discovery in my great
+affair which you know of.</p>
+
+<p><i>Qu.</i> Thou cam'st wildly, indeed; I counsel thee
+to go back again, and be easy; I shall keep my word
+with thee, that I would not meddle in it, or give
+thee any account, if I knew it, unless I had her
+orders.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/roxanavol2illo192.jpg" alt="ROXANA&#39;S DAUGHTER AND THE QUAKER
+
+Here the girl importuned her again with the utmost
+earnestness, and cried bitterly" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption">ROXANA&#39;S DAUGHTER AND THE QUAKER<br />
+
+Here the girl importuned her again with the utmost
+earnestness, and cried bitterly</span>
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span></p>
+<p><i>Girl.</i> If you knew my distress you could not be
+so cruel.</p>
+
+<p><i>Qu.</i> Thou hast told me all thy story, and I think
+it might be more cruelty to tell thee than not to tell
+thee; for I understand she is resolved not to see
+thee, and declares she is not thy mother. Will'st
+thou be owned where thou hast no relation?</p>
+
+<p><i>Girl.</i> Oh, if I could but speak to her, I would
+prove my relation to her so that she could not deny
+it any longer.</p>
+
+<p><i>Qu.</i> Well, but thou canst not come to speak with
+her, it seems.</p>
+
+<p><i>Girl.</i> I hope you will tell me if she is here. I had
+a good account that you were come out to see her,
+and that she sent for you.</p>
+
+<p><i>Qu.</i> I much wonder how thou couldst have such
+an account. If I had come out to see her, thou hast
+happened to miss the house, for I assure thee she is
+not to be found in this house.</p>
+
+<p>Here the girl importuned her again with the utmost
+earnestness, and cried bitterly, insomuch that
+my poor Quaker was softened with it, and began to
+persuade me to consider of it, and, if it might consist
+with my affairs, to see her, and hear what she
+had to say; but this was afterwards. I return to
+the discourse.</p>
+
+<p>The Quaker was perplexed with her a long time;
+she talked of sending back the coach, and lying in
+the town all night. This, my friend knew, would
+be very uneasy to me, but she durst not speak a word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span>
+against it; but on a sudden thought, she offered a
+bold stroke, which, though dangerous if it had happened
+wrong, had its desired effect.</p>
+
+<p>She told her that, as for dismissing her coach, that
+was as she pleased, she believed she would not easily
+get a lodging in the town; but that as she was in a
+strange place, she would so much befriend her, that
+she would speak to the people of the house, that if
+they had room, she might have a lodging there for
+one night, rather than be forced back to London
+before she was free to go.</p>
+
+<p>This was a cunning, though a dangerous step, and
+it succeeded accordingly, for it amused the creature
+entirely, and she presently concluded that really I
+could not be there then, otherwise she would never
+have asked her to lie in the house; so she grew cold
+again presently as to her lodging there, and said,
+No, since it was so, she would go back that afternoon,
+but she would come again in two or three
+days, and search that and all the towns round in an
+effectual manner, if she stayed a week or two to do
+it; for, in short, if I was in England or Holland
+she would find me.</p>
+
+<p>"In truth," says the Quaker, "thou wilt make me
+very hurtful to thee, then." "Why so?" says she,
+"Because wherever I go, thou wilt put thyself to
+great expense, and the country to a great deal of unnecessary
+trouble." "Not unnecessary," says she.
+"Yes, truly," says the Quaker; "it must be unnecessary,
+because it will be to no purpose. I think I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span>
+must abide in my own house to save thee that
+charge and trouble."</p>
+
+<p>She said little to that, except that, she said, she
+would give her as little trouble as possible; but she
+was afraid she should sometimes be uneasy to her,
+which she hoped she would excuse. My Quaker told
+her she would much rather excuse her if she would
+forbear; for that if she would believe her, she would
+assure her she should never get any intelligence of
+me by her.</p>
+
+<p>That set her into tears again; but after a while,
+recovering herself, she told her perhaps she might be
+mistaken; and she (the Quaker) should watch herself
+very narrowly, or she might one time or other
+get some intelligence from her, whether she would or
+no; and she was satisfied she had gained some of her
+by this journey, for that if I was not in the house, I
+was not far off; and if I did not remove very quickly,
+she would find me out. "Very well," says my
+Quaker; "then if the lady is not willing to see thee,
+thou givest me notice to tell her, that she may get
+out of thy way."</p>
+
+<p>She flew out in a rage at that, and told my friend
+that if she did, a curse would follow her, and her
+children after her, and denounced such horrid things
+upon her as frighted the poor tender-hearted Quaker
+strangely, and put her more out of temper than ever
+I saw her before; so that she resolved to go home
+the next morning, and I, that was ten times more
+uneasy than she, resolved to follow her, and go to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span>
+London too; which, however, upon second thoughts,
+I did not, but took effectual measures not to be seen
+or owned if she came any more; but I heard no
+more of her for some time.</p>
+
+<p>I stayed there about a fortnight, and in all that
+time I heard no more of her, or of my Quaker about
+her; but after about two days more, I had a letter
+from my Quaker, intimating that she had something
+of moment to say, that she could not communicate
+by letter, but wished I would give myself the trouble
+to come up, directing me to come with the coach
+into Goodman's Fields, and then walk to her back-door
+on foot, which being left open on purpose, the
+watchful lady, if she had any spies, could not well
+see me.</p>
+
+<p>My thoughts had for so long time been kept, as it
+were, waking, that almost everything gave me the
+alarm, and this especially, so that I was very uneasy;
+but I could not bring matters to bear to make my
+coming to London so clear to my husband as I would
+have done; for he liked the place, and had a mind,
+he said, to stay a little longer, if it was not against
+my inclination; so I wrote my friend the Quaker
+word that I could not come to town yet; and that,
+besides, I could not think of being there under spies,
+and afraid to look out of doors; and so, in short, I
+put off going for near a fortnight more.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of that time she wrote again, in which
+she told me that she had not lately seen the impertinent
+visitor which had been so troublesome; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span>
+that she had seen my trusty agent Amy, who told
+her she had cried for six weeks without intermission;
+that Amy had given her an account how troublesome
+the creature had been, and to what straits and
+perplexities I was driven by her hunting after and
+following me from place to place; upon which Amy
+had said, that, notwithstanding I was angry with her,
+and had used her so hardly for saying something
+about her of the same kind, yet there was an absolute
+necessity of securing her, and removing her out
+of the way; and that, in short, without asking my
+leave, or anybody's leave, she should take care she
+should trouble her mistress (meaning me) no more;
+and that after Amy had said so, she had indeed
+never heard any more of the girl; so that she supposed
+Amy had managed it so well as to put an end
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>The innocent, well-meaning creature, my Quaker,
+who was all kindness and goodness in herself, and
+particularly to me, saw nothing in this; but she
+thought Amy had found some way to persuade her
+to be quiet and easy, and to give over teasing and
+following me, and rejoiced in it for my sake; as she
+thought nothing of any evil herself, so she suspected
+none in anybody else, and was exceeding glad of
+having such good news to write to me; but my
+thoughts of it run otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>I was struck, as with a blast from heaven, at the
+reading her letter; I fell into a fit of trembling from
+head to foot, and I ran raving about the room like a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span>
+mad woman. I had nobody to speak a word to, to
+give vent to my passion; nor did I speak a word for
+a good while, till after it had almost overcome me.
+I threw myself on the bed, and cried out, "Lord, be
+merciful to me, she has murdered my child!" and
+with that a flood of tears burst out, and I cried
+vehemently for above an hour.</p>
+
+<p>My husband was very happily gone out a-hunting,
+so that I had the opportunity of being alone, and to
+give my passions some vent, by which I a little recovered
+myself. But after my crying was over, then
+I fell in a new rage at Amy; I called her a thousand
+devils and monsters and hard-hearted tigers; I reproached
+her with her knowing that I abhorred it,
+and had let her know it sufficiently, in that I had,
+at it were, kicked her out of doors, after so many
+years' friendship and service, only for naming it to
+me.</p>
+
+<p>Well, after some time, my spouse came in from his
+sport, and I put on the best looks I could to deceive
+him; but he did not take so little notice of me as
+not to see I had been crying, and that something
+troubled me, and he pressed me to tell him. I
+seemed to bring it out with reluctance, but told him
+my backwardness was more because I was ashamed
+that such a trifle should have any effect upon me,
+than for any weight that was in it; so I told him I
+had been vexing myself about my woman Amy's not
+coming again; that she might have known me better
+than not to believe I should have been friends with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span>
+her again, and the like; and that, in short, I had
+lost the best servant by my rashness that ever woman
+had.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," says he, "if that be all your grief, I
+hope you will soon shake it off; I'll warrant you in a
+little while we shall hear of Mrs. Amy again." And
+so it went off for that time. But it did not go off
+with me; for I was uneasy and terrified to the last
+degree, and wanted to get some farther account of
+the thing. So I went away to my sure and certain
+comforter, the Quaker, and there I had the whole
+story of it; and the good innocent Quaker gave
+me joy of my being rid of such an unsufferable
+tormentor.</p>
+
+<p>"Rid of her! Ay," says I, "if I was rid of her
+fairly and honourably; but I don't know what Amy
+may have done. Sure, she ha'n't made her away?"
+"Oh fie!" says my Quaker; "how canst thou entertain
+such a notion! No, no. Made her away?
+Amy didn't talk like that; I dare say thou may'st
+be easy in that; Amy has nothing of that in her
+head, I dare say," says she; and so threw it, as it
+were, out of my thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>But it would not do; it run in my head continually;
+night and day I could think of nothing
+else; and it fixed such a horror of the fact upon
+my spirits, and such a detestation of Amy, who I
+looked upon as the murderer, that, as for her, I
+believe if I could have seen her I should certainly
+have sent her to Newgate, or to a worse place, upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span>
+suspicion; indeed, I think I could have killed her
+with my own hands.</p>
+
+<p>As for the poor girl herself, she was ever before
+my eyes; I saw her by night and by day; she
+haunted my imagination, if she did not haunt the
+house; my fancy showed me her in a hundred shapes
+and postures; sleeping or waking, she was with me.
+Sometimes I thought I saw her with her throat cut;
+sometimes with her head cut, and her brains knocked
+out; other times hanged up upon a beam; another
+time drowned in the great pond at Camberwell.
+And all these appearances were terrifying to the
+last degree; and that which was still worse, I could
+really hear nothing of her; I sent to the captain's
+wife in Redriff, and she answered me, she was gone
+to her relations in Spitalfields. I sent thither, and
+they said she was there about three weeks ago, but
+that she went out in a coach with the gentlewoman
+that used to be so kind to her, but whither she was
+gone they knew not, for she had not been there
+since. I sent back the messenger for a description
+of the woman she went out with; and they described
+her so perfectly, that I knew it to be Amy, and
+none but Amy.</p>
+
+<p>I sent word again that Mrs. Amy, who she went
+out with, left her in two or three hours, and that
+they should search for her, for I had a reason to fear
+she was murdered. This frighted them all intolerably.
+They believed Amy had carried her to pay
+her a sum of money, and that somebody had watched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span>
+her after her having received it, and had robbed and
+murdered her.</p>
+
+<p>I believed nothing of that part; but I believed,
+as it was, that whatever was done, Amy had done it;
+and that, in short, Amy had made her away; and
+I believed it the more, because Amy came no more
+near me, but confirmed her guilt by her absence.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the whole, I mourned thus for her for above
+a month; but finding Amy still come not near me,
+and that I must put my affairs in a posture that
+I might go to Holland, I opened all my affairs to
+my dear trusty friend the Quaker, and placed her,
+in matters of trust, in the room of Amy; and with
+a heavy, bleeding heart for my poor girl, I embarked
+with my spouse, and all our equipage and goods,
+on board another Holland's trader, not a packet-boat,
+and went over to Holland, where I arrived,
+as I have said.</p>
+
+<p>I must put in a caution, however, here, that you
+must not understand me as if I let my friend the
+Quaker into any part of the secret history of my
+former life; nor did I commit the grand reserved
+article of all to her, viz., that I was really the girl's
+mother, and the Lady Roxana; there was no need
+of that part being exposed; and it was always a
+maxim with me, that secrets should never be opened
+without evident utility. It could be of no manner
+of use to me or her to communicate that part to
+her; besides, she was too honest herself to make it
+safe to me; for though she loved me very sincerely,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span>
+and it was plain by many circumstances that she did
+so, yet she would not lie for me upon occasion, as
+Amy would, and therefore it was not advisable on
+any terms to communicate that part; for if the girl,
+or any one else, should have come to her afterwards,
+and put it home to her, whether she knew that I was
+the girl's mother or not, or was the same as the
+Lady Roxana or not, she either would not have
+denied it, or would have done it with so ill a grace,
+such blushing, such hesitations and falterings in her
+answers, as would have put the matter out of doubt,
+and betrayed herself and the secret too.</p>
+
+<p>For this reason, I say, I did not discover anything
+of that kind to her; but I placed her, as I have said,
+in Amy's stead in the other affairs of receiving money,
+interests, rents, and the like, and she was as faithful
+as Amy could be, and as diligent.</p>
+
+<p>But there fell out a great difficulty here, which I
+knew not how to get over; and this was how to convey
+the usual supply of provision and money to the
+uncle and the other sister, who depended, especially
+the sister, upon the said supply for her support; and
+indeed, though Amy had said rashly that she would
+not take any more notice of the sister, and would
+leave her to perish, as above, yet it was neither in my
+nature, or Amy's either, much less was it in my design;
+and therefore I resolved to leave the management
+of what I had reserved for that work with my
+faithful Quaker, but how to direct her to manage
+them was the great difficulty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Amy had told them in so many words that she was
+not their mother, but that she was the maid Amy,
+that carried them to their aunt's; that she and their
+mother went over to the East Indies to seek their fortune,
+and that there good things had befallen them,
+and that their mother was very rich and happy;
+that she (Amy) had married in the Indies, but being
+now a widow, and resolving to come over to England,
+their mother had obliged her to inquire them out,
+and do for them as she had done; and that now she
+was resolved to go back to the Indies again; but that
+she had orders from their mother to do very handsomely
+by them; and, in a word, told them she had
+&pound;2000 apiece for them, upon condition that they
+proved sober, and married suitably to themselves,
+and did not throw themselves away upon scoundrels.</p>
+
+<p>The good family in whose care they had been, I
+had resolved to take more than ordinary notice of;
+and Amy, by my order, had acquainted them with
+it, and obliged my daughters to promise to submit
+to their government, as formerly, and to be ruled by
+the honest man as by a father and counsellor; and
+engaged him to treat them as his children. And to
+oblige him effectually to take care of them, and to
+make his old age comfortable both to him and his
+wife, who had been so good to the orphans, I had
+ordered her to settle the other &pound;2000, that is to say,
+the interest of it, which was &pound;120 a year, upon them,
+to be theirs for both their lives, but to come to my
+two daughters after them. This was so just, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span>
+was so prudently managed by Amy, that nothing she
+ever did for me pleased me better. And in this posture,
+leaving my two daughters with their ancient
+friend, and so coming away to me (as they thought
+to the East Indies), she had prepared everything in
+order to her going over with me to Holland; and in
+this posture that matter stood when that unhappy
+girl, who I have said so much of, broke in upon all
+our measures, as you have heard, and, by an obstinacy
+never to be conquered or pacified, either with threats
+or persuasions, pursued her search after me (her
+mother) as I have said, till she brought me even to
+the brink of destruction; and would, in all probability,
+have traced me out at last, if Amy had not,
+by the violence of her passion, and by a way which I
+had no knowledge of, and indeed abhorred, put a
+stop to her, of which I cannot enter into the particulars
+here.</p>
+
+<p>However, notwithstanding this, I could not think
+of going away and leaving this work so unfinished as
+Amy had threatened to do, and for the folly of one
+child to leave the other to starve, or to stop my
+determined bounty to the good family I have mentioned.
+So, in a word, I committed the finishing
+it all to my faithful friend the Quaker, to whom I
+communicated as much of the whole story as was
+needful to empower her to perform what Amy had
+promised, and to make her talk so much to the purpose,
+as one employed more remotely than Amy had
+been, needed to be.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To this purpose she had, first of all, a full possession
+of the money; and went first to the honest man
+and his wife, and settled all the matter with them;
+when she talked of Mrs. Amy, she talked of her as
+one that had been empowered by the mother of the
+girls in the Indies, but was obliged to go back to
+the Indies, and had settled all sooner if she had not
+been hindered by the obstinate humour of the other
+daughter; that she had left instructions with her for
+the rest; but that the other had affronted her so
+much that she was gone away without doing anything
+for her; and that now, if anything was done, it must
+be by fresh orders from the East Indies.</p>
+
+<p>I need not say how punctually my new agent
+acted; but, which was more, she brought the old
+man and his wife, and my other daughter, several
+times to her house, by which I had an opportunity,
+being there only as a lodger, and a stranger, to see
+my other girl, which I had never done before, since
+she was a little child.</p>
+
+<p>The day I contrived to see them I was dressed up
+in a Quaker's habit, and looked so like a Quaker, that
+it was impossible for them, who had never seen me
+before, to suppose I had ever been anything else; also
+my way of talking was suitable enough to it, for I
+had learned that long before.</p>
+
+<p>I have not time here to take notice what a surprise
+it was to me to see my child; how it worked upon
+my affections; with what infinite struggle I mastered
+a strong inclination that I had to discover myself to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span>
+her; how the girl was the very counterpart of myself,
+only much handsomer; and how sweetly and
+modestly she behaved; how, on that occasion, I
+resolved to do more for her than I had appointed by
+Amy, and the like.</p>
+
+<p>It is enough to mention here, that as the settling
+this affair made way for my going on board, notwithstanding
+the absence of my old agent Amy, so,
+however, I left some hints for Amy too, for I did
+not yet despair of my hearing from her; and that
+if my good Quaker should ever see her again, she
+should let her see them; wherein, particularly,
+ordering her to leave the affair of Spitalfields just
+as I had done, in the hands of my friend, she
+should come away to me; upon this condition, nevertheless,
+that she gave full satisfaction to my friend
+the Quaker that she had not murdered my child;
+for if she had, I told her I would never see her
+face more. However, notwithstanding this, she came
+over afterwards, without giving my friend any of that
+satisfaction, or any account that she intended to
+come over.</p>
+
+<p>I can say no more now, but that, as above, being
+arrived in Holland, with my spouse and his son,
+formerly mentioned, I appeared there with all the
+splendour and equipage suitable to our new prospect,
+as I have already observed.</p>
+
+<p>Here, after some few years of flourishing and outwardly
+happy circumstances, I fell into a dreadful
+course of calamities, and Amy also; the very reverse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span>
+of our former good days. The blast of Heaven
+seemed to follow the injury done the poor girl by us
+both, and I was brought so low again, that my repentance
+seemed to be only the consequence of my
+misery, as my misery was of my crime.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTINUATION" id="CONTINUATION"></a>CONTINUATION</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>From the 1745 Edition</i>)</p>
+
+
+<p>In resolving to go to Holland with my husband,
+and take possession of the title of countess as
+soon as possible, I had a view of deceiving
+my daughter, were she yet alive, and seeking
+me out; for it seldom happens that a nobleman, or
+his lady, are called by their surnames, and as she
+was a stranger to our noble title, might have inquired
+at our next door neighbours for Mr. &mdash;&mdash;,
+the Dutch merchant, and not have been one jot
+the wiser for her inquiry. So one evening, soon
+after this resolution, as I and my husband were sitting
+together when supper was over, and talking of
+several various scenes in life, I told him that, as
+there was no likelihood of my being with child, as I
+had some reason to suspect I was some time before,
+I was ready to go with him to any part of the world,
+whenever he pleased. I said, that great part of my
+things were packed up, and what was not would not
+be long about, and that I had little occasion to buy
+any more clothes, linen, or jewels, whilst I was in
+England, having a large quantity of the richest and
+best of everything by me already. On saying these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span>
+words, he took me in his arms, and told me that he
+looked on what I had now spoken with so great
+an emphasis, to be my settled resolution, and the
+fault should not lie on his side if it miscarried being
+put in practice.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning he went out to see some merchants,
+who had received advice of the arrival of
+some shipping which had been in great danger at
+sea, and whose insurance had run very high; and it
+was this interval that gave me an opportunity of my
+coming to a final resolution. I now told the Quaker,
+as she was sitting at work in her parlour, that we
+should very speedily leave her, and although she
+daily expected it, yet she was really sorry to hear
+that we had come to a full determination; she said
+abundance of fine things to me on the happiness of
+the life I did then, and was going to live; believing,
+I suppose, that a countess could not have a foul
+conscience; but at that very instant, I would have,
+had it been in my power, resigned husband, estate,
+title, and all the blessings she fancied I had in the
+world, only for her real virtue, and the sweet peace of
+mind, joined to a loving company of children, which
+she really possessed.</p>
+
+<p>When my husband returned, he asked me at
+dinner if I persevered in my resolution of leaving
+England; to which I answered in the affirmative.
+"Well," says he, "as all my affairs will not take up
+a week's time to settle, I will be ready to go from
+London with you in ten days' time." We fixed upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span>
+no particular place or abode, but in general concluded
+to go to Dover, cross the Channel to Calais,
+and proceed from thence by easy journeys to Paris,
+where after staying about a week, we intended to go
+through part of France, the Austrian Netherlands,
+and so on to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, or the Hague,
+as we were to settle before we went from Paris. As
+my husband did not care to venture all our fortune
+in one bottom, so our goods, money, and plate were
+consigned to several merchants, who had been his
+intimates many years, and he took notes of a prodigious
+value in his pocket, besides what he gave me to
+take care of during our journey. The last thing to
+be considered was, how we should go ourselves, and
+what equipage we should take with us; my thoughts
+were wholly taken up about it some time; I knew I
+was going to be a countess, and did not care to
+appear anything mean before I came to that honour;
+but, on the other hand, if I left London in any public
+way, I might possibly hear of inquiries after me
+in the road, that I had been acquainted with before.
+At last I said we would discharge all our servants,
+except two footmen, who should travel with us to
+Dover, and one maid to wait on me, that had lived
+with me only since the retreat of Amy, and she was
+to go through, if she was willing; and as to the
+carriage of us, a coach should be hired for my husband,
+myself, and maid, and two horses were to be
+hired for the footmen, who were to return with
+them to London.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When the Quaker had heard when and how we intended
+to go, she begged, as there would be a spare
+seat in the coach, to accompany us as far as Dover,
+which we both readily consented to; no woman could
+be a better companion, neither was there any acquaintance
+that we loved better, or could show more
+respect to us.</p>
+
+<p>The morning before we set out, my husband sent
+for a master coachman to know the price of a handsome
+coach, with six able horses, to go to Dover. He
+inquired how many days we intended to be on the
+journey? My husband said he would go but very
+easy, and chose to be three days on the road; that
+they should stay there two days, and be three more
+returning to London, with a gentlewoman (meaning
+the Quaker) in it. The coachman said it would be
+an eight days' journey, and he would have ten
+guineas for it. My husband consented to pay him
+his demand, and he received orders to be ready at
+the door by seven of the clock the next morning:
+I was quite prepared to go, having no person to
+take leave of but the Quaker, and she had desired
+to see us take the packet-boat at Dover, before we
+parted with her; and the last night of my stay in
+London was spent very agreeably with the Quaker
+and her family. My husband, who stayed out later
+than usual, in taking his farewell of several merchants
+of his acquaintance, came home about eleven
+o'clock, and drank a glass or two of wine with us
+before we went to bed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The next morning, the whole family got up about
+five o'clock, and I, with my husband's consent, made
+each of the Quaker's daughters a present of a diamond
+ring, valued at &pound;20, and a guinea apiece to all the
+servants, without exception. We all breakfasted together,
+and at the hour appointed, the coach and
+attendants came to the door; this drew several people
+about it, who were all very inquisitive to know who
+was going into the country, and what is never forgot
+on such occasions, all the beggars in the neighbourhood
+were prepared to give us their benedictions in
+hopes of an alms. When the coachmen had packed
+up what boxes were designed for our use, we, namely,
+my husband, the Quaker, myself, and the waiting-maid,
+all got into the coach, the footmen were
+mounted on horses behind, and in this manner
+the coach, after I had given a guinea to one of
+the Quaker's daughters equally to divide among the
+beggars at the door, drove away from the house, and
+I took leave of my lodging in the Minories, as well
+as of London.</p>
+
+<p>At St. George's Church, Southwark, we were met
+by three gentlemen on horseback, who were merchants
+of my husband's acquaintance, and had come out on
+purpose, to go half a day's journey with us; and as
+they kept talking to us at the coach side, we went a
+good pace, and were very merry together; we stopped
+at the best house of entertainment on Shooter's Hill.</p>
+
+<p>Here we stopped for about an hour, and drank
+some wine, and my husband, whose chief study was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span>
+how to please and divert me, caused me to alight out
+of the coach; which the gentlemen who accompanied
+us observing, alighted also. The waiter showed us
+upstairs into a large room, whose window opened to
+our view a fine prospect of the river Thames, which
+here, they say, forms one of the most beautiful
+meanders. It was within an hour of high water, and
+such a number of ships coming in under sail quite
+astonished as well as delighted me, insomuch that I
+could not help breaking out into such-like expressions,
+"My dear, what a fine sight this is; I never
+saw the like before! Pray will they get to London
+this tide?" At which the good-natured gentleman
+smiled, and said, "Yes, my dear; why, there is
+London, and as the wind is quite fair for them,
+some of them will come to an anchor in about half-an-hour,
+and all within an hour."</p>
+
+<p>I was so taken up with looking down the river
+that, till my husband spoke, I had not once looked
+up the river; but when I did, and saw London, the
+Monument, the cathedral church of St. Paul, and the
+steeples belonging to the several parish churches, I
+was transported into an ecstasy, and could not refrain
+from saying, "Sure that cannot be the place we are
+now just come from, it must be further off, for that
+looks to be scarce three miles off, and we have been
+three hours, by my watch, coming from our lodgings
+in the Minories! No, no, it is not London, it is
+some other place!"</p>
+
+<p>Upon which one of the gentlemen present offered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span>
+to convince me that the place I saw was London if I
+would go up to the top of the house, and view it
+from the turret. I accepted the offer, and I, my
+husband, and the three gentlemen were conducted by
+the master of the house upstairs into the turret. If
+I was delighted before with my prospect, I was now
+ravished, for I was elevated above the room I was in
+before upwards of thirty feet. I seemed a little
+dizzy, for the turret being a lantern, and giving light
+all ways, for some time I thought myself suspended
+in the air; but sitting down, and having eat a
+mouthful of biscuit and drank a glass of sack, I
+soon recovered, and then the gentleman who had
+undertaken to convince me that the place I was
+shown was really London, thus began, after having
+drawn aside one of the windows.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, my lady," says the gentleman, "the
+greatest, the finest, the richest, and the most populous
+city in the world, at least in Europe, as I can assure
+your ladyship, upon my own knowledge, it deserves
+the character I have given it." "But this, sir, will
+never convince me that the place you now show me
+is London, though I have before heard that London
+deserves the character you have with so much cordiality
+bestowed upon it. And this I can testify,
+that London, in every particular you have mentioned,
+greatly surpasses Paris, which is allowed by all historians
+and travellers to be the second city in
+Europe."</p>
+
+<p>Here the gentleman, pulling out his pocket-glass,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span>
+desired me to look through it, which I did; and then
+he directed me to look full at St. Paul's, and to make
+that the centre of my future observation, and thereupon
+he promised me conviction.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst I took my observation, I sat in a high
+chair, made for that purpose, with a convenience
+before you to hold the glass. I soon found the
+cathedral, and then I could not help saying I have
+been several times up to the stone gallery, but not
+quite so often up to the iron gallery. Then I brought
+my eye to the Monument, and was obliged to confess
+I knew it to be such. The gentleman then
+moved the glass and desired me to look, which doing,
+I said, "I think I see Whitehall and St. James's
+Park, and I see also two great buildings like barns,
+but I do not know what they are." "Oh," says the
+gentleman, "they are the Parliament House and
+Westminster Abbey." "They may be so," said I;
+and continuing looking, I perceived the very house at
+Kensington which I had lived in some time; but of
+that I took no notice, yet I found my colour come,
+to think what a life of gaiety and wickedness I had
+lived. The gentleman, perceiving my disorder, said,
+"I am afraid I have tired your ladyship; I will
+make but one remove, more easterly, and then I believe
+you will allow the place we see to be London."</p>
+
+<p>He might have saved himself the trouble, for I
+was thoroughly convinced of my error; but to give
+myself time to recover, and to hide my confusion, I
+seemed not yet to be quite convinced. I looked,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span>
+and the first object that presented itself was Aldgate
+Church, which, though I confess to my shame, I seldom
+saw the inside of it, yet I was well acquainted
+with the outside, for many times my friend the Quaker
+and I had passed and repassed by it when we used
+to go in the coach to take an airing. I saw the
+church, or the steeple of the church, so plain, and
+knew it so well, that I could not help saying, with
+some earnestness, "My dear, I see our church; the
+church, I mean, belonging to our neighbourhood; I
+am sure it is Aldgate Church." Then I saw the
+Tower, and all the shipping; and, taking my eye
+from the glass, I thanked the gentleman for the
+trouble I had given him, and said to him that I was
+fully convinced that the place I saw was London,
+and that it was the very place we came from that
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>When we came to Sittingbourne, our servant soon
+brought us word that although we were at the best
+inn in the town, yet there was nothing in the larder
+fit for our dinner. The landlord came in after him
+and began to make excuses for his empty cupboard.
+He told us, withal, that if we would please to stay,
+he would kill a calf, a sheep, a hog, or anything we
+had a fancy to. We ordered him to kill a pig and
+some pigeons, which, with a dish of fish, a cherry
+pie, and some pastry, made up a tolerable dinner.
+We made up two pounds ten shillings, for we caused
+the landlord, his wife, and two daughters, to dine
+with us, and help us off with our wine. Our land<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span>lady
+and her two daughters, with a glass or two
+given to the cook, managed two bottles of white
+wine. This operated so strong upon one of the
+young wenches that, my spouse being gone out into
+the yard, her tongue began to run; and, looking at
+me, she says to her mother, "La! mother, how
+much like the lady her ladyship is" (speaking of me),
+"the young woman who lodged here the other night,
+and stayed here part of the next day, and then set
+forward for Canterbury, described. The lady is the
+same person, I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>This greatly alarmed me, and made me very
+uneasy, for I concluded this young woman could be
+no other than my daughter, who was resolved to
+find me out, whether I would or no. I desired the
+girl to describe the young woman she mentioned,
+which she did, and I was convinced it was my own
+daughter. I asked in what manner she travelled,
+and whether she had any company. I was answered
+that she was on foot, and that she had no company;
+but that she always travelled from place to place in
+company; that her method was, when she came into
+any town, to go to the best inns and inquire for the
+lady she sought; and then, when she had satisfied
+herself that the lady, whom she called her mother,
+was not to be found in that town or neighbourhood,
+she then begged the favour of the landlady of the
+inn where she was, to put her into such a company
+that she knew that she might go safe to the next
+town; that this was the manner of her proceeding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span>
+at her house, and she believed she had practised it
+ever since she set out from London; and she hoped
+to meet with her mother, as she called her, upon the
+road.</p>
+
+<p>I asked my landlady whether she described our
+coach and equipage, but she said the young woman
+did not inquire concerning equipage, but only described
+a lady "so like your ladyship, that I have
+often, since I saw your ladyship, took you to be the
+very person she was looking for."</p>
+
+<p>Amidst the distractions of my mind, this afforded
+me some comfort, that my daughter was not in the
+least acquainted with the manner in which we travelled.
+My husband and the landlord returned, and
+that put an end to the discourse.</p>
+
+<p>I left this town with a heavy heart, feeling my
+daughter would infallibly find me out at Canterbury;
+but, as good luck would have it, she had left that
+city before we came thither, some time. I was very
+short in one thing, that I had not asked my landlady
+at Sittingbourne how long it was since my daughter
+was there. But when I came to Canterbury I was a
+very anxious and indefatigable in inquiring after my
+daughter, and I found that she had been at the inn
+where we then were, and had inquired for me, as I
+found by the description the people gave of myself.</p>
+
+<p>Here I learnt my daughter had left Canterbury a
+week. This pleased me; and I was determined to
+stay in Canterbury one day, to view the cathedral,
+and see the antiquities of this metropolis.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As we had sixteen miles to our journey's end that
+night, for it was near four o'clock before we got into
+our coach again, the coachman drove with great
+speed, and at dusk in the evening we entered the
+west gate of the city, and put up at an inn in High
+Street (near St. Mary Bredman's church), which
+generally was filled with the best of company. The
+anxiety of my mind, on finding myself pursued by
+this girl, and the fatigue of my journey, had made
+me much out of order, my head ached, and I had no
+stomach.</p>
+
+<p>This made my husband (but he knew not the real
+occasion of my illness) and the Quaker very uneasy,
+and they did all in their power to persuade me to
+eat anything I could fancy.</p>
+
+<p>At length the landlady of the inn, who perceived
+I was more disturbed in my mind than sick, advised
+me to eat one poached egg, drink a glass of sack, eat
+a toast, and go to bed, and she warranted, she said,
+I should be well by the morning. This was immediately
+done; and I must acknowledge, that the sack
+and toast cheered me wonderfully, and I began to
+take heart again; and my husband would have the
+coachman in after supper, on purpose to divert me
+and the honest Quaker, who, poor creature, seemed
+much more concerned at my misfortune than I was
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>I went soon to bed, but for fear I should be worse
+in the night, two maids of the inn were ordered to
+sit up in an adjoining chamber; the Quaker and my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span>
+waiting-maid lay in a bed in the same room, and my
+husband by himself in another apartment.</p>
+
+<p>While my maid was gone down on some necessary
+business, and likewise to get me some burnt wine,
+which I was to drink going to bed, or rather when I
+was just got into bed, the Quaker and I had the
+following dialogue:</p>
+
+<p><i>Quaker.</i> The news thou heardest at Sittingbourne
+has disordered thee. I am glad the young woman
+has been out of this place a week; she went indeed
+for Dover; and when she comes there and
+canst not find thee, she may go to Deal, and so miss
+of thee.</p>
+
+<p><i>Roxana.</i> What I most depend upon is, that as we
+do not travel by any particular name, but the general
+one of the baronet and his lady, and the girl
+hath no notion what sort of equipage we travelled
+with, it was not easy to make a discovery of me, unless
+she accidentally, in her travels, light upon you
+(meaning the Quaker), or upon me; either of which
+must unavoidably blow the secret I had so long
+laboured to conceal.</p>
+
+<p><i>Quaker.</i> As thou intendest to stay here to-morrow,
+to see the things which thou callest antiquities, and
+which are more properly named the relics of the
+Whore of Babylon; suppose thou wert to send
+Thomas, who at thy command followeth after us, to
+the place called Dover, to inquire whether such a
+young woman has been inquiring for thee. He may
+go out betimes in the morning, and may return by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span>
+night, for it is but twelve or fourteen miles at farthest
+thither.</p>
+
+<p><i>Roxana.</i> I like thy scheme very well; and I beg
+the favour of you in the morning, as soon as you are
+up, to send Tom to Dover, with such instructions as
+you shall think proper.</p>
+
+<p>After a good night's repose I was well recovered,
+to the great satisfaction of all that were with me.</p>
+
+<p>The good-natured Quaker, always studious to serve
+and oblige me, got up about five o'clock in the morning,
+and going down into the inn-yard, met with Tom,
+gave him his instructions, and he set out for Dover
+before six o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>As we were at the best inn in the city, so we could
+readily have whatever we pleased, and whatever the
+season afforded; but my husband, the most indulgent
+man that ever breathed, having observed how
+heartily I ate my dinner at Rochester two days
+before, ordered the very same bill of fare, and of
+which I made a heartier meal than I did before.
+We were very merry, and after we had dined, we
+went to see the town-house, but as it was near five
+o'clock I left the Quaker behind me, to receive what
+intelligence she could get concerning my daughter,
+from the footman, who was expected to return from
+Dover at six.</p>
+
+<p>We came to the inn just as it was dark, and then
+excusing myself to my husband, I immediately ran up
+into my chamber, where I had appointed the Quaker
+to be against my return. I ran to her with eager<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span>ness,
+and inquired what news from Dover, by Tom,
+the footman.</p>
+
+<p>She said, Tom had been returned two hours; that
+he got to Dover that morning between seven and
+eight, and found, at the inn he put up at, there had
+been an inquisitive young woman to find out a
+gentleman that was a Dutch merchant, and a lady
+who was her mother; that the young woman perfectly
+well described his lady; that he found that
+she had visited every public inn in the town; that
+she said she would go to Deal, and that if she did
+not find the lady, her mother, there, she would go
+by the first ship to the Hague, and go from thence, to
+Amsterdam and Rotterdam, searching all the towns
+through which she passed in the United Provinces.</p>
+
+<p>This account pleased me very well, especially when
+I understood that she had been gone from Dover
+five days. The Quaker comforted me, and said it
+was lucky this busy creature had passed the road
+before us, otherwise she might easily have found
+means to have overtaken us, for, as she observed, the
+wench had such an artful way of telling her story,
+that she moved everybody to compassion; and she
+did not doubt but that if we had been before, as we
+were behind, she would have got those who would
+have assisted her with a coach, &amp;c., to have pursued
+us, and they might have come up with us.</p>
+
+<p>I was of the honest Quaker's sentiments. I grew
+pretty easy, called Tom, and gave him half a guinea
+for his diligence; then I and the Quaker went into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span>
+the parlour to my husband, and soon after supper
+came in, and I ate moderately, and we spent the
+remainder of the evening, for the clock had then
+tolled nine, very cheerfully; for my Quaker was so
+rejoiced at my good fortune, as she called it, that
+she was very alert, and exceeding good company;
+and her wit, and she had no small share of it, I
+thought was better played off than ever I had heard
+it before.</p>
+
+<p>My husband asked me how I should choose to go on
+board; I desired him to settle it as he pleased, telling
+him it was a matter of very great indifference to
+me, as he was to go with me. "That may be true,
+my dear," says he, "but I ask you for a reason or
+two, which I will lay before you, viz., if we hire a
+vessel for ourselves, we may set sail when we please,
+have the liberty of every part of the ship to ourselves,
+and land at what port, either in Holland or
+France, we might make choice of. Besides," added
+he, "another reason I mention it to you is, that I
+know you do not love much company, which, in
+going into the packet-boat, it is almost impossible to
+avoid." "I own, my dear," said I, "your reasons
+are very good; I have but one thing to say against
+them, which is, that the packet-boat, by its frequent
+voyages, must of course be furnished with experienced
+seamen, who know the seas too well even to run any
+hazard." (At this juncture the terrible voyage I
+and Amy made from France to Harwich came so
+strong in my mind, that I trembled so as to be taken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span>
+notice of by my husband.) "Besides," added I,
+"the landlord may send the master of one of them
+to you, and I think it may be best to hire the state
+cabin, as they call it, to ourselves, by which method
+we shall avoid company, without we have an inclination
+to associate ourselves with such passengers we
+may happen to like; and the expense will be much
+cheaper than hiring a vessel to go the voyage with
+us alone, and every whit as safe."</p>
+
+<p>The Quaker, who had seriously listened to our
+discourse, gave it as her opinion that the method I
+had proposed was by far the safest, quickest, and
+cheapest. "Not," said she, "as I think thou wouldest
+be against any necessary expense, though I am certain
+thou wouldest not fling thy money away."</p>
+
+<p>Soon after, my husband ordered the landlord to
+send for one of the masters of the packet-boats, of
+whom he hired the great cabin, and agreed to sail
+from thence the next day, if the wind and the tide
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>The settling our method of going over sea had
+taken up the time till the dinner was ready, which
+we being informed of, came out of a chamber we
+had been in all the morning, to a handsome parlour,
+where everything was placed suitable to our rank;
+there was a large, old-fashioned service of plate, and
+a sideboard genteelly set off. The dinner was excellent,
+and well dressed.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner, we entered into another discourse,
+which was the hiring of servants to go with us from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span>
+Dover to Paris; a thing frequently done by travellers;
+and such are to be met with at every stage inn.
+Our footmen set out this morning on their return to
+London, and the Quaker and coach was to go the
+next day. My new chambermaid, whose name was
+Isabel, was to go through the journey, on condition
+of doing no other business than waiting on me. In
+a while we partly concluded to let the hiring of men-servants
+alone till we came to Calais, for they could
+be of no use to us on board a ship, the sailor's or
+cabin boy's place being to attend the cabin passengers
+as well as his master.</p>
+
+<p>To divert ourselves, we took a walk after we had
+dined, round about the town, and coming to the garrison,
+and being somewhat thirsty, all went into the
+sutler's for a glass of wine. A pint was called for
+and brought; but the man of the house came in
+with it raving like a madman, saying, "Don't you
+think you are a villain, to ask for a pot of ale when
+I know you have spent all your money, and are ignorant
+of the means of getting more, without you hear
+of a place, which I look upon to be very unlikely?"
+"Don't be in such a passion, landlord," said my husband.
+"Pray, what is the matter?" "Oh, nothing,
+sir," says he; "but a young fellow in the sutling
+room, whom I find to have been a gentleman's servant,
+wants a place; and having spent all his money,
+would willingly run up a score with me, knowing I
+must get him a master if ever I intend to have my
+money." "Pray, sir," said my husband, "send the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span>
+young fellow to me; if I like him, and can agree
+with him, it is possible I may take him into my service."
+The landlord took care we should not speak
+to him twice, he went and fetched him in himself,
+and my husband examined him before he spoke, as
+to his size, mien, and garb. The young man was
+clean dressed, of a middling stature, a dark complexion,
+and about twenty-seven years old.</p>
+
+<p>"I hear, young man," says he to him, "that you
+want a place; it may perhaps be in my power to serve
+you. Let me know at once what education you have
+had, if you have any family belonging to you, or if
+you are fit for a gentleman's service, can bring any
+person of reputation to your character, and are willing
+to go and live in Holland with me: we will not
+differ about your wages."</p>
+
+<p>The young fellow made a respectful bow to each of
+us, and addressed himself to my husband as follows:
+"Sir," said he, "in me you behold the eldest child of
+misfortune. I am but young, as you may see; I
+have no comers after me, and having lived with several
+gentlemen, some of whom are on their travels,
+others settled in divers parts of the world, besides
+what are dead, makes me unable to produce a character
+without a week's notice to write to London,
+and I should not doubt but by the return of the post
+to let you see some letters as would satisfy you in
+any doubts about me. My education," continued he,
+"is but very middling, being taken from school before
+I had well learnt to read, write, and cast accounts;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span>
+and as to my parentage, I cannot well give you any
+account of them: all that I know is, that my father
+was a brewer, and by his extravagance ran out a
+handsome fortune, and afterwards left my poor
+mother almost penniless, with five small children,
+of which I was the second, though not above five
+years old. My mother knew not what to do with
+us, so she sent a poor girl, our maid, whose name I
+have forgot this many years, with us all to a relation's,
+and there left us, and I never saw or heard of or
+from them any more. Indeed, I inquired among the
+neighbours, and all that I could learn was that my
+mother's goods were seized, that she was obliged to
+apply to the parish for relief, and died of grief soon
+after. For my part," says he, "I was put into the
+hands of my father's sister, where, by her cruel usage,
+I was forced to run away at nine years of age; and
+the numerous scenes of life I have since gone through
+are more than would fill a small volume. Pray, sir,"
+added he, "let it satisfy you that I am thoroughly
+honest, and should be glad to serve you at any rate;
+and although I cannot possibly get a good character
+from anybody at present, yet I defy the whole world
+to give me an ill one, either in public or private
+life."</p>
+
+<p>If I had had the eyes of Argus I should have seen
+with them all on this occasion. I knew that this
+was my son, and one that, among all my inquiry, I
+could never get any account of. The Quaker seeing
+my colour come and go, and also tremble, said, "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span>
+verily believe thou art not well; I hope this Kentish
+air, which was always reckoned aguish, does not hurt
+thee?" "I am taken very sick of a sudden," said
+I; "so pray let me go to our inn that I may go to
+my chamber." Isabel being called in, she and the
+Quaker attended me there, leaving the young fellow
+with my spouse. When I was got into my chamber
+I was seized with such a grief as I had never known
+before; and flinging myself down upon the bed,
+burst into a flood of tears, and soon after fainted
+away. Soon after, I came a little to myself, and the
+Quaker begged of me to tell her what was the cause
+of my sudden indisposition. "Nothing at all," says
+I, "as I know of; but a sudden chilliness seized my
+blood, and that, joined to a fainting of the spirits,
+made me ready to sink."</p>
+
+<p>Presently after my husband came to see how I did,
+and finding me somewhat better, he told me that he
+had a mind to hire the young man I had left him
+with, for he believed he was honest and fit for our
+service. "My dear," says I, "I did not mind him.
+I would desire you to be cautious who we pick up on
+the road; but as I have the satisfaction of hiring
+my maids, I shall never trouble myself with the men-servants,
+that is wholly your province. However,"
+added I (for I was very certain he was my son, and
+was resolved to have him in my service, though it
+was my interest to keep my husband off, in order to
+bring him on), "if you like the fellow, I am not
+averse to your hiring one servant in England. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span>
+are not obliged to trust him with much before we
+see his conduct, and if he does not prove as you may
+expect, you may turn him off whenever you please."
+"I believe," said my husband, "he has been ingenuous
+in his relation to me; and as a man who has seen
+great variety of life, and may have been the shuttlecock
+of fortune, the butt of envy, and the mark of
+malice, I will hire him when he comes to me here
+anon, as I have ordered him."</p>
+
+<p>As I knew he was to be hired, I resolved to be out
+of the way when he came to my husband; so about
+five o'clock I proposed to the Quaker to take a walk
+on the pier and see the shipping, while the tea-kettle
+was boiling. We went, and took Isabel with us, and
+as we were going along I saw my son Thomas (as I
+shall for the future call him) going to our inn; so
+we stayed out about an hour, and when we returned
+my husband told me he had hired the man, and that
+he was to come to him as a servant on the morrow
+morning. "Pray, my dear," said I, "did you ask
+where he ever lived, or what his name is?" "Yes,"
+replied my husband, "he says his name is Thomas &mdash;&mdash;; and
+as to places, he has mentioned several
+families of note, and among others, he lived at my
+Lord &mdash;&mdash;'s, next door to the great French lady's in
+Pall Mall, whose name he tells me was Roxana."
+I was now in a sad dilemma, and was fearful I
+should be known by my own son; and the Quaker
+took notice of it, and afterwards told me she believed
+fortune had conspired that all the people I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span>
+became acquainted with, should have known the
+Lady Roxana. "I warrant," said she, "this young
+fellow is somewhat acquainted with the impertinent
+wench that calls herself thy daughter."</p>
+
+<p>I was very uneasy in mind, but had one thing in
+my favour, which was always to keep myself at a
+very great distance from my servants; and as the
+Quaker was to part with us the next day or night,
+he would have nobody to mention the name Roxana
+to, and so of course it would drop.</p>
+
+<p>We supped pretty late at night, and were very
+merry, for my husband said all the pleasant things
+he could think of, to divert me from the supposed
+illness he thought I had been troubled with in the
+day. The Quaker kept up the discourse with great
+spirit, and I was glad to receive the impression, for
+I wanted the real illness to be drove out of my
+head.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, after breakfast, Thomas came
+to his new place. He appeared very clean, and
+brought with him a small bundle, which I supposed
+to be linen tied up in a handkerchief. My husband
+sent him to order some porters belonging to the quay
+to fetch our boxes to the Custom-house, where they
+were searched, for which we paid one shilling; and
+he had orders to give a crown for head money, as
+they called it; their demand by custom is but sixpence
+a head, but we appeared to our circumstances
+in everything. As soon as our baggage was searched,
+it was carried from the Custom-house on board the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span>
+packet-boat, and there lodged in the great cabin as
+we had ordered it.</p>
+
+<p>This took up the time till dinner, and when we
+were sitting together after we had both dined, the
+captain came to tell us that the wind was very fair,
+and that he was to sail at high water, which would
+be about ten o'clock at night. My husband asked
+him to stay and drink part of a bottle of wine with
+him, which he did; and their discourse being all in
+the maritime strain, the Quaker and I retired and
+left them together, for I had something to remind
+her of in our discourse before we left London.
+When we got into the garden, which was rather
+neat than fine, I repeated all my former requests to
+her about my children, Spitalfields, Amy, &amp;c., and
+we sat talking together till Thomas was sent to tell
+us the captain was going, on which we returned; but,
+by the way, I kissed her and put a large gold medal
+into her hand, as a token of my sincere love, and desired
+that she would never neglect the things she had
+promised to perform, and her repeated promise gave
+me great satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>The captain, who was going out of the parlour as
+we returned in, was telling my husband he would
+send six of his hands to conduct us to the boat,
+about a quarter of an hour before he sailed, and as
+the moon was at the full, he did not doubt of a
+pleasant passage.</p>
+
+<p>Our next business was to pay off the coachman, to
+whom my husband gave half a guinea extraordinary,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span>
+to set the Quaker down at the house he took us all
+up at, which he promised to perform.</p>
+
+<p>As it was low water, we went on board to see the
+cabin that we were to go our voyage in, and the captain
+would detain us to drink a glass of the best
+punch, I think, I ever tasted.</p>
+
+<p>When we returned to the inn, we ordered supper
+to be ready by eight o'clock, that we might drink a
+parting glass to settle it, before we went on board;
+for my husband, who knew the sea very well, said a
+full stomach was the forerunner of sea-sickness,
+which I was willing to avoid.</p>
+
+<p>We invited the landlord, his wife, and daughter,
+to supper with us, and having sat about an hour
+afterwards, the captain himself, with several sailors,
+came to fetch us to the vessel. As all was paid, we
+had nothing to hinder us but taking a final leave of
+the Quaker, who would go to see us safe in the vessel,
+where tears flowed from both our eyes; and I
+turned short in the boat, while my husband took his
+farewell, and he then followed me, and I never saw
+the Quaker or England any more.</p>
+
+<p>We were no sooner on board than we hoisted sail;
+the anchors being up, and the wind fair, we cut the
+waves at a great rate, till about four o'clock in the
+morning, when a French boat came to fetch the mail
+to carry it to the post-house, and the boat cast her
+anchors, for we were a good distance from the shore,
+neither could we sail to the town till next tide, the
+present one being too far advanced in the ebb.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We might have gone on shore in the boat that
+carried the mail, but my husband was sleeping in the
+cabin when it came to the packet-boat, and I did not
+care to disturb him; however, we had an opportunity
+soon after, for my husband awaking, and two other
+boats coming up with oars to see for passengers,
+Thomas came to let us know we might go on shore,
+if we pleased. My husband paid the master of the
+packet-boat for our passage, and Thomas, with the
+sailors' assistance, got our boxes into the wherry, so
+we sailed for Calais; but before our boat came to
+touch ground, several men, whose bread I suppose it
+is, rushed into the water, without shoes or stockings,
+to carry us on shore; so having paid ten shillings for
+the wherry, we each of us was carried from the boat
+to the land by two men, and our goods brought after
+us; here was a crown to be paid, to save ourselves
+from being wet, by all which a man that is going a
+travelling may see that it is not the bare expense of
+the packet-boat that will carry him to Calais.</p>
+
+<p>It would be needless to inform the reader of all
+the ceremonies that we passed through at this place
+before we were suffered to proceed on our journey;
+however, our boxes having been searched at the
+Custom-house, my husband had them plumbed, as
+they called it, to hinder any further inquiry about
+them; and we got them all to the Silver Lion, a
+noted inn, and the post-house of this place, where
+we took a stage-coach for ourselves, and the next
+morning, having well refreshed ourselves, we all, viz.,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span>
+my husband, self, and chambermaid within the coach,
+and Thomas behind (beside which my husband hired
+two horsemen well armed, who were pretty expensive,
+to travel with us), set forward on our journey.</p>
+
+<p>We were five days on our journey from Calais to
+Paris, which we went through with much satisfaction,
+for, having fine weather and good attendance, we had
+nothing to hope for.</p>
+
+<p>When we arrived at Paris (I began to be sorry I
+had ever proposed going to it for fear of being known,
+but as we were to stay there but a few days, I was
+resolved to keep very retired), we went to a merchant's
+house of my husband's acquaintance in the Rue de la
+Bourle, near the Carmelites, in the Faubourg de St.
+Jacques.</p>
+
+<p>This being a remote part of the city, on the south
+side, and near several pleasant gardens, I thought it
+would be proper to be a little indisposed, that my husband
+might not press me to go with him to see the
+curiosities; for he could do the most needful business,
+such as going to the bankers to exchange bills, despatching
+of letters, settling affairs with merchants,
+&amp;c., without my assistance; and I had a tolerable
+plea for my conduct, such as the great fatigue of our
+journey, being among strangers, &amp;c.; so we stayed at
+Paris eight days without my going to any particular
+places, except going one day to the gardens of Luxembourg,
+another to the church of Notre Dame on the
+Isle of Paris, a third to the H&ocirc;tel Royale des
+Invalides, a fourth to the gardens of the Tuileries,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span>
+a fifth to the suburbs of St. Lawrence, to see the
+fair which was then holding there; a sixth to the
+gardens of the Louvre, a seventh to the playhouse,
+and the eighth stayed all day at home to write a
+letter to the Quaker, letting her know where I
+then was, and how soon we should go forwards in
+our journey, but did not mention where we intended
+to settle, as, indeed, we had not yet settled that
+ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>One of the days, viz., that in which I went to the
+gardens of the Tuileries, I asked Thomas several
+questions about his father, mother, and other relations,
+being resolved, notwithstanding he was my
+own son, as he did not know it, to turn him off by
+some stratagem or another, if he had any manner
+of memory of me, either as his mother, or the Lady
+Roxana. I asked him if he had any particular
+memory of his mother or father; he answered, "No,
+I scarce remember anything of either of them," said
+he, "but I have heard from several people that I
+had one brother and three sisters, though I never
+saw them all, to know them, notwithstanding I lived
+with an aunt four years; I often asked after my
+mother, and some people said she went away with
+a man, but it was allowed by most people, that best
+knew her, that she, being brought to the greatest
+distress, was carried to the workhouse belonging to
+the parish, where she died soon after with grief."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could give me more satisfaction than what
+Thomas had related; so now, I thought I would ask<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span>
+about the Lady Roxana (for he had been my next-door
+neighbour when I had that title conferred on
+me). "Pray, Thomas," said I, "did not you speak
+of a great person of quality, whose name I have
+forgot, that lived next door to my Lord &mdash;&mdash;'s when
+you was his valet? pray who was she? I suppose a
+foreigner, by the name you called her." "Really,
+my lady," replied he, "I do not know who she was;
+all I can say of her is, that she kept the greatest
+company, and was a beautiful woman, by report, but
+I never saw her; she was called the Lady Roxana,
+was a very good mistress, but her character was not
+so good as to private life as it ought to be. Though
+I once had an opportunity," continued he, "of seeing
+a fine outlandish dress she danced in before the king,
+which I took as a great favour, for the cook took me
+up when the lady was out, and she desired my lady's
+woman to show it to me."</p>
+
+<p>All this answered right, and I had nothing to do
+but to keep my Turkish dress out of the way, to be
+myself unknown to my child, for as he had never
+seen Roxana, so he knew nothing of me.</p>
+
+<p>In the interval, my husband had hired a stage-coach
+to carry us to the city of Menin, where he intended
+to go by water down the river Lys to Ghent,
+and there take coach to Isabella fort, opposite the
+city of Anvers, and cross the river to that place, and go
+from thence by land to Breda; and as he had agreed
+and settled this patrol, I was satisfied, and we set
+out next day. We went through several handsome<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span>
+towns and villages before we took water, but by
+water we went round part of the city of Courtrai,
+and several fortified towns. At Anvers we hired a
+coach to Breda, where we stayed two days to refresh
+ourselves, for we had been very much fatigued; as
+Willemstadt was situated so as to be convenient for
+our taking water for Rotterdam, we went there, and
+being shipped, had a safe and speedy voyage to that
+city.</p>
+
+<p>As we had resolved in our journey to settle at the
+Hague, we did not intend to stay any longer at Rotterdam,
+than while my husband had all our wealth
+delivered to him from the several merchants he had
+consigned it to. This business took up a month,
+during which time we lived in ready-furnished lodgings
+on the Great Quay, where all the respect was
+shown us as was due to our quality.</p>
+
+<p>Here my husband hired two more men-servants,
+and I took two maids, and turned Isabel, who was a
+well-bred, agreeable girl, into my companion; but
+that I might not be too much fatigued, my husband
+went to the Hague first, and left me, with three
+maids and Thomas, at Rotterdam, while he took a
+house, furnished it, and had everything ready for
+my reception, which was done with great expedition.
+One of his footmen came with a letter to me one
+morning, to let me know his master would come by
+the scow next day to take me home, in which he desired
+that I would prepare for my departure. I
+soon got everything ready, and the next morning, on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span>
+the arrival of the scow, I saw my husband; and we
+both, with all the servants, left the city of Rotterdam,
+and safely got to the Hague the afternoon following.</p>
+
+<p>It was now the servants had notice given them
+to call me by the name of "my lady," as the honour
+of baronetage had entitled me, and with which title
+I was pretty well satisfied, but should have been
+more so had not I yet the higher title of countess in
+view.</p>
+
+<p>I now lived in a place where I knew nobody,
+neither was I known, on which I was pretty careful
+whom I became acquainted with; our circumstances
+were very good, my husband loving, to the greatest
+degree, my servants respectful; and, in short, I lived
+the happiest life woman could enjoy, had my former
+crimes never crept into my guilty conscience.</p>
+
+<p>I was in this happy state of life when I wrote a
+letter to the Quaker, in which I gave her a direction
+where she might send to me. And about a fortnight
+after, as I was one afternoon stepping into my coach
+in order to take an airing, the postman came to our
+door with letters, one of which was directed to me,
+and as soon as I saw it was the Quaker's hand, I bid
+the coachman put up again, and went into my closet
+to read the contents, which were as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I have had occasion to write to
+thee several times since we saw each other, but as this
+is my first letter, so it shall contain all the business thou
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span>wouldst know. I got safe to London, by thy careful
+ordering of the coach, and the attendants were not at
+all wanting in their duty. When I had been at home
+a few days, thy woman, Mrs. Amy, came to see me, so
+I took her to task as thou ordered me, about murdering
+thy pretended daughter; she declared her innocence,
+but said she had procured a false evidence to swear a
+large debt against her, and by that means had put her
+into a prison, and fee'd the keepers to hinder her from
+sending any letter or message out of the prison to any
+person whatever. This, I suppose, was the reason thou
+thought she was murdered, because thou wert relieved
+from her by this base usage. However, when I heard
+of it, I checked Amy very much, but was well satisfied
+to hear she was alive. After this I did not hear from
+Amy for above a month, and in the interim (as I knew
+thou wast safe), I sent a friend of mine to pay the debt,
+and release the prisoner, which he did, but was so indiscreet
+as to let her know who was the benefactress.
+My next care was to manage thy Spitalfields business,
+which I did with much exactness. And the day that I
+received thy last letter, Amy came to me again, and I
+read as much of it to her as she was concerned in: nay,
+I entreated her to drink tea with me, and after it one
+glass of citron, in which she drank towards thy good
+health, and she told me she would come to see thee as
+soon as possible. Just as she was gone, I was reading
+thy letter again in the little parlour, and that turbulent
+creature (thy pretended daughter) came to me, as she
+said, to return thanks for the favour I had done her, so
+I accidentally laid thy letter down in the window, while
+I went to fetch her a glass of cordial, for she looked
+sadly; and before I returned I heard the street door
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span>shut, on which I went back without the liquor, not
+knowing who might have come in, but missing her, I
+thought she might be gone to stand at the door, and
+the wind had blown it to; but I was never the nearer,
+she was sought for in vain. So when I believed her to
+be quite gone, I looked to see if I missed anything,
+which I did not; but at last, to my great surprise, I
+missed your letter, which she certainly took and made
+off with. I was so terrified at this unhappy chance that
+I fainted away, and had not one of my maidens come in
+at that juncture, it might have been attended with fatal
+consequences. I would advise thee to prepare thyself
+to see her, for I verily believe she will come to thee. I
+dread your knowing of this, but hope the best. Before
+I went to fetch the unhappy cordial, she told me, as she
+had often done before, that she was the eldest daughter,
+that the captain's wife was your second daughter, and
+her sister, and that the youngest sister was dead. She
+also said there were two brothers, the eldest of whom
+had never been seen by any of them since he run away
+from an uncle's at nine years of age, and that the
+youngest had been taken care of by an old lady that
+kept her coach, whom he took to be his godmother.
+She gave me a long history in what manner she was
+arrested and flung into Whitechapel jail, how hardly
+she fared there; and at length the keeper's wife, to
+whom she told her pitiful story, took compassion of her,
+and recommended her to the bounty of a certain lady
+who lived in that neighbourhood, that redeemed prisoners
+for small sums, and who lay for their fees, every
+return of the day of her nativity; that she was one of
+the six the lady had discharged; that the lady prompted
+her to seek after her mother; that she thereupon
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span>did seek thee in all the towns and villages between
+London and Dover; that not finding thee at Dover she
+went to Deal; and that at length, she being tired of
+seeking thee, she returned by shipping to London,
+where she was no sooner arrived but she was immediately
+arrested and flung into the Marshalsea prison,
+where she lived in a miserable condition, without the
+use of pen, ink, and paper, and without the liberty of
+having any one of her friends come near her. 'In this
+condition I was,' continued she, 'when you sent and
+paid my debt for me, and discharged me.' When she
+had related all this she fell into such a fit of crying,
+sighing, and sobbing, from which, when she was a little
+recovered, she broke out into loud exclamations against
+the wickedness of the people in England, that they
+could be so unchristian as to arrest her twice, when she
+said it was as true as the Gospel that she never did owe
+to any one person the sum of one shilling in all her
+life; that she could not think who it was that should
+owe her so much ill-will, for that she was not conscious
+to herself that she had any ways offended any person
+in the whole universal world, except Mrs. Amy, in the
+case of her mother, which, she affirmed, she was acquitted
+of by all men, and hoped she should be so by
+her Maker; and that if she (Mrs. Amy) had any hand
+in her sufferings, God would forgive her, as she heartily
+did. 'But then,' she added, 'I will not stay in England,
+I will go all over the world, I will go to France,
+to Paris; I know my mother did once live there, and
+if I do not find her there, I will go through Holland, to
+Amsterdam, to Rotterdam; in short, I will go till I
+find my mother out, if I should die in the pursuit.' I
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span>should be glad to hear of thine and thy spouse's welfare,
+and remain with much sincerity, your sincere
+friend,</p>
+
+<p>
+"M.P.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"The ninth of the month
+called October.</p>
+
+<p>"P.S.&mdash;If thou hast any business to transact in this
+city, pray let me know; I shall use my best endeavours
+to oblige thee; my daughters all join with me in willing
+thee a hearty farewell."</p></div>
+
+<p>I concealed my surprise for a few minutes, only
+till I could get into the summer-house, at the
+bottom of our large garden; but when I was shut
+in, no living soul can describe the agony I was in,
+I raved, tore, fainted away, swore, prayed, wished,
+cried, and promised, but all availed nothing, I was
+now stuck in to see the worst of it, let what would
+happen.</p>
+
+<p>At last I came to the following resolution, which
+was to write a letter to the Quaker, and in it enclose
+a fifty pound bank-bill, and tell the Quaker to give
+that to the young woman if she called again, and
+also to let her know a fifty pound bill should be sent
+her every year, so long as she made no inquiry after
+me, and kept herself retired in England. Although
+this opened myself too full to the Quaker, yet I
+thought I had better venture my character abroad,
+than destroy my peace at home.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after, my husband came home, and he perceived
+I had been crying, and asked what was the
+reason. I told him that I had shed tears both for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span>
+joy and sorrow: "For," said I, "I have received one
+of the tenderest letters from Amy, as it was possible
+for any person, and she tells me in it," added I,
+"that she will soon come to see me; which so overjoyed
+me, that I cried, and after it, I went to read
+the letter a second time, as I was looking out of the
+summer-house window over the canal; and in unfolding
+it, I accidentally let it fall in, by which
+mischance it is lost, for which I am very sorry, as
+I intended you should see it." "Pray, my dear,"
+said he, "do not let that give you any uneasiness; if
+Amy comes, and you approve of it, you have my
+consent to take her into the house, in what capacity
+you please. I am very glad," continued he, "that
+you have nothing of more consequence to be uneasy
+at, I fancy you would make but an indifferent helpmate
+if you had." Oh! thought I to myself, if you
+but knew half the things that lie on my conscience,
+I believe you would think that I bear them out past
+all example.</p>
+
+<p>About ten days afterwards, as we were sitting at
+dinner with two gentlemen, one of the footmen came
+to the door, and said, "My lady, here is a gentlewoman
+at the door who desires to speak with you:
+she says her name is Mrs. Amy."</p>
+
+<p>I no sooner heard her name, but I was ready to
+swoon away, but I ordered the footman to call Isabel,
+and ask the gentlewoman to walk up with her into
+my dressing-room; which he immediately did, and
+there I went to have my first interview with her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span>
+She kissed me for joy when she saw me, and I sent
+Isabel downstairs, for I was in pain till I had some
+private conversation with my old confidante.</p>
+
+<p>There was not much ceremony between us, before
+I told her all the material circumstances that had
+happened in her absence, especially about the girl's
+imprisonments which she had contrived, and how she
+had got my letter at the Quaker's, the very day she
+had been there. "Well," says Amy, when I had
+told her all, "I find nothing is to ensue, if she lives,
+but your ruin; you would not agree to her death,
+so I will not make myself uneasy about her life; it
+might have been rectified, but you were angry with
+me for giving you the best of counsel, viz., when I
+proposed to murder her."</p>
+
+<p>"Hussy," said I, in the greatest passion imaginable,
+"how dare you mention the word murder? You
+wretch you, I could find in my heart, if my husband
+and the company were gone, to kick you out of my
+house. Have you not done enough to kill her, in
+throwing her into one of the worst jails in England,
+where, you see, that Providence in a peculiar manner
+appeared to her assistance. Away! thou art a
+wicked wretch; thou art a murderer in the sight of
+God."</p>
+
+<p>"I will say no more," says Amy, "but if I could
+have found her, after thy friend the Quaker had discharged
+her out of the Marshalsea prison, I had laid
+a scheme to have her taken up for a theft, and by
+that means got her transported for fourteen years.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span>
+She will be with you soon, I am sure; I believe she
+is now in Holland."</p>
+
+<p>While we were in this discourse, I found the
+gentlemen who dined with us were going, so we came
+downstairs, and I went into the parlour to take leave
+of them before their departure. When they were
+gone, my husband told me he had been talking with
+them about taking upon him the title of Count or
+Earl of &mdash;&mdash;, as he had told me of, and as an opportunity
+now offered, he was going to put it in
+execution.</p>
+
+<p>I told him I was so well settled, as not to want
+anything this world could afford me, except the continuance
+of his life and love (though the very thing
+he had mentioned, joined with the death of my
+daughter, in the natural way, would have been much
+more to my satisfaction). "Well, my dear," says he,
+"the expense will be but small, and as I promised
+you the title, it shall not be long before the honour
+shall be brought home to your toilette." He was as
+good as his word, for that day week he brought the
+patent home to me, in a small box covered with
+crimson velvet and two gold hinges. "There, my
+lady countess," says he, "long may you live to bear
+the title, for I am certain you are a credit to it." In
+a few days after, I had the pleasure to see our equipage,
+as coach, chariot, &amp;c., all new painted, and a
+coronet fixed at the proper place, and, in short, everything
+was proportioned to our quality, so that our
+house vied with most of the other nobility.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was at this juncture that I was at the pinnacle
+of all my worldly felicity, notwithstanding my soul
+was black with the foulest crimes. And, at the same
+time, I may begin to reckon the beginning of my
+misfortunes, which were in embryo, but were very
+soon brought forth, and hurried me on to the greatest
+distress.</p>
+
+<p>As I was sitting one day talking to Amy in our
+parlour, and the street door being left open by one
+of the servants, I saw my daughter pass by the
+window, and without any ceremony she came to the
+parlour door, and opening of it, came boldly in. I
+was terribly amazed, and asked her who she wanted,
+as if I had not known her, but Amy's courage was
+quite lost, and she swooned away. "Your servant,
+my lady," says she; "I thought I should never have
+had the happiness to see you <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i>, till your
+agent, the Quaker, in Haydon Yard, in the Minories,
+carelessly left a direction for me in her own window;
+however, she is a good woman, for she released me
+out of a jail in which, I believe, that base wretch"
+(pointing to Amy, who was coming to herself)
+"caused me to be confined." As soon as Amy recovered,
+she flew at her like a devil, and between
+them there was so much noise as alarmed the servants,
+who all came to see what was the matter.
+Amy had pulled down one of my husband's swords,
+drawn it, and was just going to run her through the
+body, as the servants came in, who not knowing anything
+of the matter, some of them secured Amy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span>
+others held the girl, and the rest were busy about
+me, to prevent my fainting away, which was more
+than they could do, for I fell into strong fits, and in
+the interim they turned the girl out of the house,
+who was fully bent on revenge.</p>
+
+<p>My lord, as I now called him, was gone out a-hunting.
+I was satisfied he knew nothing of it, as
+yet, and when Amy and I were thoroughly come to
+ourselves, we thought it most advisable to find the
+girl out, and give her a handsome sum of money to
+keep her quiet. So Amy went out, but in all her
+searching could hear nothing of her; this made me
+very uneasy. I guessed she would contrive to see
+my lord before he came home, and so it proved, as
+you shall presently hear.</p>
+
+<p>When night came on, that I expected his return,
+I wondered I did not see him. Amy sat up in my
+chamber with me, and was as much concerned as was
+possible. Well, he did not come in all that night,
+but the next morning, about ten o'clock, he rapped
+at the door, with the girl along with him. When it
+was opened, he went into the great parlour, and bid
+Thomas go call down his lady. This was the crisis.
+I now summoned up all my resolution, and took
+Amy down with me, to see if we could not baffle
+the girl, who, to an inch, was her mother's own
+child.</p>
+
+<p>It will be necessary here to give a short account
+of our debate, because on it all my future misery depended,
+and it made me lose my husband's love, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span>
+own my daughter; who would not rest there, but
+told my lord how many brothers and sisters she had.</p>
+
+<p>When we entered the room, my lord was walking
+very gravely about it, but with his brows knit, and
+a wild confusion in his face, as if all the malice and
+revenge of a Dutchman had joined to put me out of
+countenance before I spoke a word.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, madam," says he, "do you know this
+young woman? I expect a speedy and positive
+answer, without the least equivocation."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, my lord," replied I, "to give you an
+answer as quick as you desire, I declare I do not."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not!" said he, "what do you mean by that?
+She tells me that you are her mother, and that her
+father ran away from you, and left two sons, and two
+daughters besides herself, who were all sent to their
+relations for provision, after which you ran away
+with a jeweller to Paris. Do you know anything
+of this? answer me quickly."</p>
+
+<p>"My lord," said the girl, "there is Mrs. Amy,
+who was my mother's servant at the time (as she
+told me herself about three months ago), knows very
+well I am the person I pretend to be, and caused me
+to be thrown into jail for debts I knew nothing of,
+because I should not find out my mother to make
+myself known to her before she left England."</p>
+
+<p>After this she told my lord everything she knew of
+me, even in the character of Roxana, and described
+my dress so well, that he knew it to be mine.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/roxanavol2illo248.jpg" alt="ROXANA IS CONFRONTED WITH HER
+DAUGHTER
+
+&quot;Pray, madam,&quot; says he, &quot;do you know this young
+woman?&quot;" title="" /><br />
+<span class="caption">ROXANA IS CONFRONTED WITH HER
+DAUGHTER<br />
+
+&quot;Pray, madam,&quot; says he, &quot;do you know this young
+woman?&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span></p>
+<p>When she had quite gone through her long relation,
+"Well, madam," says he, "now let me see if I
+cannot tell how far she has told the truth in relation
+to you. When I first became acquainted with you,
+it was on the sale of those jewels, in which I stood
+so much your friend, at a time that you were in the
+greatest distress, your substance being in the hands
+of the Jew; you then passed for a jeweller's widow;
+this agrees with her saying you ran away with a
+jeweller. In the next place, you would not consent
+to marry me about twelve years ago; I suppose then
+your real husband was living, for nothing else could
+tally with your condescension to me in everything
+except marriage. Since that time, your refusing to
+come to Holland in the vessel I had provided for you,
+under a distant prospect of your being with child,
+though in reality it was your having a child too
+much, as the captain told me of, when I, being ignorant
+of the case, did not understand him. Now,"
+continued he, "she says that you are the identical
+Lady Roxana which made so much noise in the
+world, and has even described the robe and head-dress
+you wore on that occasion, and in that I know
+she is right; for, to my own knowledge, you have
+that very dress by you now; I having seen you
+dressed in it at our lodging at the Quaker's. From
+all these circumstances," says he, "I may be assured
+that you have imposed grossly upon me, and instead
+of being a woman of honour as I took you for, I find
+that you have been an abandoned wretch, and had
+nothing to recommend you but a sum of money and
+a fair countenance, joined to a false unrelenting
+heart."</p>
+
+<p>These words of my lord's struck such a damp upon
+my spirits, as made me unable to speak in my turn.
+But at last, I spoke as follows: "My lord, I have
+most patiently stood to hear all it was possible for
+you to allege against me, which has no other proof
+than imagination. That I was the wife of a brewer,
+I have no reason now to deny, neither had I any
+occasion before to acknowledge it. I brought him
+a handsome fortune, which, joined to his, made us
+appear in a light far superior to our neighbours. I
+had also five children by him, two sons and three
+daughters, and had my husband been as wise as rich,
+we might have lived happily together now. But it
+was not so, for he minded nothing but sporting, in
+almost every branch; and closely following of it
+soon run out all his substance, and then left me in
+an unhappy, helpless condition. I did not send my
+children to my relations till the greatest necessity
+drove me, and after that, hearing my husband was
+dead, I married the jeweller, who was afterwards
+murdered. If I had owned how many children I
+had, the jeweller would not have married me, and
+the way of life I was in would not keep my family,
+so I was forced to deny them in order to get them
+bread. Neither can I say that I have either heard
+or known anything of my children since, excepting
+that I heard they were all taken care of; and this
+was the very reason I would not marry you, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span>
+you offered it some years since, for these children lay
+seriously at my heart, and as I did not want money,
+my inclination was to come to England, and not
+entail five children upon you the day of marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, madam," said my lord, interrupting me, "I
+do not find that you kept up to your resolutions when
+you got there; you were so far from doing your duty
+as a parent, that you even neglected the civility of
+acquaintances, for they would have asked after them,
+but your whole scheme has been to conceal yourself as
+much as possible, and even when you were found out,
+denied yourself, as witness the case of your daughter
+here. As to the character of Lady Roxana, which
+you so nicely managed," said he, "did that become
+a woman that had five children, whose necessity had
+obliged you to leave them, to live in a continual scene
+of pageantry and riot, I could almost say debauchery?
+Look into your conduct, and see if you deserve to
+have the title or the estate you now so happily enjoy."</p>
+
+<p>After this speech, he walked about the room in a
+confused manner for some minutes, and then addressed
+himself to Amy. "Pray, Mrs. Amy," says he, "give
+me your judgment in this case, for although I know
+you are as much as possible in your lady's interest,
+yet I cannot think you have so little charity as to think
+she acted like a woman of worth and discretion. Do
+you really think, as you knew all of them from infants,
+that this young woman is your lady's daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>Amy, who always had spirits enough about her,
+said at once she believed the girl was my daughter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span>
+"And truly," says she, "I think your man Thomas
+is her eldest son, for the tale he tells of his birth and
+education suits exactly with our then circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, indeed," said my lord, "I believe so too,
+for I now recollect that when we first took him into
+our service at Dover, he told me he was the son of a
+brewer in London; that his father had run away
+from his mother, and left her in a distressed condition
+with five children, of which he was second child,
+or eldest son."</p>
+
+<p>Thomas was then called into the parlour, and asked
+what he knew of his family; he repeated all as above,
+concerning his father's running away and leaving me;
+but said that he had often asked and inquired after
+them, but without any success, and concluded, that
+he believed his brothers and sisters were distributed
+in several places, and that his mother died in the
+greatest distress, and was buried by the parish.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed," said my lord, "it is my opinion that
+Thomas is one of your sons; do not you think the
+same?" addressing himself to me.</p>
+
+<p>"From the circumstances that have been related,
+my lord," said I, "I now believe that these are both
+my children; but you would have thought me a mad
+woman to have countenanced and taken this young
+woman in as my child, without a thorough assurance
+of it; for that would have been running myself to a
+certain expense and trouble, without the least glimpse
+of real satisfaction."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray," said my lord to my daughter, "let me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span>
+know what is become of your brothers and sisters;
+give me the best account of them that you can."</p>
+
+<p>"My lord," replied she, "agreeably to your commands,
+I will inform you to the best of my knowledge;
+and to begin with myself, who am the eldest
+of the five. I was put to a sister of my father's
+with my youngest brother, who, by mere dint of industry,
+gave us maintenance and education, suitable
+to her circumstances; and she, with my uncle's consent,
+let me go to service when I was advanced in
+years; and among the variety of places I lived at,
+Lady Roxana's was one."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Thomas, "I knew her there, when I
+was a valet at my Lord D&mdash;&mdash;'s, the next door; it
+was there I became acquainted with her; and she, by
+the consent of the gentlewoman," pointing to Amy,
+"let me see the Lady Roxana's fine vestment, which
+she danced in at the grand ball."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued my daughter, "after I left this
+place, I was at several others before I became acquainted
+with Mrs. Amy a second time (I knew her
+before as Roxana's woman), who told me one day
+some things relating to my mother, and from thence
+I concluded if she was not my mother herself (as I
+at first thought she was), she must be employed by
+her; for no stranger could profess so much friendship,
+where there was no likelihood of any return, after
+being so many years asunder.</p>
+
+<p>"After this, I made it my business to find your
+lady out if possible, and was twice in her company,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span>
+once on board the ship you were to have come to Holland
+in, and once at the Quaker's house in the Minories,
+London; but as I gave her broad hints of whom I
+took her for, and my lady did not think proper to
+own me, I began to think I was mistaken, till your
+voyage to Holland was put off. Soon after, I was
+flung into Whitechapel jail for a false debt, but,
+through the recommendation of the jailer's wife to
+the annual charity of the good Lady Roberts, of
+Mile End, I was discharged. Whereupon I posted
+away, seeking my mother all down the Kent Road
+as far as Dover and Deal, at which last place not
+finding her, I came in a coaster to London, and landing
+in Southwark, was immediately arrested, and confined
+in the Marshalsea prison, where I remained
+some time, deprived of every means to let any person
+without the prison know my deplorable state and
+condition, till my chum, a young woman, my bedfellow,
+who was also confined for debt, was, by a
+gentleman, discharged. This young woman of her
+own free will, went, my lord, to your lodgings in the
+Minories, and acquainted your landlady, the Quaker,
+where I was, and for what sum I was confined, who
+immediately sent and paid the pretended debt, and
+so I was a second time discharged. Upon which,
+going to the Quaker's to return her my thanks soon
+after a letter from your lady to her, with a direction
+in it where to find you, falling into my hands, I set
+out the next morning for the Hague; and I humbly
+hope your pardon, my lord, for the liberty I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span>
+taken; and you may be assured, that whatever circumstances
+of life I happen to be in, I will be no
+disgrace to your lordship or family."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said my husband, "what can you say
+of your mother's second child, who, I hear, was a
+son?"</p>
+
+<p>"My lord," said I, "it is in my power to tell you,
+that Thomas there is the son you mention; their
+circumstances are the same, with this difference,
+that she was brought up under the care of a good
+aunt, and the boy forced to run away from a bad one,
+and shift for his bread ever since; so if she is my
+daughter, he is my son, and to oblige you, my lord,
+I own her, and to please myself I will own him, and
+they two are brother and sister." I had no sooner
+done speaking, than Thomas fell down before me,
+and asked my blessing, after which, he addressed
+himself to my lord as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"My lord," said he, "out of your abundant goodness
+you took me into your service at Dover. I told
+you then the circumstances I was in, which will save
+your lordship much time by preventing a repetition;
+but, if your lordship pleases, it shall be carefully
+penned down, for such a variety of incidents has
+happened to me in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland,
+Holland, France, and the Isle of Man, in which
+I have travelled for about eighteen years past, as
+may prove an agreeable amusement to you, when
+you are cloyed with better company; for as I have
+never been anything above a common servant, so my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span>
+stories shall only consist of facts, and such as are
+seldom to be met with, as they are all in low life."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Thomas," said my lord, "take your own
+time to do it, and I will reward you for your
+trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, madam," said my lord to my daughter, "if
+you please to proceed." "My lord," continued she,
+"my mother's third child, which was a daughter,
+lived with the relation I did, and got a place to wait
+upon a young lady whose father and mother were
+going to settle at Boulogne, in France; she went
+with them, and having stayed at this gentleman's
+(who was a French merchant) two years, was married
+to a man with the consent of the family she lived in;
+and her master, by way of fortune, got him to be
+master of a French and Holland coaster, and this
+was the very person whose ship you hired to come
+to Holland in; the captain's wife was my own
+sister, consequently my lady's second daughter; as
+to my youngest sister, she lived with the uncle and
+aunt Thomas ran away from, and died of the smallpox
+soon after. My youngest brother was put out
+apprentice to a carpenter, where he improved in his
+business, till a gentlewoman came to his master and
+mistress (which I take by the description they gave
+me, to be Mrs. Amy), who had him put out to an
+education fit for a merchant, and then sent him to
+the Indies, where he is now settled, and in a fair way
+to get a large estate. This, my lord, is the whole
+account I can at present give of them, and although<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span>
+it may seem very strange, I assure you, it is all the
+just truth."</p>
+
+<p>When she had finished her discourse, my lord
+turned to me, and said, that since I that was her
+mother had neglected doing my duty, though sought
+so much after, he would take it upon himself to see
+both the girl and Thomas provided for, without any
+advising or letting me know anything about them;
+and added, with a malicious sneer, "I must take
+care of the child I have had by you too, or it will
+have but an indifferent parent to trust to in case of
+my decease."</p>
+
+<p>This finished the discourse, and my lord withdrew
+into his study, in a humour that I am unable to describe,
+and left me, Amy, Thomas, and my daughter
+Susanna, as I must now call her, in the parlour together.
+We sat staring at each other some time,
+till at last Amy said, "I suppose, my lady, you have
+no farther business with your new daughter; she has
+told her story, and may now dispose of herself to the
+best advantage she can." "No," said I, "I have
+nothing to say to her, only that she shall never be
+admitted into my presence again." The poor girl
+burst out into tears, and said, "Pray, my lady, excuse
+me, for I am certain that were you in my circumstances,
+you would have done the very action I
+have, and would expect a pardon for committing the
+offence."</p>
+
+<p>After this, I said to Thomas, "Keep what has
+been said to yourself, and I shall speak to you by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span>-and-by;"
+and then I withdrew, and went upstairs to
+my closet, leaving Amy with Susanna, who soon dismissed
+her, and followed me.</p>
+
+<p>When Amy came to me, "Now, my lady," says
+she, "what do you think of this morning's work? I
+believe my lord is not so angry as we were fearful
+of." "You are mistaken in your lord, Amy," said
+I, "and are not so well acquainted with the deep
+and premeditated revenge of Dutchmen as I am,
+and although it may not be my husband's temper,
+yet I dread it as much, but shall see more at dinner
+time."</p>
+
+<p>Soon after this, my husband called Thomas, and
+bid him order the cloth for his dinner to be laid in
+his study, and bid him tell his mother that he would
+dine by himself. When I heard this, I was more
+shocked than I had been yet. "Now his anger begins
+to work, Amy," said I, "how must I act?"
+"I do not know," answered she, "but I will go into
+the study, and try what can be done, and, as a faithful
+mediator, will try to bring you together." She
+was not long before she returned, and bursting into
+tears, "I know not what to do," says she, "for your
+husband is in a deep study, and when I told him you
+desired him to dine with you in the parlour as usual,
+he only said, 'Mrs. Amy, go to your lady, tell her
+to dine when and where she pleases, and pray obey
+her as your lady; but let her know from me that
+she has lost the tenderness I had for her as a wife,
+by the little thought she had of her children.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nothing could have shocked me more than the
+delivery of this message by Amy. I, almost bathed
+in tears, went to him myself; found him in a melancholy
+posture reading in Milton's "Paradise Regained."
+He looked at me very sternly when I
+entered his study, told me he had nothing to say
+to me at that time, and if I had a mind not to disturb
+him, I must leave him for the present. "My
+lord," said I, "supposing all that has been said by
+this girl was truth, what reason have you to be in
+this unforgiving humour? What have I done to
+you to deserve this usage? Have you found any
+fault with me since I had the happiness of being
+married to you? Did you ever find me in any company
+that you did not approve of? Have you any
+reason to think that I have wasted any of your substance?
+If you have none of these things to allege
+against me, for heaven's sake do not let us now
+make our lives unhappy, for my having had legitimate
+children by a lawful husband, at a time that
+you think it no crime to have had a natural son
+by me, which I had the most reason to repent of."</p>
+
+<p>I spoke the latter part of these words with a small
+air of authority, that he might think me the less
+guilty; but, I believe, he only looked on what I had
+said as a piece of heroism; for he soon after delivered
+himself in the following speech: "Madam, do you
+not think that you have used me in a very deceitful
+manner? If you think that I have not had that
+usage, I will, in a few words, prove the contrary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span>
+When first I knew you, soon after the jeweller's
+death at Paris, you never mentioned, in all that
+intricate affair I was engaged in for you, so much
+as your having any children; that, as your circumstances
+then were, could have done you no harm,
+but, on the contrary, it would have moved the compassion
+of your bitter enemy the Jew, if he had any.
+Afterwards, when I first saw you in London, and
+began to treat with you about marriage, your children,
+which, to all prudent women, are the first
+things provided for, were so far neglected as not to
+be spoken of, though mine were mentioned to you;
+and as our fortunes were very considerable, yours
+might very well have been put into the opposite
+scale with them. Another great piece of your injustice
+was when I offered to settle your own fortune
+upon yourself, you would not consent to it; I do
+not look on that piece of condescension out of love
+to me, but a thorough hatred you had to your own
+flesh and blood; and lastly, your not owning your
+daughter, though she strongly hinted who she was
+to you when she was twice in your company, and
+even followed you from place to place while you
+were in England. Now, if you can reconcile this
+piece of inhumanity with yourself, pray try what
+you can say to me about your never telling me the
+life you led in Pall Mall, in the character of Roxana?
+You scrupled to be happily married to me, and soon
+after came to England, and was a reputed whore to
+any nobleman that would come up to your price,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span>
+and lived with one a considerable time, and was
+taken by several people to be his lawful wife. If
+any gentleman should ask me what I have taken to
+my bed, what must I answer? I must say an inhuman
+false-hearted whore, one that had not tenderness
+enough to own her own children, and has too
+little virtue, in my mind, to make a good wife.</p>
+
+<p>"I own I would," says he, "have settled your
+own estate upon you with great satisfaction, but I
+will not do it now; you may retire to your chamber,
+and when I have any occasion to speak with you, I
+will send a messenger to you; so, my undeserving
+lady countess, you may walk out of the room."</p>
+
+<p>I was going to reply to all this, but instead of
+hearing me, he began to speak against the Quaker,
+who, he supposed, knew all the intrigues of my life;
+but I cleared her innocence, by solemnly declaring it
+was a thorough reformation of my past life that
+carried me to live at the Quaker's house, who knew
+nothing of me before I went to live with her, and
+that she was, I believed, a virtuous woman.</p>
+
+<p>I went away prodigiously chagrined. I knew not
+what course to take; I found expostulation signified
+nothing, and all my hopes depended on what I
+might say to him after we were gone to bed at night.
+I sent in for Amy, and having told her our discourse,
+she said she knew not what to think of him,
+but hoped it would, by great submission, wear off
+by degrees. I could eat but little dinner, and Amy
+was more sorrowful than hungry, and after we had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span>
+dined, we walked by ourselves in the garden, to
+know what we had best pursue. As we were walking
+about, Thomas came to us, and told us that the
+young woman who had caused all the words, had
+been at the door, and delivered a letter to my
+lord's footman, who had carried it upstairs, and that
+she was ordered to go to his lordship in his study,
+which struck me with a fresh and sensible grief. I
+told Thomas, as he was to be her brother, to learn
+what my lord had said to her, if he could, as she
+came down; on which he went into the house to
+obey his order.</p>
+
+<p>He was not gone in above a quarter of an hour
+before he came to me again, and told me she was
+gone, and that my lord had given her a purse of
+twenty guineas, with orders to live retired, let nobody
+know who or what she was, and come to him
+again in about a month's time. I was very much
+satisfied to hear this, and was in hopes of its proving
+a happy omen; and I was better pleased about
+two hours after, when Thomas came to me to let me
+know that my lord had given him thirty guineas,
+and bid him take off his livery, and new clothe himself,
+for he intended to make him his first clerk, and
+put him in the way of making his fortune. I now
+thought it was impossible for me to be poor, and was
+inwardly rejoiced that my children (meaning Thomas
+and Susanna) were in the high road to grow rich.</p>
+
+<p>As Amy and I had dined by ourselves, my lord
+kept his study all the day, and at night, after supper,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span>
+Isabel came and told me that my lord's man had
+received orders to make his bed in the crimson room,
+which name it received from the colour of the bed
+and furniture, and was reserved against the coming
+of strangers, or sickness. When she had delivered
+her message she withdrew, and I told Amy it would
+be to no purpose to go to him again, but I would
+have her lie in a small bed, which I ordered immediately
+to be carried into my chamber. Before we
+went to bed, I went to his lordship to know why he
+would make us both look so little among our own
+servants, as to part, bed and board, so suddenly.
+He only said, "My Lady Roxana knows the airs of
+quality too well to be informed that a scandal among
+nobility does not consist in parting of beds; if you
+cannot lie by yourself, you may send a letter to my
+Lord &mdash;&mdash;, whom you lived with as a mistress in
+London; perhaps he may want a bedfellow as well
+as you, and come to you at once; you are too well
+acquainted with him to stand upon ceremony."</p>
+
+<p>I left him, with my heart full of malice, grief,
+shame, and revenge. I did not want a good will to
+do any mischief; but I wanted an unlimited power
+to put all my wicked thoughts in execution.</p>
+
+<p>Amy and I lay in our chamber, and the next
+morning at breakfast we were talking of what the servants
+(for there were thirteen of them in all, viz., two
+coachmen, four footmen, a groom, and postillion, two
+women cooks, two housemaids, and a laundry-maid, besides
+Isabel, who was my waiting-maid, and Amy, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</a></span>
+acted as housekeeper) could say of the disturbance
+that was in the family. "Pho!" said Amy, "never
+trouble your head about that, for family quarrels are
+so common in noblemen's houses, both here and in
+England, that there are more families parted, both in
+bed and board, than live lovingly together. It can be
+no surprise to the servants, and if your neighbours
+should hear it, they will only think you are imitating
+the air of nobility, and have more of that blood
+in you than you appeared to have when you and
+your lord lived happily together."</p>
+
+<p>The time, I own, went very sluggishly on. I had
+no company but Amy and Isabel, and it was given
+out among the servants of noblemen and gentry that
+I was very much indisposed, for I thought it a very
+improper time either to receive or pay visits.</p>
+
+<p>In this manner I lived till the month was up that
+my daughter was to come again to my lord, for although
+I went morning, noon, and night, into his
+apartment to see him, I seldom had a quarter of an
+hour's discourse with him, and oftentimes one of his
+valets would be sent to tell me his lord was busy, a
+little before the time I usually went, which I found
+was to prevent my going in to him, but this was
+only when he was in an ill humour, as his man
+called it.</p>
+
+<p>Whether my lord used to make himself uneasy for
+want of mine or other company, I cannot tell, but
+the servants complained every day, as I heard by
+Amy, that his lordship ate little or nothing, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</a></span>
+would sometimes shed tears when he sat down by
+himself to breakfast, dinner, or supper; and, indeed,
+I began to think that he looked very thin, his countenance
+grew pale, and that he had every other sign
+of a grieved or broken heart.</p>
+
+<p>My daughter came to him one Monday morning,
+and stayed with him in his study near two hours. I
+wondered at the reason of it, but could guess at
+nothing certain; and at last she went away, but I
+fixed myself so as to see her as she passed by me,
+and she appeared to have a countenance full of
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, when I went in as usual, he spoke
+to me in a freer style than he had done since our
+breach. "Well, madam" (for he had not used the
+words "my lady" at any time after my daughter's
+coming to our house), said he, "I think I have provided
+for your daughter." "As how, my lord, pray
+will you let me know?" said I. "Yes," replied he,
+"as I have reason to think you will be sorry to hear
+of her welfare in any shape, I will tell you. A
+gentleman who is going factor for the Dutch East
+India Company, on the coast of Malabar, I have
+recommended her to; and he, on my character and
+promise of a good fortune, will marry her very soon,
+for the Company's ships sail in about twelve days;
+so, in a fortnight, like a great many mothers as there
+are nowadays, you may rejoice at having got rid of
+one of your children, though you neither know
+where, how, or to whom."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Although I was very glad my lord spoke to me at
+all, and more especially so at my daughter's going to
+be married, and settling in the Indies, yet his words
+left so sharp a sting behind them as was exceeding
+troublesome to me to wear off. I did not dare venture
+to make any further inquiries, but was very glad
+of what I heard, and soon bidding my lord goodnight,
+went and found Amy, who was reading a play
+in the chamber.</p>
+
+<p>I waited with the greatest impatience for this marriage;
+and when I found the day was fixed, I made
+bold to ask my lord if I should not be present in his
+chamber when the ceremony was performed. This
+favor was also denied me. I then asked my lord's
+chaplain to speak to him on that head, but he was
+deaf to his importunities, and bade him tell me that
+I very well knew his mind. The wedding was performed
+on a Wednesday evening, in my lord's presence,
+and he permitted nobody to be there but a sister of
+the bridegroom's, and Thomas (now my lord's secretary
+or chief clerk), who was brother to the bride,
+and who gave her away. They all supped together
+after the ceremony was over in the great dining-room,
+where the fortune was paid, which was &pound;2000 (as I
+heard from Thomas afterwards), and the bonds for
+the performance of the marriage were redelivered.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning my lord asked me if I was willing
+to see my daughter before she sailed to the Indies.
+"My lord," said I, "as the seeing of her was the
+occasion of this great breach that has happened be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</a></span>tween
+us, so if your lordship will let me have a sight
+of her and a reconciliation with you at the same time,
+there is nothing can be more desirable to me, or
+would more contribute to my happiness during the
+rest of my life."</p>
+
+<p>"No, madam," says he, "I would have you see
+your daughter, to be reconciled to her, and give her
+your blessing (if a blessing can proceed from you) at
+parting; but our reconciliation will never be completed
+till one of us comes near the verge of life, if
+then; for I am a man that am never reconciled without
+ample amends, which is a thing that is not in
+your power to give, without you can alter the course
+of nature and recall time."</p>
+
+<p>On hearing him declare himself so open, I told him
+that my curse instead of my blessing would pursue
+my daughter for being the author of all the mischiefs
+that had happened between us. "No, madam," said
+he, "if you had looked upon her as a daughter heretofore,
+I should have had no occasion to have had
+any breach with you. The whole fault lies at your
+own door; for whatever your griefs may inwardly be,
+I would have you recollect they were of your own
+choosing."</p>
+
+<p>I found I was going to give way to a very violent
+passion, which would perhaps be the worse for me,
+so I left the room and went up to my own chamber,
+not without venting bitter reproaches both against
+my daughter and her unknown husband.</p>
+
+<p>However, the day she was to go on shipboard, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</a></span>
+breakfasted with my lord, and as soon as it was over,
+and my lord was gone into his study to fetch something
+out, I followed him there, and asked him if he
+would give me leave to present a gold repeating
+watch to my daughter before she went away. I
+thought he seemed somewhat pleased with this piece
+of condescension in me, though it was done more to
+gain his goodwill than to express any value I had for
+her. He told me that he did not know who I could
+better make such a present to, and I might give it
+to her if I pleased. Accordingly I went and got it
+out of my cabinet in a moment, and bringing it to
+my lord, desired he would give it her from me. He
+asked me if I would not give it her myself. I told
+him no; I wished her very well, but had nothing to
+say to her till I was restored to his lordship's bed
+and board.</p>
+
+<p>About two hours after all this, the coach was
+ordered to the door, and my daughter and her new
+husband, the husband's sister, and my son Thomas,
+all went into it, in order to go to the house of a rich
+uncle of the bridegroom's, where they were to dine
+before they went on board, and my lord went there
+in a sedan about an hour after. And having eaten
+their dinner, which on this occasion was the most
+elegant, they all went on board the Indiaman, where
+my lord and my son Thomas stayed till the ship's
+crew was hauling in their anchors to sail, and then
+came home together in the coach, and it being late
+in the evening, he told Thomas he should sup with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</a></span>
+him that night, after which they went to bed in their
+several apartments.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning when I went to see my lord as usual,
+he told me that as he had handsomely provided for
+my daughter, and sent her to the Indies with a man
+of merit and fortune, he sincerely wished her great
+prosperity. "And," he added, "to let you see,
+madam, that I should never have parted from my first
+engagements of love to you, had you not laid yourself
+so open to censure for your misconduct, my next
+care shall be to provide for your son Thomas in a
+handsome manner, before I concern myself with my
+son by you."</p>
+
+<p>This was the subject of our discourse, with which I
+was very well pleased. I only wished my daughter
+had been married and sent to the Indies before I had
+married myself; but I began to hope that the worst
+would be over when Thomas was provided for too,
+and the son my lord had by me, who was now at the
+university, was at home; which I would have brought
+to pass could my will be obeyed, but I was not to enjoy
+that happiness.</p>
+
+<p>My lord and I lived with a secret discontent of
+each other for near a twelvemonth before I saw any
+provision made for my son Thomas, and then I found
+my lord bought him a very large plantation in Virginia,
+and was furnishing him to go there in a handsome
+manner; he also gave him four quarter parts
+in four large trading West India vessels, in which he
+boarded a great quantity of merchandise to traffic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</a></span>
+with when he came to the end of his journey, so that
+he was a very rich man before he (what we call) came
+into the world.</p>
+
+<p>The last article that was to be managed, was to
+engage my son to a wife before he left Holland; and
+it happened that the gentleman who was the seller of
+the plantation my husband bought, had been a
+Virginia planter in that colony a great many years;
+but his life growing on the decline, and his health
+very dubious, he had come to Holland with an intent
+to sell his plantation, and then had resolved to send
+for his wife, son, and daughter, to come to him with
+the return of the next ships. This gentleman had
+brought over with him the pictures of all his family,
+which he was showing to my lord at the same time
+he was paying for the effects; and on seeing the
+daughter's picture, which appeared to him very
+beautiful, my lord inquired if she was married.
+"No, my lord," says the planter, "but I believe I
+shall dispose of her soon after she comes to me."
+"How old is your daughter?" said my lord. "Why,
+my lord," replied the planter, "she is twenty-two
+years of age." Then my lord asked my son if he
+should like that young lady for a wife. "Nothing,
+my lord," said Thomas, "could lay a greater obligation
+upon me than your lordship's providing me with
+a wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, sir," said my lord to the planter, "what do
+you say to a match between this young gentleman and
+your daughter? Their ages are agreeable, and if you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</a></span>
+can, or will, give her more fortune than he has, his
+shall be augmented. You partly know his substance,
+by the money I have now paid you."</p>
+
+<p>This generous proposal of my lord's pleased the
+planter to a great degree, and he declared to my lord
+that he thought nothing could be a greater favour
+done him, for two reasons; one of which was, that he
+was certain the young gentleman was as good as he
+appeared, because he had taken for his plantation so
+large a sum of money as none but a gentleman could
+pay. The next reason was, that this marriage, to be
+performed as soon as my son arrived there, would be
+a great satisfaction to his wife, whose favourite the
+daughter was. "For," added he, "my wife will not
+only have the pleasure of seeing her daughter settled
+on what was our own hereditary estate, but also see
+her married to a man of substance, without the
+danger of crossing the seas to be matched to a person
+equal to herself."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, sir," said my lord, "let me hear what fortune
+you are willing to give with your daughter;
+you have but two children, and I know you must
+be rich." "Why, my lord," replied the planter,
+"there is no denying that; but you must remember
+I have a son as well as a daughter to provide for,
+and he I intend to turn into the mercantile way as
+soon as he arrives safe from Virginia. I have, my
+lord," continued he, "a very large stock-in-trade
+there, as warehouses of tobacco, &amp;c., lodged in the
+custom-houses of the ports, to the value of &pound;7000,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</a></span>
+to which I will add &pound;3000 in money, and I hope you
+will look upon that as a very competent estate; and
+when the young gentleman's fortune is joined to
+that, I believe he will be the richest man in the
+whole American colonies of his age."</p>
+
+<p>It was then considered between my lord and
+Thomas, that no woman with a quarter of that
+fortune would venture herself over to the West Indies
+with a man that had ten times as much; so it being
+hinted to the planter that my lord had agreed to
+the proposals, they promised to meet the next morning
+to settle the affair.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, my lord, with Thomas in his company,
+hinted the above discourse to me. I was
+frightened almost out of my wits to think what a
+large sum of money had been laid out for my son,
+but kept what I thought to myself. It was agreed
+that my son was to marry the old planter's daughter,
+and a lawyer was sent for, with instructions to draw
+up all the writings for the marriage-settlement, &amp;c.,
+and the next morning a messenger came from the
+planter with a note to my lord, letting him know, if
+it was not inconvenient, he would wait on his lordship
+to breakfast. He came soon after with a Dutch
+merchant of great estate, who was our neighbour at
+The Hague, where they settled every point in question,
+and the articles were all drawn up and signed
+by the several parties the next day before dinner.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing now remaining but my son's
+departure to his new plantation in Virginia. Great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</a></span>
+despatch was made that he might be ready to sail in
+one of his own ships, and take the advantage of an
+English convoy, which was almost ready to sail. My
+lord sent several valuable presents to my son's lady,
+as did her father; and as I was at liberty in this
+case to do as I would, and knowing my lord had a
+very great value for my son, I thought that the
+richer my presents were, the more he would esteem
+me (but there was nothing in it, the enmity he took
+against me had taken root in his heart); so I sent
+her a curious set of china, the very best I could buy,
+with a silver tea-kettle and lamp, tea-pot, sugar-dish,
+cream-pot, teaspoons, &amp;c., and as my lord had sent
+a golden repeater, I added to it a golden equipage,
+with my lord's picture hanging to it, finely painted;
+(This was another thing I did purposely to please
+him, but it would not do.) A few days after, he
+came to take his leave of me, by my lord's order,
+and at my parting with him I shed abundance of
+tears, to think I was then in an almost strange place,
+no child that could then come near me, and under so
+severe a displeasure of my lord, that I had very little
+hopes of ever being friends with him again.</p>
+
+<p>My life did not mend after my son was gone; all
+I could do would not persuade my lord to have any
+free conversation with me. And at this juncture it
+was that the foolish jade Amy, who was now advanced
+in years, was catched in a conversation with
+one of my lord's men, which was not to her credit;
+for, it coming to his ears, she was turned out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</a></span>
+house by my lord's orders, and was never suffered to
+come into it again during his lifetime, and I did not
+dare to speak a word in her favour for fear he should
+retort upon me, "Like mistress, like maid."</p>
+
+<p>I could hear nothing of Amy for the first three
+months after she had left me, till one day, as I was
+looking out of a dining-room window, I saw her pass
+by, but I did not dare ask her to come in, for fear
+my lord should hear of her being there, which would
+have been adding fuel to the fire; however, she, looking
+up at the house, saw me. I made a motion to
+her to stay a little about the door, and in the meantime
+I wrote a note, and dropped it out of the window,
+in which I told her how I had lived in her
+absence, and desired her to write me a letter, and
+carry it the next day to my sempstress's house, who
+would take care to deliver it to me herself.</p>
+
+<p>I told Isabel that she should let me know when
+the milliner came again, for I had some complaints
+to her about getting up my best suit of Brussels lace
+nightclothes. On the Saturday following, just after
+I had dined, Isabel came into my apartment. "My
+lady," says she, "the milliner is in the parlour; will
+you be pleased to have her sent upstairs, or will your
+ladyship be pleased to go down to her?" "Why,
+send her up, Isabel," said I, "she is as able to come
+to me as I am to go to her; I will see her here."</p>
+
+<p>When the milliner came into my chamber, I sent
+Isabel to my dressing-room to fetch a small parcel of
+fine linen which lay there, and in the interim she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</a></span>
+gave me Amy's letter, which I put into my pocket,
+and, having pretended to be angry about my linen, I
+gave her the small bundle Isabel brought, and bid
+her be sure to do them better for the future.</p>
+
+<p>She promised me she would, and went about her
+business; and when she was gone, I opened Amy's
+letter, and having read it, found it was to the following
+purpose, viz., that she had opened a coffee-house,
+and furnished the upper part of it to let out in
+lodgings; that she kept two maids and a man, but
+that the trade of it did not answer as she had reason
+to expect; she was willing to leave it off, and retire
+into the country to settle for the rest of her life, but
+was continually harassed by such disturbance in her
+conscience as made her unfit to resolve upon anything,
+and wished there was a possibility for her to
+see me, that she might open her mind with the same
+freedom as formerly, and have my advice upon some
+particular affairs; and such-like discourse.</p>
+
+<p>It was a pretty while before I heard from Amy
+again, and when I did, the letter was in much the same
+strain as the former, excepting that things were
+coming more to a crisis; for she told me in it that
+her money was so out, that is, lent as ready money
+to traders, and trusted for liquors in her house, that
+if she did not go away this quarter, she should be
+obliged to run away the next. I very much lamented
+her unfortunate case, but that could be no assistance
+to her, as I had it not now in my power to see her
+when I would, or give her what I pleased, as it had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</a></span>
+always used to be; so all I could do was to wish her
+well, and leave her to take care of herself.</p>
+
+<p>About this time it was that I perceived my lord began
+to look very pale and meagre, and I had a notion he
+was going into a consumption, but did not dare tell
+him so, for fear he should say I was daily looking for
+his death, and was now overjoyed that I saw a shadow
+of it; nevertheless, he soon after began to find himself
+in a very bad state of health, for he said to me
+one morning, that my care would not last long, for
+he believed he was seized by a distemper it was impossible
+for him to get over. "My lord," said I,
+"you do not do me justice in imagining anything
+concerning me that does not tend to your own happiness,
+for if your body is out of order, my mind
+suffers for it." Indeed, had he died then, without
+making a will, it might have been well for me; but
+he was not so near death as that; and, what was
+worse, the distemper, which proved a consumption
+(which was occasioned chiefly by much study, watchings,
+melancholy thoughts, wilful and obstinate neglect
+of taking care of his body, and such like things),
+held him nine weeks and three days after this, before
+it carried him off.</p>
+
+<p>He now took country lodgings, most delightfully
+situated both for air and prospect, and had a maid
+and man to attend him. I begged on my knees to
+go with him, but could not get that favour granted;
+for, if I could, it might have been the means of restoring
+me to his favour, but our breach was too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</a></span>
+wide to be thoroughly reconciled, though I used all
+the endearing ways I had ever had occasion for to
+creep into his favour.</p>
+
+<p>Before he went out of town he locked and sealed
+up every room in the house, excepting my bedchamber,
+dressing-room, one parlour, and all the
+offices and rooms belonging to the servants; and, as
+he had now all my substance in his power, I was in
+a very poor state for a countess, and began to wish,
+with great sincerity, that I had never seen him, after
+I had lived so happy a life as I did at the Quaker's.
+For notwithstanding our estates joined together,
+when we were first married, amounted to &pound;3376 per
+annum, and near &pound;18,000 ready money, besides
+jewels, plate, goods, &amp;c., of a considerable value, yet
+we had lived in a very high manner since our taking
+the title of earl and countess upon us; setting up a
+great house, and had a number of servants; our
+equipage, such as coach, chariot, horses, and their
+attendants; a handsome fortune my lord had given
+to my daughter, and a very noble one to my son,
+whom he loved very well, not for his being my son,
+but for the courteous behaviour of him in never
+aspiring to anything above a valet after he knew
+who he was, till my lord made him his secretary or
+clerk. Besides all these expenses, my lord, having
+flung himself into the trade to the Indies, both East
+and West, had sustained many great and uncommon
+losses, occasioned by his merchandise being mostly
+shipped in English bottoms; and that nation having<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</a></span>
+declared war against the crown of Spain, he was one
+of the first and greatest sufferers by that power; so
+that, on the whole, our estate, which was as above,
+dwindled to about &pound;1000 per annum, and our home
+stock, viz., about &pound;17,000, was entirely gone. This,
+I believe, was another great mortification to his lordship,
+and one of the main things that did help to
+hasten his end; for he was observed, both by me
+and all his servants, to be more cast down at hearing
+of his losses, that were almost daily sent to him,
+than he was at what had happened between him
+and me.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could give more uneasiness than the damage
+our estate sustained by this traffic. He looked
+upon it as a mere misfortune that no person could
+avoid; but I, besides that, thought it was a judgment
+upon me, to punish me in the loss of all my
+ill-got gain. But when I found that his own fortune
+began to dwindle as well as mine, I was almost ready
+to think it was possible his lordship might have been
+as wicked a liver as I had, and the same vengeance
+as had been poured upon me for my repeated crimes
+might also be a punishment for him.</p>
+
+<p>As his lordship was in a bad state of health, and
+had removed to a country lodging, his study and
+counting-house, as well as his other rooms, were
+locked and sealed up; all business was laid aside, excepting
+such letters as came to him were carried to
+his lordship to be opened, read, and answered. I
+also went to see him morning and evening, but he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</a></span>
+would not suffer me to stay with him a single night.
+I might have had another room in the same house,
+but was not willing the people who kept it should
+know that there was a misunderstanding between us;
+so I contented myself to be a constant visitor, but
+could not persuade him to forgive me the denying of
+my daughter, and acting the part of Roxana, because
+I had kept those two things an inviolable secret from
+him and everybody else but Amy, and it was carelessness
+in her conduct at last that was the foundation
+of all my future misery.</p>
+
+<p>As my lord's weakness increased, so his ill temper,
+rather than diminish, increased also. I could do
+nothing to please him, and began to think that he
+was only pettish because he found it was his turn to
+go out of the world first. A gentleman that lived
+near him, as well as his chaplain, persuaded him to
+have a physician, to know in what state his health
+was; and by all I could learn, the doctor told him to
+settle his worldly affairs as soon as he conveniently
+could. "For," says he, "although your death is not
+certain, still your life is very precarious."</p>
+
+<p>The first thing he did after this was to send for the
+son he had by me from the university. He came the
+week afterwards, and the tutor with him, to take care
+of his pupil. The next day after my lord came home,
+and sending for six eminent men that lived at The
+Hague he made his will, and signed it in the presence
+of them all; and they, with the chaplain, were appointed
+the executors of it, and guardians of my son.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As I was in a great concern at his making his will
+unknown to me, and before we were friends, I thought
+of it in too serious a manner not to speak about it.
+I did not know where to apply first, but after mature
+consideration sent for the chaplain, and he coming to
+me, I desired he would give me the best intelligence
+he could about it. "My lady," said he, "you cannot
+be so unacquainted with the duty of my function,
+and the trust my lord has reposed in me, but you
+must know I shall go beyond my trust in relating
+anything of that nature to you; all that I can say
+on that head is, that I would have you make friends
+with my lord as soon as you possibly can, and get him
+to make another will, or else take the best care of
+yourself as lies in your power; for, I assure you, if
+his lordship dies, you are but poorly provided for."</p>
+
+<p>These last words of the chaplain's most terribly
+alarmed me. I knew not what to do; and, at last,
+as if I was to be guided by nothing but the furies, I
+went to his chamber, and after inquiring how he did,
+and hearing that he was far from well, I told him I
+had heard he had made his will. "Yes," said he, "I
+have; and what then?" "Why, my lord," replied I,
+"I thought it would not have been derogatory to
+both our honours for you to have mentioned it to me
+before you did it, and have let me known in what
+manner you intended to settle your estate. This
+would have been but acting like a man to his wife,
+even if you had married me without a fortune; but
+as you received so handsomely with me, you ought to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</a></span>
+have considered it as my substance, as well as your
+own, that you were going to dispose of."</p>
+
+<p>My lord looked somewhat staggered at what I had
+said, and pausing a little while, answered, that he
+thought, and also looked upon it as a granted
+opinion, that after a man married a woman, all that
+she was in possession of was his, excepting he had
+made a prior writing or settlement to her of any
+part or all she was then possessed of. "Besides, my
+lady," added he, "I have married both your children,
+and given them very noble fortunes, especially your
+son. I have also had great losses in trade, both by
+sea and land, since you delivered your fortune to
+me, and even at this time, notwithstanding the
+appearance we make in the world, I am not worth
+a third of what I was when we came to settle in
+Holland; and then, here is our own son shall be
+provided for in a handsome manner by me; for I
+am thoroughly convinced there will be but little
+care taken of him if I leave anything in your power
+for that purpose: witness Thomas and Susanna."</p>
+
+<p>"My lord," said I, "I am not come into your
+chamber to know what care you have taken of our
+child. I do not doubt but you have acted like a
+father by it. What I would be informed in is, what
+I am to depend upon in case of your decease; which
+I, however, hope may be a great many years off yet."
+"You need not concern yourself about that," said
+he; "your son will take care that you shall not
+want; but yet, I will tell you, too," said he, "that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</a></span>
+it may prevent your wishing for my death. I have,
+in my will, left all I am possessed of in the world to
+my son, excepting &pound;1500; out of that there is &pound;500
+for you, &pound;500 among my executors, and the other
+&pound;500 is to bury me, pay my funeral expenses, and
+what is overplus I have ordered to be equally divided
+among my servants."</p>
+
+<p>When I had heard him pronounce these words,
+I stared like one that was frightened out of his
+senses. "Five hundred pounds for me!" says I;
+"pray, what do you mean? What! am I, that
+brought you so handsome a fortune, to be under the
+curb of my son, and ask him for every penny I
+want? No, sir," said I, "I will not accept it. I
+expect to be left in full possession of one&mdash;half of your
+fortune, that I may live the remainder of my life
+like your wife." "Madam," replied my lord, "you
+may expect what you please. If you can make it
+appear since I found you out to be a jilt that I have
+looked upon you as my wife, everything shall be
+altered and settled just as you desire, which might
+then be called your will; but as the case now stands,
+the will is mine, and so it shall remain."</p>
+
+<p>I thought I should have sunk when I had heard
+him make this solemn and premeditated declaration.
+I raved like a mad woman, and, at the end of my
+discourse, told him that I did not value what could
+happen to me, even if I was forced to beg my bread,
+for I would stand the test of my own character; and
+as I could get nothing by being an honest woman,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</a></span>
+so I should not scruple to declare that "the son you
+have left what you have to is a bastard you had
+by me several years before we were married."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says he, "madam, do you think you can
+frighten me? no, not in the least; for if you ever
+mention anything of it, the title, as well as all the
+estate, will go to another branch of my family, and
+you will then be left to starve in good earnest, without
+having the least glimpse of hope to better your
+fortune; for," added he, "it is not very probable
+that you will be courted for a wife by any man of
+substance at these years; so if you have a mind to
+make yourself easy in your present circumstances,
+you must rest contented with what I have left you,
+and not prove yourself a whore to ruin your child,
+in whose power it will be to provide for you in a
+handsome manner, provided you behave yourself
+with that respect to him and me as you ought to
+do; for if any words arise about what I have
+done, I shall make a fresh will, and, as the laws
+of this nation will give me liberty, cut you off with
+a shilling."</p>
+
+<p>My own unhappiness, and his strong and lasting
+resentment, had kept me at high words, and flowing
+in tears, for some time; and as I was unwilling anybody
+should see me in that unhappy condition, I
+stayed coolly talking to him, till our son, who had
+been to several gentlemen's houses about my lord's
+business, came home to tell his father the success he
+had met with abroad. He brought in with him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</a></span>
+bank-notes to the amount of &pound;12,000, which he had
+received of some merchants he held a correspondence
+with; at which my lord was well pleased, for he was
+pretty near out of money at this juncture. After
+our son had delivered the accounts and bills, and had
+withdrawn, I asked my lord, in a calm tone, to give
+me the satisfaction of knowing in what manner the
+losses he had complained to have suffered consisted.
+"You must consider, my lord," said I, "that according
+to what you have been pleased to inform me of,
+we are upwards of &pound;2000 per annum, besides about
+&pound;17,000 ready money, poorer than we were when we
+first came to settle in Holland."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk," replied my lord, "in a very odd
+manner. Do not you know that I had children of
+my own by a former wife? and of these I have taken
+so much care as to provide with very handsome fortunes,
+which are settled irrevocably upon them. I
+have, Providence be thanked, given each of them
+&pound;5000, and that is laid in East India stock, sufficient
+to keep them genteelly, above the frowns of
+fortune, and free from the fear of want. This, joined
+to the money I mentioned to you before, as losses at
+sea, deaths, and bankruptcies, your children's fortunes,
+which are larger than my own children's, the buying
+the estate we live on, and several other things, which
+my receipts and notes will account for, as you may
+see after my decease. I have, to oblige you on this
+head, almost descended to particulars, which I never
+thought to have done; but as I have, rest yourself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</a></span>
+contented, and be well assured that I have not wilfully
+thrown any of your substance away."</p>
+
+<p>I could not tell what he meant by saying he had
+not wilfully thrown any of my substance away.
+These words puzzled me, for I found by his discourse
+I was to have but &pound;500 of all I had brought him, at
+his decease, which I looked upon to be near at hand.
+I had but one thing that was any satisfaction to me,
+which was this: I was assured by him that he had
+not bestowed above the &pound;15,000 he mentioned to
+me, on his children by his former wife; and, on an
+exact calculation, he made it appear that he had
+bestowed on my son Thomas alone near &pound;13,000 in
+buying the plantation, shares in vessels, and merchandise,
+besides several valuable presents sent to his
+wife, both by him and me; and as for my daughter
+Susanna, she was very well married to a factor, with
+a fortune of &pound;2000 (which was a great sum of money
+for a woman to have who was immediately to go to
+the East Indies), besides some handsome presents
+given to her both by him and me. In fact, her fortune
+was, in proportion, as large as her brother's, for
+there is but very few women in England or Holland
+with &pound;2000 fortune that would venture to the coast
+of Malabar, even to have married an Indian king,
+much more to have gone over with a person that no
+one could tell what reception he might meet with,
+or might be recalled at the pleasure of the Company
+upon the least distaste taken by the merchants
+against him. Neither would I, though her own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</a></span>
+mother, hinder her voyage, for she had been the
+author of all the misfortunes that happened to me;
+and if my speaking a word would have saved her
+from the greatest torment, I believe I should have
+been quite silent. And I had but one reason to
+allege for the girl's going so hazardous a voyage,
+which is, she knew that the match was proposed by
+my lord, and if he had not thought it would have
+been advantageous for her, he would never have given
+&pound;2000 to her husband as a fortune; and again, as
+my lord was the only friend she had in our family,
+she was cunning enough to know that the bare disobliging
+of him would have been her ruin for ever
+after; to which I may add, that it is possible, as she
+had made so much mischief about me, she was glad
+to get what she could and go out of the way, for fear
+my lord and I should be friends; which, if that had
+happened, she would have been told never to come
+to our house any more.</p>
+
+<p>As my lord's death began to be daily the discourse
+of the family, I thought that he might be
+more reconciled if I entered into the arguments
+again, pro and con, which we had together before.
+I did so, but all I could say was no satisfaction, till
+I importuned him on my knees, with a flood of tears.
+"Madam," said he, "what would you have me do?"
+"Do, my lord," said I, "only be so tender to my
+years and circumstances as to alter your will, or, at
+least, add a codicil to it; I desire nothing more, for
+I declare I had rather be a beggar, than live under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</a></span>
+my child's jurisdiction." To this he agreed with
+some reluctance, and he added a codicil to his will.</p>
+
+<p>This pleased me greatly, and gave me comfort, for
+I dreaded nothing so much, after all my high living,
+as being under any person, relation or stranger, and
+whether they exercised any power over me or not.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the lawyer come out of the chamber first,
+but was above asking him any questions; the next
+were the executors and chaplain. I asked the last
+how they came to have words. He did not answer
+me directly, but begged to know whose pleasure it
+was to have the codicil annexed. "It was mine,
+sir," replied I; "and it made me very uneasy before
+I could have the favour granted." He only replied
+by saying, "Ah! poor lady, the favour, as you are
+pleased to term it, is not calculated for any benefit
+to you; think the worst you can of it."</p>
+
+<p>I was terribly uneasy at what the chaplain had
+said, but I imagined to myself that I could not be
+worse off than I thought I should be before the
+codicil was annexed; and as he withdrew without
+saying any more, I was fain to rest satisfied with
+what I had heard, and that amounted to nothing.</p>
+
+<p>The next day after this the physicians that attended
+my lord told him it was time for him to
+settle his worldly affairs, and prepare himself for a
+hereafter. I now found all was over, and I had no
+other hopes of his life than the physicians' declaration
+of his being near his death. For it often happens
+that the gentlemen of the faculty give out that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</a></span>
+a man is near his death, to make the cure appear to
+be the effect of their great skill in distempers and
+medicine; as others, when they cannot find out the
+real disease, give out that a man's end is near, rather
+than discover their want of judgment; and this I
+thought might be the case with our doctors of
+physic.</p>
+
+<p>Our son was still kept from the university, and
+lodged at the house of one of his future guardians;
+but when he heard that his father was so near his
+end, he was very little out of his presence, for he
+dearly loved him. My lord sent the day before his
+death to lock and seal up all the doors in his dwelling
+house at The Hague; and the steward had
+orders, in case of my lord's decease, not to let anybody
+come in, not even his lady (who had for some
+time lodged in the same house with her lord), without
+an order from the executors.</p>
+
+<p>The keys of the doors were carried to him, and as
+he saw his death approach, he prepared for it, and,
+in fact, resigned up the keys of everything to the
+executors, and having bid them all a farewell, they
+were dismissed. The physicians waited; but as the
+verge of life approached, and it was out of their
+power to do him any service, he gave them a bill of
+&pound;100 for the care they had taken of him, and dismissed
+them.</p>
+
+<p>I now went into the chamber, and kneeling by his
+bedside, kissed him with great earnestness, and
+begged of him, if ever I had disobliged him in any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</a></span>
+respect, to forgive me. He sighed, and said he most
+freely forgave me everything that I had reason to
+think I had offended him in; but he added, "If you
+had been so open in your conversation to me before
+our marriage as to discover your family and way of
+life, I know not but that I should have married you
+as I did. I might now have been in a good state of
+health, and you many years have lived with all the
+honours due to the Countess de Wintselsheim."
+These words drew tears from my eyes, and they
+being the last of any consequence he said, they had
+the greater impression upon me. He faintly bid me
+a long farewell, and said, as he had but a few moments
+to live, he hoped I would retire, and leave
+him with our son and chaplain. I withdrew into
+my own chamber, almost drowned in tears, and my
+son soon followed me out, leaving the chaplain with
+his father, offering up his prayers to Heaven for the
+receiving of his soul into the blessed mansions of
+eternal bliss.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes after our son went into the chamber
+with me again, and received his father's last
+blessing. The chaplain now saw him departing, and
+was reading the prayer ordered by the Church for
+that occasion; and while he was doing it, my lord
+laid his head gently on the pillow, and turning on
+his left side, departed this life with all the calmness
+of a composed mind, without so much as a groan, in
+the fifty-seventh year of his age.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he was dead an undertaker was sent for,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</a></span>
+by order of the executors, who met together immediately
+to open his will, and take care of all my son's
+effects. I was present when it was opened and read;
+but how terribly I was frightened at hearing the
+codicil repeated any person may imagine by the substance
+of it, which was to this effect; that if I had
+given me any more after his decease than the &pound;500
+he had left me, the &pound;500 left to his executors, and
+the &pound;1000 of my son's estate (which was now a year's
+interest), was to be given to such poor families at
+The Hague as were judged to be in the greatest
+want of it; not to be divided into equal sums, but
+every family to have according to their merit and
+necessity. But this was not all. My son was tied
+down much harder; for if it was known that he gave
+me any relief, let my condition be ever so bad, either
+by himself, by his order, or in any manner of way,
+device, or contrivance that he could think of, one-half
+of his estate, which was particularly mentioned,
+was to devolve to the executors for ever; and if they
+granted me ever so small a favour, that sum was to
+be equally divided among the several parishes where
+they lived, for the benefit of the poor.</p>
+
+<p>Any person would have been surprised to have
+seen how we all sat staring at each other; for though
+it was signed by all the executors, yet they did not
+know the substance of it till it was publicly read,
+excepting the chaplain; and he, as I mentioned
+before, had told me the codicil had better never have
+been added.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I was now in a fine dilemma; had the title of a
+countess, with &pound;500, and nothing else to subsist on
+but a very good wardrobe of clothes, which were not
+looked upon by my son and the executors to be my
+late lord's property, and which were worth, indeed,
+more than treble the sum I had left me.</p>
+
+<p>I immediately removed from the lodgings, and
+left them to bury the body when they thought
+proper, and retired to a lodging at a private gentleman's
+house, about a mile from The Hague. I was
+now resolved to find out Amy, being, as it were, at
+liberty; and accordingly went to the house where
+she had lived, and finding that empty, inquired for
+her among the neighbours, who gave various accounts
+of what had become of her; but one of them
+had a direction left at his house where she might be
+found. I went to the place and found the house
+shut up, and all the windows broken, the sign taken
+down, and the rails and benches pulled from before
+the door. I was quite ashamed to ask for her there,
+for it was a very scandalous neighbourhood, and I
+concluded that Amy had been brought to low circumstances,
+and had kept a house of ill-fame, and
+was either run away herself, or was forced to it by
+the officers of justice. However, as nobody knew
+me here, I went into a shop to buy some trifles, and
+asked who had lived in the opposite house (meaning
+Amy's). "Really, madam," says the woman, "I do
+not well know; but it was a woman who kept girls
+for gentlemen; she went on in that wickedness for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</a></span>
+some time, till a gentleman was robbed there of his
+watch and a diamond ring, on which the women
+were all taken up, and committed to the house of
+correction; but the young ones are now at liberty,
+and keep about the town." "Pray," said I, "what
+may have become of the old beast that could be the
+ruin of those young creatures?" "Why, I do not
+well know," says she; "but I have heard that, as all
+her goods were seized upon, she was sent to the poorhouse;
+but it soon after appearing that she had the
+French disease to a violent degree, was removed to a
+hospital to be taken care of, but I believe she will
+never live to come out; and if she should be so fortunate,
+the gentleman that was robbed, finding that
+she was the guilty person, intends to prosecute her
+to the utmost rigour of the law."</p>
+
+<p>I was sadly surprised to hear this character of
+Amy; for I thought whatever house she might keep,
+that the heyday of her blood had been over. But I
+found that she had not been willing to be taken for
+an old woman, though near sixty years of age; and
+my not seeing or hearing from her for some time
+past was a confirmation of what had been told me.</p>
+
+<p>I went home sadly dejected, considering how I
+might hear of her. I had known her for a faithful
+servant to me, in all my bad and good fortune, and
+was sorry that at the last such a miserable end should
+overtake her, though she, as well as I, deserved it
+several years before.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after I went pretty near the place I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[Pg 578]</a></span>
+had heard she was, and hired a poor woman to go
+and inquire how Amy &mdash;&mdash; did, and whether she
+was likely to do well. The woman returned, and
+told me that the matron, or mistress, said, the person
+I inquired after died in a salivation two days
+before, and was buried the last night in the cemetery
+belonging to the hospital.</p>
+
+<p>I was very sorry to hear of Amy's unhappy and
+miserable death; for when she came first into my
+service she was really a sober girl, very witty and
+brisk, but never impudent, and her notions in general
+were good, till my forcing her, as it were, to have an
+intrigue with the jeweller. She had also lived with
+me between thirty and forty years, in the several
+stages of life as I had passed through; and as I had
+done nothing but what she was privy to, so she was
+the best person in the universal world to consult
+with and take advice from, as my circumstances now
+were.</p>
+
+<p>I returned to my lodgings much chagrined, and
+very disconsolate; for as I had for several years
+lived at the pinnacle of splendour and satisfaction,
+it was a prodigious heart-break to me now to fall
+from upwards of &pound;3000 per annum to a poor &pound;500
+principal.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after this I went to see my son, the
+Earl of Wintselsheim. He received me in a very
+courteous (though far from a dutiful) manner. We
+talked together near an hour upon general things,
+but had no particular discourse about my late lord's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[Pg 579]</a></span>
+effects, as I wanted to have. Among other things
+he told me that his guardians had advised him to go
+to the university for four years longer, when he
+would come of age, and his estate would be somewhat
+repaired; to which he said he had agreed; and
+for that purpose all the household goods and equipages
+were to be disposed of the next week, and the
+servants dismissed. I immediately asked if it would
+be looked upon as an encroachment upon his father's
+will if I took Isabel (who had been my waiting-maid
+ever since I came from England) to live with me.
+"No, my lady," very readily replied he; "as she
+will be dismissed from me, she is certainly at liberty
+and full freedom to do for herself as soon and in the
+best manner she possibly can." After this I stayed
+about a quarter of an hour with him, and then I
+sent for Isabel, to know if she would come and live
+with me on her dismission from her lord's. The girl
+readily consented, for I had always been a good
+mistress to her; and then I went to my own lodgings
+in my son's coach, which he had ordered to be
+got ready to carry me home.</p>
+
+<p>Isabel came, according to appointment, about ten
+days after, and told me the house was quite cleared
+both of men and movables, but said her lord (meaning
+my son) was not gone to the university as yet,
+but was at one of his guardians' houses, where he
+would stay about a month, and that he intended to
+make a visit before his departure, which he did,
+attended by my late chaplain; and I, being in hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[Pg 580]</a></span>some
+lodgings, received them with all the complaisance
+and love as was possible, telling them that time
+and circumstances having greatly varied with me,
+whatever they saw amiss I hoped they would be so
+good as to look over it at that time, by considering
+the unhappy situation of my affairs.</p>
+
+<p>After this visit was over, and I had myself and
+Isabel to provide for, handsome lodgings to keep
+(which were as expensive as they were fine), and
+nothing but my principal money to live on (I mean
+what I happened to have in my pocket at my lord's
+death, for I had not been paid my &pound;500 as yet),
+I could not manage for a genteel maintenance as
+I had done some years before. I thought of divers
+things to lay my small sums out to advantage, but
+could fix on nothing; for it always happens that
+when people have but a trifle, they are very dubious
+in the disposal of it.</p>
+
+<p>Having been long resolving in my mind, I at last
+fixed on merchandise as the most genteel and profitable
+of anything else. Accordingly I went to a
+merchant who was intimate with my late lord, and
+letting him know how my circumstances were, he
+heartily condoled with me, and told me he could
+help me to a share in two ships&mdash;one was going a
+trading voyage to the coast of Africa, and the other
+a-privateering. I was now in a dilemma, and was
+willing to have a share in the trader, but was dubious
+of being concerned in the privateer; for I had heard
+strange stories told of the gentlemen concerned in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[Pg 581]</a></span>
+that way of business. Nay, I had been told, but
+with what certainty I cannot aver, that there was a
+set of men who took upon them to issue ships, and
+as they always knew to what port they are bound,
+notice was sent to their correspondent abroad to
+order out their privateers on the coast the other
+sailed, and they knowing the loading, and the numbers
+of hands and guns were on board, soon made
+prizes of the vessels, and the profits were equally
+divided, after paying what was paid for their insurance,
+among them all.</p>
+
+<p>However, I at last resolved, by the merchant's
+advice, to have a share in the trader, and the next
+day he over-persuaded me to have a share in the
+privateer also. But that I may not lay out my
+money before I have it, it may not be amiss to observe
+that I went to the executors and received my
+&pound;500 at an hour's notice, and then went to the merchant's
+to know what the shares would come to, and
+being told &pound;1500, I was resolved to raise the money;
+so I went home, and, with my maid Isabel, in two
+days' time disposed of as many of my clothes as
+fetched me near &pound;1100, which, joined to the above
+sum, I carried to the merchant's, where the writings
+were drawn, signed, sealed, and delivered to me in
+the presence of two witnesses, who went with me for
+that purpose. The ships were near ready for sailing;
+the trader was so well manned and armed, as well as
+the privateer, that the partners would not consent
+to insure them, and out they both sailed, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[Pg 582]</a></span>
+from different ports, and I depended on getting a
+good estate between them.</p>
+
+<p>When I was about this last ship a letter came
+from the count, my son, full of tender expressions of
+his duty to me, in which I was informed that he was
+going again to the university at Paris, where he
+should remain four years; after that he intended to
+make the tour of Europe, and then come and settle
+at The Hague. I returned him thanks in a letter
+for his compliment, wished him all happiness, and a
+safe return to Holland, and desired that he would
+write to me from time to time that I might hear of
+his welfare, which was all I could now expect of him.
+But this was the last time I heard from him, or he
+from me.</p>
+
+<p>In about a month's time the news came that the
+privateer (which sailed under British colours, and
+was divided into eight shares) had taken a ship, and
+was bringing it into the Texel, but that it accidentally
+foundered, and being chained to the privateer, had,
+in sinking, like to have lost that too. Two or three
+of the hands got on shore, and came to The Hague;
+but how terribly I was alarmed any one may judge,
+when I heard the ship the privateer had was the
+Newfoundland merchantman, as I had bought two
+shares in out of four. About two months after news
+was current about The Hague of a privateer or
+merchantman, one of them of the town, though not
+known which, having an engagement in the Mediterranean,
+in which action both the privateer and trader<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[Pg 583]</a></span>
+was lost. Soon after their names were publicly
+known, and, in the end, my partners heard that they
+were our ships, and unhappily sailing under false
+colours (a thing often practised in the time of war),
+and never having seen each other, had, at meeting,
+a very smart engagement, each fighting for life and
+honour, till two unfortunate shots; one of them, viz.,
+the privateer, was sunk by a shot between wind and
+water, and the trader unhappily blown up by a ball
+falling in the powder-room. There were only two
+hands of the trader, and three of the privateer, that
+escaped, and they all fortunately met at one of the
+partners' houses, where they confirmed the truth of
+this melancholy story, and to me a fatal loss.</p>
+
+<p>What was to be done now? I had no money, and
+but few clothes left; there, was no hope of subsistence
+from my son or his guardians; they were tied down
+to be spectators of my misfortunes, without affording
+me any redress, even if they would.</p>
+
+<p>Isabel, though I was now reduced to the last penny,
+would live with me still, and, as I observed before and
+may now repeat, I was in a pretty situation to begin
+the world&mdash;upwards of sixty years of age, friendless,
+scanty of clothes, and but very little money.</p>
+
+<p>I proposed to Isabel to remove from lodgings and
+retire to Amsterdam, where I was not known, and
+might turn myself into some little way of business,
+and work for that bread now which had been too
+often squandered away upon very trifles. And upon
+consideration I found myself in a worse condition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[Pg 584]</a></span>
+than I thought, for I had nothing to recommend
+me to Heaven, either in works or thoughts; had
+even banished from my mind all the cardinal and
+moral virtues, and had much more reason to hide
+myself from the sight of God, if possible, than I had
+to leave The Hague, that I might not be known of
+my fellow-creatures. And farther to hasten our
+removing to Amsterdam, I recollected I was involved
+in debt for money to purchase a share in the Newfoundland
+trader, which was lost, and my creditors
+daily threatened me with an arrest to make me pay
+them.</p>
+
+<p>I soon discharged my lodgings and went with
+Isabel to Amsterdam, where I thought, as I was
+advanced in years, to give up all I could raise in
+the world, and on the sale of everything I had to
+go into one of the Proveniers' houses, where I should
+be settled for life. But as I could not produce
+enough money for it, I turned it into a coffee-house
+near the Stadt-house, where I might have done well;
+but as soon as I was settled one of my Hague creditors
+arrested me for a debt of &pound;75, and I not having
+a friend in the world of whom to raise the money,
+was, in a shameful condition, carried to the common
+jail, where poor Isabel followed me with showers of
+tears, and left me inconsolable for my great misfortunes.
+Here, without some very unforeseen accident,
+I shall never go out of it until I am carried
+to my grave, for which my much-offended God prepare
+me as soon as possible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[Pg 585]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>The continuation of the Life of Roxana, by Isabel
+Johnson, who had been her waiting-maid, from
+the time she was thrown into jail to the time of her
+death.</i></p>
+
+<p>After my lady, as it was my duty to call her, was
+thrown into jail for a debt she was unable to pay,
+she gave her mind wholly up to devotion. Whether
+it was from a thorough sense of her wretched state,
+or any other reason, I could never learn; but this
+I may say, that she was a sincere penitent, and in
+every action had all the behaviour of a Christian.
+By degrees all the things she had in the world were
+sold, and she began to find an inward decay upon
+her spirits. In this interval she repeated all the
+passages of her ill-spent life to me, and thoroughly
+repented of every bad action, especially the little
+value she had for her children, which were honestly
+born and bred. And having, as she believed, made
+her peace with God, she died with mere grief on
+the 2nd of July 1742, in the sixty-fifth year of her
+age, and was decently buried by me in the churchyard
+belonging to the Lutherans, in the city of
+Amsterdam.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE END.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2), by 
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+</body>
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+
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+Project Gutenberg's The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2), by Daniel Defoe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2)
+       or a History of the Life of Mademoiselle de Beleau Known
+       by the Name of the Lady Roxana
+
+Author: Daniel Defoe
+
+Release Date: October 27, 2009 [EBook #30344]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORTUNATE MISTRESS (PARTS 1 AND 2) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach, Jane Hyland, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ROXANA
+
+[Illustration: _I was rich, beautiful, and agreeable, and not yet old_
+
+PAGE 244]
+
+The Cripplegate Edition
+
+
+
+
+THE WORKS OF DANIEL DEFOE
+
+THE FORTUNATE MISTRESS
+OR A HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF MADEMOISELLE DE BELEAU
+KNOWN BY THE NAME OF THE LADY ROXANA
+
+
+NEW YORK . . _MCMVIII_
+GEORGE D. SPROUL
+
+_Copyright, 1904, by_ THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
+
+UNIVERSITY PRESS . JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    ROXANA                                      _Frontispiece_
+
+    THE BREWER AND HIS MEN                           _Page_ 12
+
+    THE JEWELLER IS ABOUT TO LEAVE FOR VERSAILLES           74
+
+    THE VISIT OF THE PRINCE                                 90
+
+    THE DUTCH MERCHANT CALLS ON ROXANA.                    286
+
+    THE AMOUR DRAWS TO AN END                              302
+
+    ROXANA'S DAUGHTER AND THE QUAKER                       479
+
+    ROXANA IS CONFRONTED WITH HER DAUGHTER                 534
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+In March, 1724, was published the narrative in which Defoe came, perhaps
+even nearer than in _Moll Flanders_, to writing what we to-day call a
+novel, namely: _The Fortunate Mistress; or, a History of the Life and
+Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de' Belau; afterwards called
+the Countess of Wintelsheim, in Germany. Being the Person known by the
+name of the Lady Roxana, in the Time of King Charles II_. No second
+edition appeared till after Defoe's death, which occurred in 1731. Then
+for some years, various editions of _The Fortunate Mistress_ came out.
+Because Defoe had not indicated the end of his chief characters so
+clearly as he usually did in his stories, several of these later
+editions carried on the history of the heroine. Probably none of the
+continuations was by Defoe himself, though the one in the edition of
+1745 has been attributed to him. For this reason, and because it has
+some literary merit, it is included in the present edition.
+
+That this continuation was not by Defoe is attested in various ways. In
+the first place, it tells the history of Roxana down to her death in
+July, 1742, a date which Defoe would not have been likely to fix, for
+he died himself in April, 1731. Moreover, the statement that she was
+sixty-four when she died, does not agree with the statement at the
+beginning of Defoe's narrative that she was ten years old in 1683. She
+must have been born in 1673, and consequently would have been sixty-nine
+in 1742. This discrepancy, however, ceases to be important when we
+consider the general confusion of dates in the part of the book
+certainly by Defoe. The title-page announces that his heroine was "known
+by the name of the Lady Roxana, in the Time of King Charles II." She
+must have been known by this name when she was a child of eleven or
+twelve, then, for she was ten when her parents fled to England "about
+1683," and Charles II. died in February, 1685. Moreover, she was not
+married till she was fifteen; she lived eight years with her husband;
+and then she was mistress successively to the friendly jeweller, the
+Prince, and the Dutch merchant. Yet after this career, she returned to
+London in time to become a noted toast among Charles II.'s courtiers and
+to entertain at her house that monarch and the Duke of Monmouth.
+
+A stronger argument for different authorship is the difference in style
+between the continuation of _Roxana_ and the earlier narrative. In the
+continuation Defoe's best-known mannerisms are lacking, as two instances
+will show. Critics have often called attention to the fact that
+_fright_, instead of _frighten_, was a favourite word of Defoe. Now
+_frighten_, and not _fright_, is the verb used in the continuation.
+Furthermore, I have pointed out in a previous introduction[1] that Defoe
+was fond of making his characters _smile_, to show either kindliness or
+shrewd penetration. They do not _smile_ in the continuation.
+
+There are other differences between the original story of _The Fortunate
+Mistress_ and the continuation of 1745. The former is better narrative
+than the latter; it moves quicker; it is more real. And yet there is a
+manifest attempt in the continuation to imitate the manner and the
+substance of the story proper. There is a dialogue, for example, between
+Roxana and the Quakeress, modelled on the dialogues which Defoe was so
+fond of. Again, there is a fairly successful attempt to copy Defoe's
+circumstantiality; there is an amount of detail in the continuation
+which makes it more graphic than much of the fiction which has been
+given to the world. And finally, in understanding and reproducing the
+characters of Roxana and Amy, the anonymous author has done remarkably
+well. The character of Roxana's daughter is less true to Defoe's
+conception; the girl, as he drew her, was actuated more by natural
+affection in seeking her mother, and less by interest. The character of
+the Dutch merchant, likewise, has not changed for the better in the
+continuation. He has developed a vindictiveness which, in our former
+meetings with him, seemed foreign to his nature.
+
+I have said that in _The Fortunate Mistress_ Defoe has come nearer than
+usual to writing what we to-day call a novel; the reason is that he has
+had more success than usual in making his characters real. Though many
+of them are still wooden--lifeless types, rather than individuals--yet
+the Prince, the Quakeress, and the Dutch merchant occasionally wake to
+life; so rather more does the unfortunate daughter; and more yet, Amy
+and Roxana. With the exception of Moll Flanders, these last two are more
+vitalised than any personages Defoe invented. In this pair, furthermore,
+Defoe seems to have been interested in bringing out the contrast between
+characters. The servant, Amy, thrown with another mistress, might have
+been a totally different woman. The vulgarity of a servant she would
+have retained under any circumstances, as she did even when promoted
+from being the maid to being the companion of Roxana; but it was
+unreasoning devotion to her mistress, combined with weakness of
+character, which led Amy to be vicious.
+
+Roxana, for her part, had to the full the independence, the initiative,
+which her woman was without,--or rather was without when acting for
+herself; for when acting in the interests of her mistress, Amy was a
+different creature. Like all of Defoe's principal characters, Roxana is
+eminently practical, cold-blooded and selfish. After the first pang at
+parting with her five children, she seldom thinks of them except as
+encumbrances; she will provide for them as decently as she can without
+personal inconvenience, but even a slight sacrifice for the sake of one
+of them is too much for her. Towards all the men with whom she has
+dealings, and towards the friendly Quakeress of the Minories, too, she
+shows a calculating reticence which is most unfeminine. The continuator
+of our story endowed the heroine with wholly characteristic selfishness
+when he made her, on hearing of Amy's death, feel less sorrow for the
+miserable fate of her friend, than for her own loss of an adviser.
+
+And yet Roxana is capable of fine feeling, as is proved by those tears
+of joy for the happy change in her fortunes, which bring about that
+realistic love scene between her and the Prince in regard to the
+supposed paint on her cheeks. Again, when shipwreck threatens her and
+Amy, her emotion and repentance are due as much to the thought that she
+has degraded Amy to her own level as to thoughts of her more flagrant
+sins. That she is capable of feeling gratitude, she shows in her
+generosity to the Quakeress. And in her rage and remorse, on suspecting
+that her daughter has been murdered, and in her emotion several times
+on seeing her children, Roxana shows herself a true woman. In short,
+though for the most part monumentally selfish, she is yet saved from
+being impossible by several displays of noble emotion. One of the
+surprises, to a student of Defoe, is that this thick-skinned, mercantile
+writer, the vulgarest of all our great men of letters in the early
+eighteenth century, seems to have known a woman's heart better than a
+man's. At least he has succeeded in making two or three of his women
+characters more alive than any of his men. It is another surprise that
+in writing of women, Defoe often seems ahead of his age. In the argument
+between Roxana and her Dutch merchant about a woman's independence,
+Roxana talks like a character in a "problem" play or novel of our own
+day. This, perhaps, is not to Defoe's credit, but it is to his credit
+that he has said elsewhere:[2] "A woman well-bred and well-taught,
+furnished with the ... accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a
+creature without comparison; her society is the emblem of sublime
+enjoyments; ... and the man that has such a one to his portion, has
+nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful." After reading
+these words, one cannot but regret that Defoe did not try to create
+heroines more virtuous than Moll Flanders and Roxana.
+
+It is not only in drawing his characters that Defoe, in _The Fortunate
+Mistress_, comes nearer than usual to producing a novel. This narrative
+of his is less loosely constructed than any others except _Robinson
+Crusoe_ and the _Journal of the Plague Year_, which it was easier to
+give structure to. In both of them--the story of a solitary on a desert
+island and the story of the visitation of a pestilence--the nature of
+the subject made the author's course tolerably plain; in _The Fortunate
+Mistress_, the proper course was by no means so well marked. The more
+credit is due Defoe, therefore, that the book is so far from being
+entirely inorganised that, had he taken sufficient pains with the
+ending, it would have had as much structure as many good novels. There
+is no strongly defined plot, it is true; but in general, if a character
+is introduced, he is heard from again; a scene that impresses itself on
+the mind of the heroine is likely to be important in the sequel. The
+story seems to be working itself out to a logical conclusion, when
+unexpectedly it comes to an end. Defoe apparently grew tired of it for
+some reason, and wound it up abruptly, with only the meagre information
+as to the fate of Roxana and Amy that they "fell into a dreadful course
+of calamities."
+
+    G.H. MAYNADIER.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See Memoirs of a Cavalier
+
+[2] _An Essay upon Projects, An Academy for Women._
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE
+
+
+The history of this beautiful lady is to speak for itself; if it is not
+as beautiful as the lady herself is reported to be; if it is not as
+diverting as the reader can desire, and much more than he can reasonably
+expect; and if all the most diverting parts of it are not adapted to the
+instruction and improvement of the reader, the relator says it must be
+from the defect of his performance; dressing up the story in worse
+clothes than the lady whose words he speaks, prepared for the world.
+
+He takes the liberty to say that this story differs from most of the
+modern performances of this kind, though some of them have met with a
+very good reception in the world. I say, it differs from them in this
+great and essential article, namely, that the foundation of this is laid
+in truth of fact; and so the work is not a story, but a history.
+
+The scene is laid so near the place where the main part of it was
+transacted that it was necessary to conceal names and persons, lest what
+cannot be yet entirely forgot in that part of the town should be
+remembered, and the facts traced back too plainly by the many people
+yet living, who would know the persons by the particulars.
+
+It is not always necessary that the names of persons should be
+discovered, though the history may be many ways useful; and if we should
+be always obliged to name the persons, or not to relate the story, the
+consequence might be only this--that many a pleasant and delightful
+history would be buried in the dark, and the world deprived both of the
+pleasure and the profit of it.
+
+The writer says he was particularly acquainted with this lady's first
+husband, the brewer, and with his father, and also with his bad
+circumstances, and knows that first part of the story to be truth.
+
+This may, he hopes, be a pledge for the credit of the rest, though the
+latter part of her history lay abroad, and could not be so well vouched
+as the first; yet, as she has told it herself, we have the less reason
+to question the truth of that part also.
+
+In the manner she has told the story, it is evident she does not insist
+upon her justification in any one part of it; much less does she
+recommend her conduct, or, indeed, any part of it, except her
+repentance, to our imitation. On the contrary, she makes frequent
+excursions, in a just censuring and condemning her own practice. How
+often does she reproach herself in the most passionate manner, and guide
+us to just reflections in the like cases!
+
+It is true she met with unexpected success in all her wicked courses;
+but even in the highest elevations of her prosperity she makes frequent
+acknowledgments that the pleasure of her wickedness was not worth the
+repentance; and that all the satisfaction she had, all the joy in the
+view of her prosperity--no, nor all the wealth she rolled in, the gaiety
+of her appearance, the equipages and the honours she was attended with,
+could quiet her mind, abate the reproaches of her conscience, or procure
+her an hour's sleep when just reflection kept her waking.
+
+The noble inferences that are drawn from this one part are worth all the
+rest of the story, and abundantly justify, as they are the professed
+design of, the publication.
+
+If there are any parts in her story which, being obliged to relate a
+wicked action, seem to describe it too plainly, the writer says all
+imaginable care has been taken to keep clear of indecencies and immodest
+expressions; and it is hoped you will find nothing to prompt a vicious
+mind, but everywhere much to discourage and expose it.
+
+Scenes of crime can scarce be represented in such a manner but some may
+make a criminal use of them; but when vice is painted in its low-prized
+colours, it is not to make people in love with it, but to expose it; and
+if the reader makes a wrong use of the figures, the wickedness is his
+own.
+
+In the meantime, the advantages of the present work are so great, and
+the virtuous reader has room for so much improvement, that we make no
+question the story, however meanly told, will find a passage to his best
+hours, and be read both with profit and delight.
+
+
+
+
+A HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF ROXANA
+
+
+I was born, as my friends told me, at the city of Poitiers, in the
+province or county of Poitou, in France, from whence I was brought to
+England by my parents, who fled for their religion about the year 1683,
+when the Protestants were banished from France by the cruelty of their
+persecutors.
+
+I, who knew little or nothing of what I was brought over hither for, was
+well enough pleased with being here. London, a large and gay city, took
+with me mighty well, who, from my being a child, loved a crowd, and to
+see a great many fine folks.
+
+I retained nothing of France but the language, my father and mother
+being people of better fashion than ordinarily the people called
+refugees at that time were; and having fled early, while it was easy to
+secure their effects, had, before their coming over, remitted
+considerable sums of money, or, as I remember, a considerable value in
+French brandy, paper, and other goods; and these selling very much to
+advantage here, my father was in very good circumstances at his coming
+over, so that he was far from applying to the rest of our nation that
+were here for countenance and relief. On the contrary, he had his door
+continually thronged with miserable objects of the poor starving
+creatures who at that time fled hither for shelter on account of
+conscience, or something else.
+
+I have indeed heard my father say that he was pestered with a great many
+of those who, for any religion they had, might e'en have stayed where
+they were, but who flocked over hither in droves, for what they call in
+English a livelihood; hearing with what open arms the refugees were
+received in England, and how they fell readily into business, being, by
+the charitable assistance of the people in London, encouraged to work in
+their manufactories in Spitalfields, Canterbury, and other places, and
+that they had a much better price for their work than in France, and the
+like.
+
+My father, I say, told me that he was more pestered with the clamours of
+these people than of those who were truly refugees, and fled in distress
+merely for conscience.
+
+I was about ten years old when I was brought over hither, where, as I
+have said, my father lived in very good circumstances, and died in about
+eleven years more; in which time, as I had accomplished myself for the
+sociable part of the world, so I had acquainted myself with some of our
+English neighbours, as is the custom in London; and as, while I was
+young, I had picked up three or four playfellows and companions suitable
+to my years, so, as we grew bigger, we learned to call one another
+intimates and friends; and this forwarded very much the finishing me for
+conversation and the world.
+
+I went to English schools, and being young, I learned the English tongue
+perfectly well, with all the customs of the English young women; so that
+I retained nothing of the French but the speech; nor did I so much as
+keep any remains of the French language tagged to my way of speaking, as
+most foreigners do, but spoke what we call natural English, as if I had
+been born here.
+
+Being to give my own character, I must be excused to give it as
+impartially as possible, and as if I was speaking of another body; and
+the sequel will lead you to judge whether I flatter myself or no.
+
+I was (speaking of myself at about fourteen years of age) tall, and very
+well made; sharp as a hawk in matters of common knowledge; quick and
+smart in discourse; apt to be satirical; full of repartee; and a little
+too forward in conversation, or, as we call it in English, bold, though
+perfectly modest in my behaviour. Being French born, I danced, as some
+say, naturally, loved it extremely, and sang well also, and so well
+that, as you will hear, it was afterwards some advantage to me. With
+all these things, I wanted neither wit, beauty, or money. In this manner
+I set out into the world, having all the advantages that any young woman
+could desire, to recommend me to others, and form a prospect of happy
+living to myself.
+
+At about fifteen years of age, my father gave me, as he called it in
+French, 25,000 livres, that is to say, two thousand pounds portion, and
+married me to an eminent brewer in the city. Pardon me if I conceal his
+name; for though he was the foundation of my ruin, I cannot take so
+severe a revenge upon him.
+
+With this thing called a husband I lived eight years in good fashion,
+and for some part of the time kept a coach, that is to say, a kind of
+mock coach; for all the week the horses were kept at work in the
+dray-carts; but on Sunday I had the privilege to go abroad in my
+chariot, either to church or otherways, as my husband and I could agree
+about it, which, by the way, was not very often; but of that hereafter.
+
+Before I proceed in the history of the married part of my life, you must
+allow me to give as impartial an account of my husband as I have done of
+myself. He was a jolly, handsome fellow, as any woman need wish for a
+companion; tall and well made; rather a little too large, but not so as
+to be ungenteel; he danced well, which I think was the first thing that
+brought us together. He had an old father who managed the business
+carefully, so that he had little of that part lay on him, but now and
+then to appear and show himself; and he took the advantage of it, for he
+troubled himself very little about it, but went abroad, kept company,
+hunted much, and loved it exceedingly.
+
+After I have told you that he was a handsome man and a good sportsman, I
+have indeed said all; and unhappy was I, like other young people of our
+sex, I chose him for being a handsome, jolly fellow, as I have said; for
+he was otherwise a weak, empty-headed, untaught creature, as any woman
+could ever desire to be coupled with. And here I must take the liberty,
+whatever I have to reproach myself with in my after conduct, to turn to
+my fellow-creatures, the young ladies of this country, and speak to them
+by way of precaution. If you have any regard to your future happiness,
+any view of living comfortably with a husband, any hope of preserving
+your fortunes, or restoring them after any disaster, never, ladies,
+marry a fool; any husband rather than a fool. With some other husbands
+you may be unhappy, but with a fool you will be miserable; with another
+husband you may, I say, be unhappy, but with a fool you must; nay, if he
+would, he cannot make you easy; everything he does is so awkward,
+everything he says is so empty, a woman of any sense cannot but be
+surfeited and sick of him twenty times a day. What is more shocking than
+for a woman to bring a handsome, comely fellow of a husband into
+company, and then be obliged to blush for him every time she hears him
+speak? to hear other gentlemen talk sense, and he able to say nothing?
+and so look like a fool, or, which is worse, hear him talk nonsense, and
+be laughed at for a fool.
+
+In the next place, there are so many sorts of fools, such an infinite
+variety of fools, and so hard it is to know the worst of the kind, that
+I am obliged to say, "No fool, ladies, at all, no kind of fool, whether
+a mad fool or a sober fool, a wise fool or a silly fool; take anything
+but a fool; nay, be anything, be even an old maid, the worst of nature's
+curses, rather than take up with a fool."
+
+But to leave this awhile, for I shall have occasion to speak of it
+again; my case was particularly hard, for I had a variety of foolish
+things complicated in this unhappy match.
+
+First, and which I must confess is very unsufferable, he was a conceited
+fool, _tout opiniatre_; everything he said was right, was best, and was
+to the purpose, whoever was in company, and whatever was advanced by
+others, though with the greatest modesty imaginable. And yet, when he
+came to defend what he had said by argument and reason, he would do it
+so weakly, so emptily, and so nothing to the purpose, that it was enough
+to make anybody that heard him sick and ashamed of him.
+
+Secondly, he was positive and obstinate, and the most positive in the
+most simple and inconsistent things, such as were intolerable to bear.
+
+These two articles, if there had been no more, qualified him to be a
+most unbearable creature for a husband; and so it may be supposed at
+first sight what a kind of life I led with him. However, I did as well
+as I could, and held my tongue, which was the only victory I gained over
+him; for when he would talk after his own empty rattling way with me,
+and I would not answer, or enter into discourse with him on the point he
+was upon, he would rise up in the greatest passion imaginable, and go
+away, which was the cheapest way I had to be delivered.
+
+I could enlarge here much upon the method I took to make my life
+passable and easy with the most incorrigible temper in the world; but it
+is too long, and the articles too trifling. I shall mention some of them
+as the circumstances I am to relate shall necessarily bring them in.
+
+After I had been married about four years, my own father died, my mother
+having been dead before. He liked my match so ill, and saw so little
+room to be satisfied with the conduct of my husband, that though he left
+me five thousand livres, and more, at his death, yet he left it in the
+hands of my elder brother, who, running on too rashly in his adventures
+as a merchant, failed, and lost not only what he had, but what he had
+for me too, as you shall hear presently.
+
+Thus I lost the last gift of my father's bounty by having a husband not
+fit to be trusted with it: there's one of the benefits of marrying a
+fool.
+
+Within two years after my own father's death my husband's father also
+died, and, as I thought, left him a considerable addition to his estate,
+the whole trade of the brewhouse, which was a very good one, being now
+his own.
+
+But this addition to his stock was his ruin, for he had no genius to
+business, he had no knowledge of his accounts; he bustled a little about
+it, indeed, at first, and put on a face of business, but he soon grew
+slack; it was below him to inspect his books, he committed all that to
+his clerks and book-keepers; and while he found money in cash to pay the
+maltman and the excise, and put some in his pocket, he was perfectly
+easy and indolent, let the main chance go how it would.
+
+I foresaw the consequence of this, and attempted several times to
+persuade him to apply himself to his business; I put him in mind how his
+customers complained of the neglect of his servants on one hand, and how
+abundance broke in his debt, on the other hand, for want of the clerk's
+care to secure him, and the like; but he thrust me by, either with hard
+words, or fraudulently, with representing the cases otherwise than they
+were.
+
+However, to cut short a dull story, which ought not to be long, he began
+to find his trade sunk, his stock declined, and that, in short, he could
+not carry on his business, and once or twice his brewing utensils were
+extended for the excise; and, the last time, he was put to great
+extremities to clear them.
+
+This alarmed him, and he resolved to lay down his trade; which, indeed,
+I was not sorry for; foreseeing that if he did not lay it down in time,
+he would be forced to do it another way, namely, as a bankrupt. Also I
+was willing he should draw out while he had something left, lest I
+should come to be stripped at home, and be turned out of doors with my
+children; for I had now five children by him, the only work (perhaps)
+that fools are good for.
+
+I thought myself happy when he got another man to take his brewhouse
+clear off his hands; for, paying down a large sum of money, my husband
+found himself a clear man, all his debts paid, and with between two and
+three thousand pounds in his pocket; and being now obliged to remove
+from the brewhouse, we took a house at ----, a village about two miles
+out of town; and happy I thought myself, all things considered, that I
+was got off clear, upon so good terms; and had my handsome fellow had
+but one capful of wit, I had been still well enough.
+
+I proposed to him either to buy some place with the money, or with part
+of it, and offered to join my part to it, which was then in being, and
+might have been secured; so we might have lived tolerably at least
+during his life. But as it is the part of a fool to be void of counsel,
+so he neglected it, lived on as he did before, kept his horses and men,
+rid every day out to the forest a-hunting, and nothing was done all this
+while; but the money decreased apace, and I thought I saw my ruin
+hastening on without any possible way to prevent it.
+
+I was not wanting with all that persuasions and entreaties could
+perform, but it was all fruitless; representing to him how fast our
+money wasted, and what would be our condition when it was gone, made no
+impression on him; but like one stupid, he went on, not valuing all that
+tears and lamentations could be supposed to do; nor did he abate his
+figure or equipage, his horses or servants, even to the last, till he
+had not a hundred pounds left in the whole world.
+
+It was not above three years that all the ready money was thus spending
+off; yet he spent it, as I may say, foolishly too, for he kept no
+valuable company neither, but generally with huntsmen and
+horse-coursers, and men meaner than himself, which is another
+consequence of a man's being a fool; such can never take delight in men
+more wise and capable than themselves, and that makes them converse
+with scoundrels, drink, belch with porters, and keep company always
+below themselves.
+
+This was my wretched condition, when one morning my husband told me he
+was sensible he was come to a miserable condition, and he would go and
+seek his fortune somewhere or other. He had said something to that
+purpose several times before that, upon my pressing him to consider his
+circumstances, and the circumstances of his family, before it should be
+too late; but as I found he had no meaning in anything of that kind, as,
+indeed, he had not much in anything he ever said, so I thought they were
+but words of course now. When he had said he would be gone, I used to
+wish secretly, and even say in my thoughts, I wish you would, for if you
+go on thus you will starve us all.
+
+He stayed, however, at home all that day, and lay at home that night;
+early the next morning he gets out of bed, goes to a window which looked
+out towards the stable, and sounds his French horn, as he called it,
+which was his usual signal to call his men to go out a-hunting.
+
+It was about the latter end of August, and so was light yet at five
+o'clock, and it was about that time that I heard him and his two men go
+out and shut the yard gates after them. He said nothing to me more than
+as usual when he used to go out upon his sport; neither did I rise, or
+say anything to him that was material, but went to sleep again after he
+was gone, for two hours or thereabouts.
+
+It must be a little surprising to the reader to tell him at once, that
+after this I never saw my husband more; but, to go farther, I not only
+never saw him more, but I never heard from him, or of him, neither of
+any or either of his two servants, or of the horses, either what became
+of them, where or which way they went, or what they did or intended to
+do, no more than if the ground had opened and swallowed them all up, and
+nobody had known it, except as hereafter.
+
+I was not, for the first night or two, at all surprised, no, nor very
+much the first week or two, believing that if anything evil had befallen
+them, I should soon enough have heard of that; and also knowing, that as
+he had two servants and three horses with him, it would be the strangest
+thing in the world that anything could befall them all but that I must
+some time or other hear of them.
+
+But you will easily allow, that as time ran on, a week, two weeks, a
+month, two months, and so on, I was dreadfully frighted at last, and the
+more when I looked into my own circumstances, and considered the
+condition in which I was left with five children, and not one farthing
+subsistence for them, other than about seventy pounds in money, and what
+few things of value I had about me, which, though considerable in
+themselves, were yet nothing to feed a family, and for a length of time
+too.
+
+[Illustration: THE BREWER AND HIS MEN
+
+I heard him and his two men go out and shut the yard gates after them]
+
+What to do I knew not, nor to whom to have recourse: to keep in the
+house where I was, I could not, the rent being too great; and to leave
+it without his orders, if my husband should return, I could not think of
+that neither; so that I continued extremely perplexed, melancholy, and
+discouraged to the last degree.
+
+I remained in this dejected condition near a twelvemonth. My husband had
+two sisters, who were married, and lived very well, and some other near
+relations that I knew of, and I hoped would do something for me; and I
+frequently sent to these, to know if they could give me any account of
+my vagrant creature. But they all declared to me in answer, that they
+knew nothing about him; and, after frequent sending, began to think me
+troublesome, and to let me know they thought so too, by their treating
+my maid with very slight and unhandsome returns to her inquiries.
+
+This grated hard, and added to my affliction; but I had no recourse but
+to my tears, for I had not a friend of my own left me in the world. I
+should have observed, that it was about half a year before this
+elopement of my husband that the disaster I mentioned above befell my
+brother, who broke, and that in such bad circumstances, that I had the
+mortification to hear, not only that he was in prison, but that there
+would be little or nothing to be had by way of composition.
+
+Misfortunes seldom come alone: this was the forerunner of my husband's
+flight; and as my expectations were cut off on that side, my husband
+gone, and my family of children on my hands, and nothing to subsist
+them, my condition was the most deplorable that words can express.
+
+I had some plate and some jewels, as might be supposed, my fortune and
+former circumstances considered; and my husband, who had never stayed to
+be distressed, had not been put to the necessity of rifling me, as
+husbands usually do in such cases. But as I had seen an end of all the
+ready money during the long time I had lived in a state of expectation
+for my husband, so I began to make away one thing after another, till
+those few things of value which I had began to lessen apace, and I saw
+nothing but misery and the utmost distress before me, even to have my
+children starve before my face. I leave any one that is a mother of
+children, and has lived in plenty and in good fashion, to consider and
+reflect what must be my condition. As to my husband, I had now no hope
+or expectation of seeing him any more; and indeed, if I had, he was a
+man of all the men in the world the least able to help me, or to have
+turned his hand to the gaining one shilling towards lessening our
+distress; he neither had the capacity or the inclination; he could have
+been no clerk, for he scarce wrote a legible hand; he was so far from
+being able to write sense, that he could not make sense of what others
+wrote; he was so far from understanding good English, that he could not
+spell good English; to be out of all business was his delight, and he
+would stand leaning against a post for half-an-hour together, with a
+pipe in his mouth, with all the tranquillity in the world, smoking, like
+Dryden's countryman, that whistled as he went for want of thought, and
+this even when his family was, as it were, starving, that little he had
+wasting, and that we were all bleeding to death; he not knowing, and as
+little considering, where to get another shilling when the last was
+spent.
+
+This being his temper, and the extent of his capacity, I confess I did
+not see so much loss in his parting with me as at first I thought I did;
+though it was hard and cruel to the last degree in him, not giving me
+the least notice of his design; and indeed, that which I was most
+astonished at was, that seeing he must certainly have intended this
+excursion some few moments at least before he put it in practice, yet he
+did not come and take what little stock of money we had left, or at
+least a share of it, to bear his expense for a little while; but he did
+not; and I am morally certain he had not five guineas with him in the
+world when he went away. All that I could come to the knowledge of about
+him was, that he left his hunting-horn, which he called the French horn,
+in the stable, and his hunting-saddle, went away in a handsome
+furniture, as they call it, which he used sometimes to travel with,
+having an embroidered housing, a case of pistols, and other things
+belonging to them; and one of his servants had another saddle with
+pistols, though plain, and the other a long gun; so that they did not go
+out as sportsmen, but rather as travellers; what part of the world they
+went to I never heard for many years.
+
+As I have said, I sent to his relations, but they sent me short and
+surly answers; nor did any one of them offer to come to see me, or to
+see the children, or so much as to inquire after them, well perceiving
+that I was in a condition that was likely to be soon troublesome to
+them. But it was no time now to dally with them or with the world; I
+left off sending to them, and went myself among them, laid my
+circumstances open to them, told them my whole case, and the condition I
+was reduced to, begged they would advise me what course to take, laid
+myself as low as they could desire, and entreated them to consider that
+I was not in a condition to help myself, and that without some
+assistance we must all inevitably perish. I told them that if I had had
+but one child, or two children, I would have done my endeavour to have
+worked for them with my needle, and should only have come to them to beg
+them to help me to some work, that I might get our bread by my labour;
+but to think of one single woman, not bred to work, and at a loss where
+to get employment, to get the bread of five children, that was not
+possible--some of my children being young too, and none of them big
+enough to help one another.
+
+It was all one; I received not one farthing of assistance from anybody,
+was hardly asked to sit down at the two sisters' houses, nor offered to
+eat or drink at two more near relations'. The fifth, an ancient
+gentlewoman, aunt-in-law to my husband, a widow, and the least able also
+of any of the rest, did, indeed, ask me to sit down, gave me a dinner,
+and refreshed me with a kinder treatment than any of the rest, but added
+the melancholy part, viz., that she would have helped me, but that,
+indeed, she was not able, which, however, I was satisfied was very true.
+
+Here I relieved myself with the constant assistant of the afflicted, I
+mean tears; for, relating to her how I was received by the other of my
+husband's relations, it made me burst into tears, and I cried vehemently
+for a great while together, till I made the good old gentlewoman cry too
+several times.
+
+However, I came home from them all without any relief, and went on at
+home till I was reduced to such inexpressible distress that is not to be
+described. I had been several times after this at the old aunt's, for I
+prevailed with her to promise me to go and talk with the other
+relations, at least, that, if possible, she could bring some of them to
+take off the children, or to contribute something towards their
+maintenance. And, to do her justice, she did use her endeavour with
+them; but all was to no purpose, they would do nothing, at least that
+way. I think, with much entreaty, she obtained, by a kind of collection
+among them all, about eleven or twelve shillings in money, which, though
+it was a present comfort, was yet not to be named as capable to deliver
+me from any part of the load that lay upon me.
+
+There was a poor woman that had been a kind of a dependent upon our
+family, and whom I had often, among the rest of the relations, been very
+kind to; my maid put it into my head one morning to send to this poor
+woman, and to see whether she might not be able to help in this dreadful
+case.
+
+I must remember it here, to the praise of this poor girl, my maid, that
+though I was not able to give her any wages, and had told her so--nay, I
+was not able to pay her the wages that I was in arrears to her--yet she
+would not leave me; nay, and as long as she had any money, when I had
+none, she would help me out of her own, for which, though I acknowledged
+her kindness and fidelity, yet it was but a bad coin that she was paid
+in at last, as will appear in its place.
+
+Amy (for that was her name) put it into my thoughts to send for this
+poor woman to come to me; for I was now in great distress, and I
+resolved to do so. But just the very morning that I intended it, the old
+aunt, with the poor woman in her company, came to see me; the good old
+gentlewoman was, it seems, heartily concerned for me, and had been
+talking again among those people, to see what she could do for me, but
+to very little purpose.
+
+You shall judge a little of my present distress by the posture she found
+me in. I had five little children, the eldest was under ten years old,
+and I had not one shilling in the house to buy them victuals, but had
+sent Amy out with a silver spoon to sell it, and bring home something
+from the butcher's; and I was in a parlour, sitting on the ground, with
+a great heap of old rags, linen, and other things about me, looking them
+over, to see if I had anything among them that would sell or pawn for a
+little money, and had been crying ready to burst myself, to think what I
+should do next.
+
+At this juncture they knocked at the door. I thought it had been Amy,
+so I did not rise up; but one of the children opened the door, and they
+came directly into the room where I was, and where they found me in that
+posture, and crying vehemently, as above. I was surprised at their
+coming, you may be sure, especially seeing the person I had but just
+before resolved to send for; but when they saw me, how I looked, for my
+eyes were swelled with crying, and what a condition I was in as to the
+house, and the heaps of things that were about me, and especially when I
+told them what I was doing, and on what occasion, they sat down, like
+Job's three comforters, and said not one word to me for a great while,
+but both of them cried as fast and as heartily as I did.
+
+The truth was, there was no need of much discourse in the case, the
+thing spoke itself; they saw me in rags and dirt, who was but a little
+before riding in my coach; thin, and looking almost like one starved,
+who was before fat and beautiful. The house, that was before handsomely
+furnished with pictures and ornaments, cabinets, pier-glasses, and
+everything suitable, was now stripped and naked, most of the goods
+having been seized by the landlord for rent, or sold to buy necessaries;
+in a word, all was misery and distress, the face of ruin was everywhere
+to be seen; we had eaten up almost everything, and little remained,
+unless, like one of the pitiful women of Jerusalem, I should eat up my
+very children themselves.
+
+After these two good creatures had sat, as I say, in silence some time,
+and had then looked about them, my maid Amy came in, and brought with
+her a small breast of mutton and two great bunches of turnips, which she
+intended to stew for our dinner. As for me, my heart was so overwhelmed
+at seeing these two friends--for such they were, though poor--and at
+their seeing me in such a condition, that I fell into another violent
+fit of crying, so that, in short, I could not speak to them again for a
+great while longer.
+
+During my being in such an agony, they went to my maid Amy at another
+part of the same room and talked with her. Amy told them all my
+circumstances, and set them forth in such moving terms, and so to the
+life, that I could not upon any terms have done it like her myself, and,
+in a word, affected them both with it in such a manner, that the old
+aunt came to me, and though hardly able to speak for tears, "Look ye,
+cousin," said she, in a few words, "things must not stand thus; some
+course must be taken, and that forthwith; pray, where were these
+children born?" I told her the parish where we lived before, that four
+of them were born there, and one in the house where I now was, where the
+landlord, after having seized my goods for the rent past, not then
+knowing my circumstances, had now given me leave to live for a whole
+year more without any rent, being moved with compassion; but that this
+year was now almost expired.
+
+Upon hearing this account, they came to this resolution, that the
+children should be all carried by them to the door of one of the
+relations mentioned above, and be set down there by the maid Amy, and
+that I, the mother, should remove for some days, shut up the doors, and
+be gone; that the people should be told, that if they did not think fit
+to take some care of the children, they might send for the churchwardens
+if they thought that better, for that they were born in that parish, and
+there they must be provided for; as for the other child, which was born
+in the parish of ----, that was already taken care of by the parish
+officers there, for indeed they were so sensible of the distress of the
+family that they had at first word done what was their part to do.
+
+This was what these good women proposed, and bade me leave the rest to
+them. I was at first sadly afflicted at the thoughts of parting with my
+children, and especially at that terrible thing, their being taken into
+the parish keeping; and then a hundred terrible things came into my
+thoughts, viz., of parish children being starved at nurse; of their
+being ruined, let grow crooked, lamed, and the like, for want of being
+taken care of; and this sunk my very heart within me.
+
+But the misery of my own circumstances hardened my heart against my own
+flesh and blood; and when I considered they must inevitably be starved,
+and I too if I continued to keep them about me, I began to be reconciled
+to parting with them all, anyhow and anywhere, that I might be freed
+from the dreadful necessity of seeing them all perish, and perishing
+with them myself. So I agreed to go away out of the house, and leave the
+management of the whole matter to my maid Amy and to them; and
+accordingly I did so, and the same afternoon they carried them all away
+to one of their aunts.
+
+Amy, a resolute girl, knocked at the door, with the children all with
+her, and bade the eldest, as soon as the door was open, run in, and the
+rest after her. She set them all down at the door before she knocked,
+and when she knocked she stayed till a maid-servant came to the door;
+"Sweetheart," said she, "pray go in and tell your mistress here are her
+little cousins come to see her from ----," naming the town where we
+lived, at which the maid offered to go back. "Here, child," says Amy,
+"take one of 'em in your hand, and I'll bring the rest;" so she gives
+her the least, and the wench goes in mighty innocently, with the little
+one in her hand, upon which Amy turns the rest in after her, shuts the
+door softly, and marches off as fast as she could.
+
+Just in the interval of this, and even while the maid and her mistress
+were quarrelling (for the mistress raved and scolded her like a mad
+woman, and had ordered her to go and stop the maid Amy, and turn all the
+children out of the doors again; but she had been at the door, and Amy
+was gone, and the wench was out of her wits, and the mistress too), I
+say, just at this juncture came the poor old woman, not the aunt, but
+the other of the two that had been with me, and knocks at the door: the
+aunt did not go, because she had pretended to advocate for me, and they
+would have suspected her of some contrivance; but as for the other
+woman, they did not so much as know that she had kept up any
+correspondence with me.
+
+Amy and she had concerted this between them, and it was well enough
+contrived that they did so. When she came into the house, the mistress
+was fuming, and raging like one distracted, and called the maid all the
+foolish jades and sluts that she could think of, and that she would take
+the children and turn them all out into the streets. The good poor
+woman, seeing her in such a passion, turned about as if she would be
+gone again, and said, "Madam, I'll come again another time, I see you
+are engaged." "No, no, Mrs. ----," says the mistress, "I am not much
+engaged, sit down; this senseless creature here has brought in my fool
+of a brother's whole house of children upon me, and tells me that a
+wench brought them to the door and thrust them in, and bade her carry
+them to me; but it shall be no disturbance to me, for I have ordered
+them to be set in the street without the door, and so let the
+churchwardens take care of them, or else make this dull jade carry 'em
+back to ---- again, and let her that brought them into the world look
+after them if she will; what does she send her brats to me for?"
+
+"The last indeed had been the best of the two," says the poor woman, "if
+it had been to be done; and that brings me to tell you my errand, and
+the occasion of my coming, for I came on purpose about this very
+business, and to have prevented this being put upon you if I could, but
+I see I am come too late."
+
+"How do you mean too late?" says the mistress. "What! have you been
+concerned in this affair, then? What! have you helped bring this family
+slur upon us?" "I hope you do not think such a thing of me, madam," says
+the poor woman; "but I went this morning to ----, to see my old mistress
+and benefactor, for she had been very kind to me, and when I came to the
+door I found all fast locked and bolted, and the house looking as if
+nobody was at home.
+
+"I knocked at the door, but nobody came, till at last some of the
+neighbours' servants called to me and said, 'There's nobody lives there,
+mistress; what do you knock for?' I seemed surprised at that. 'What,
+nobody lives there!' said I; 'what d'ye mean? Does not Mrs. ---- live
+there?' The answer was, 'No, she is gone;' at which I parleyed with one
+of them, and asked her what was the matter. 'Matter!' says she, 'why, it
+is matter enough: the poor gentlewoman has lived there all alone, and
+without anything to subsist her a long time, and this morning the
+landlord turned her out of doors.'
+
+"'Out of doors!' says I; 'what! with all her children? Poor lambs, what
+is become of them?' 'Why, truly, nothing worse,' said they, 'can come to
+them than staying here, for they were almost starved with hunger; so the
+neighbours, seeing the poor lady in such distress, for she stood crying
+and wringing her hands over her children like one distracted, sent for
+the churchwardens to take care of the children; and they, when they
+came, took the youngest, which was born in this parish, and have got it
+a very good nurse, and taken care of it; but as for the other four, they
+had sent them away to some of their father's relations, and who were
+very substantial people, and who, besides that, lived in the parish
+where they were born.'
+
+"I was not so surprised at this as not presently to foresee that this
+trouble would be brought upon you or upon Mr. ----; so I came immediately
+to bring word of it, that you might be prepared for it, and might not be
+surprised; but I see they have been too nimble for me, so that I know
+not what to advise. The poor woman, it seems, is turned out of doors
+into the street; and another of the neighbours there told me, that when
+they took her children from her she swooned away, and when they
+recovered her out of that, she ran distracted, and is put into a
+madhouse by the parish, for there is nobody else to take any care of
+her."
+
+This was all acted to the life by this good, kind, poor creature; for
+though her design was perfectly good and charitable, yet there was not
+one word of it true in fact; for I was not turned out of doors by the
+landlord, nor gone distracted. It was true, indeed, that at parting with
+my poor children I fainted, and was like one mad when I came to myself
+and found they were gone; but I remained in the house a good while after
+that, as you shall hear.
+
+While the poor woman was telling this dismal story, in came the
+gentlewoman's husband, and though her heart was hardened against all
+pity, who was really and nearly related to the children, for they were
+the children of her own brother, yet the good man was quite softened
+with the dismal relation of the circumstances of the family; and when
+the poor woman had done, he said to his wife, "This is a dismal case,
+my dear, indeed, and something must be done." His wife fell a-raving at
+him: "What," says she, "do you want to have four children to keep? Have
+we not children of our own? Would you have these brats come and eat up
+my children's bread? No, no, let 'em go to the parish, and let them take
+care of them; I'll take care of my own."
+
+"Come, come, my dear," says the husband, "charity is a duty to the poor,
+and he that gives to the poor lends to the Lord; let us lend our
+heavenly Father a little of our children's bread, as you call it; it
+will be a store well laid up for them, and will be the best security
+that our children shall never come to want charity, or be turned out of
+doors, as these poor innocent creatures are." "Don't tell me of
+security," says the wife, "'tis a good security for our children to keep
+what we have together, and provide for them, and then 'tis time enough
+to help keep other folks' children. Charity begins at home."
+
+"Well, my dear," says he again, "I only talk of putting out a little
+money to interest: our Maker is a good borrower; never fear making a bad
+debt there, child, I'll be bound for it."
+
+"Don't banter me with your charity and your allegories," says the wife
+angrily; "I tell you they are my relations, not yours, and they shall
+not roost here; they shall go to the parish."
+
+"All your relations are my relations now," says the good gentleman very
+calmly, "and I won't see your relations in distress, and not pity them,
+any more than I would my own; indeed, my dear, they shan't go to the
+parish. I assure you, none of my wife's relations shall come to the
+parish, if I can help it."
+
+"What! will you take four children to keep?" says the wife.
+
+"No, no, my dear," says he, "there's your sister ----, I'll go and talk
+with her; and your uncle ----, I'll send for him, and the rest. I'll
+warrant you, when we are all together, we will find ways and means to
+keep four poor little creatures from beggary and starving, or else it
+would be very hard; we are none of us in so bad circumstances but we are
+able to spare a mite for the fatherless. Don't shut up your bowels of
+compassion against your own flesh and blood. Could you hear these poor
+innocent children cry at your door for hunger, and give them no bread?"
+
+"Prithee, what need they cry at our door?" says she. "'Tis the business
+of the parish to provide for them; they shan't cry at our door. If they
+do, I'll give them nothing." "Won't you?" says he; "but I will. Remember
+that dreadful Scripture is directly against us, Prov. xxi. 13, 'Whoso
+stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but
+shall not be heard.'"
+
+"Well, well," says she, "you must do what you will, because you pretend
+to be master; but if I had my will I would send them where they ought to
+be sent: I would send them from whence they came."
+
+Then the poor woman put in, and said, "But, madam, that is sending them
+to starve indeed, for the parish has no obligation to take care of 'em,
+and so they will lie and perish in the street."
+
+"Or be sent back again," says the husband, "to our parish in a
+cripple-cart, by the justice's warrant, and so expose us and all the
+relations to the last degree among our neighbours, and among those who
+know the good old gentleman their grandfather, who lived and flourished
+in this parish so many years, and was so well beloved among all people,
+and deserved it so well."
+
+"I don't value that one farthing, not I," says the wife; "I'll keep none
+of them."
+
+"Well, my dear," says her husband, "but I value it, for I won't have
+such a blot lie upon the family, and upon your children; he was a
+worthy, ancient, and good man, and his name is respected among all his
+neighbours; it will be a reproach to you, that are his daughter, and to
+our children, that are his grandchildren, that we should let your
+brother's children perish, or come to be a charge to the public, in the
+very place where your family once flourished. Come, say no more; I will
+see what can be done."
+
+Upon this he sends and gathers all the relations together at a tavern
+hard by, and sent for the four little children, that they might see
+them; and they all, at first word, agreed to have them taken care of,
+and, because his wife was so furious that she would not suffer one of
+them to be kept at home, they agreed to keep them all together for a
+while; so they committed them to the poor woman that had managed the
+affair for them, and entered into obligations to one another to supply
+the needful sums for their maintenance; and, not to have one separated
+from the rest, they sent for the youngest from the parish where it was
+taken in, and had them all brought up together.
+
+It would take up too long a part of this story to give a particular
+account with what a charitable tenderness this good person, who was but
+an uncle-in-law to them, managed that affair; how careful he was of
+them; went constantly to see them, and to see that they were well
+provided for, clothed, put to school, and, at last, put out in the world
+for their advantage; but it is enough to say he acted more like a father
+to them than an uncle-in-law, though all along much against his wife's
+consent, who was of a disposition not so tender and compassionate as
+her husband.
+
+You may believe I heard this with the same pleasure which I now feel at
+the relating it again; for I was terribly affrighted at the
+apprehensions of my children being brought to misery and distress, as
+those must be who have no friends, but are left to parish benevolence.
+
+I was now, however, entering on a new scene of life. I had a great house
+upon my hands, and some furniture left in it; but I was no more able to
+maintain myself and my maid Amy in it than I was my five children; nor
+had I anything to subsist with but what I might get by working, and that
+was not a town where much work was to be had.
+
+My landlord had been very kind indeed after he came to know my
+circumstances; though, before he was acquainted with that part, he had
+gone so far as to seize my goods, and to carry some of them off too.
+
+But I had lived three-quarters of a year in his house after that, and
+had paid him no rent, and, which was worse, I was in no condition to pay
+him any. However, I observed he came oftener to see me, looked kinder
+upon me, and spoke more friendly to me, than he used to do, particularly
+the last two or three times he had been there. He observed, he said, how
+poorly I lived, how low I was reduced, and the like; told me it grieved
+him for my sake; and the last time of all he was kinder still, told me
+he came to dine with me, and that I should give him leave to treat me;
+so he called my maid Amy, and sent her out to buy a joint of meat; he
+told her what she should buy; but naming two or three things, either of
+which she might take, the maid, a cunning wench, and faithful to me as
+the skin to my back, did not buy anything outright, but brought the
+butcher along with her, with both the things that she had chosen, for
+him to please himself. The one was a large, very good leg of veal; the
+other a piece of the fore-ribs of roasting beef. He looked at them, but
+made me chaffer with the butcher for him, and I did so, and came back to
+him and told him what the butcher had demanded for either of them, and
+what each of them came to. So he pulls out eleven shillings and
+threepence, which they came to together, and bade me take them both; the
+rest, he said, would serve another time.
+
+I was surprised, you may be sure, at the bounty of a man that had but a
+little while ago been my terror, and had torn the goods out of my house
+like a fury; but I considered that my distresses had mollified his
+temper, and that he had afterwards been so compassionate as to give me
+leave to live rent free in the house a whole year.
+
+But now he put on the face, not of a man of compassion only, but of a
+man of friendship and kindness, and this was so unexpected that it was
+surprising. We chatted together, and were, as I may call it, cheerful,
+which was more than I could say I had been for three years before. He
+sent for wine and beer too, for I had none; poor Amy and I had drank
+nothing but water for many weeks, and indeed I have often wondered at
+the faithful temper of the poor girl, for which I but ill requited her
+at last.
+
+When Amy was come with the wine, he made her fill a glass to him, and
+with the glass in his hand he came to me and kissed me, which I was, I
+confess, a little surprised at, but more at what followed; for he told
+me, that as the sad condition which I was reduced to had made him pity
+me, so my conduct in it, and the courage I bore it with, had given him a
+more than ordinary respect for me, and made him very thoughtful for my
+good; that he was resolved for the present to do something to relieve
+me, and to employ his thoughts in the meantime, to see if he could for
+the future put me into a way to support myself.
+
+While he found me change colour, and look surprised at his discourse,
+for so I did, to be sure, he turns to my maid Amy, and looking at her,
+he says to me, "I say all this, madam, before your maid, because both
+she and you shall know that I have no ill design, and that I have, in
+mere kindness, resolved to do something for you if I can; and as I have
+been a witness of the uncommon honesty and fidelity of Mrs. Amy here to
+you in all your distresses, I know she may be trusted with so honest a
+design as mine is; for I assure you, I bear a proportioned regard to
+your maid too, for her affection to you."
+
+Amy made him a curtsey, and the poor girl looked so confounded with joy
+that she could not speak, but her colour came and went, and every now
+and then she blushed as red as scarlet, and the next minute looked as
+pale as death. Well, having said this, he sat down, made me sit down,
+and then drank to me, and made me drink two glasses of wine together;
+"For," says he, "you have need of it;" and so indeed I had. When he had
+done so, "Come, Amy," says he, "with your mistress's leave, you shall
+have a glass too." So he made her drink two glasses also; and then
+rising up, "And now, Amy," says he, "go and get dinner; and you, madam,"
+says he to me, "go up and dress you, and come down and smile and be
+merry;" adding, "I'll make you easy if I can;" and in the meantime, he
+said, he would walk in the garden.
+
+When he was gone, Amy changed her countenance indeed, and looked as
+merry as ever she did in her life. "Dear madam," says she, "what does
+this gentleman mean?" "Nay, Amy," said I, "he means to do us good, you
+see, don't he? I know no other meaning he can have, for he can get
+nothing by me." "I warrant you, madam," says she, "he'll ask you a
+favour by-and-by." "No, no, you are mistaken, Amy, I dare say," said I;
+"you have heard what he said, didn't you?" "Ay," says Amy, "it's no
+matter for that, you shall see what he will do after dinner." "Well,
+well, Amy," says I, "you have hard thoughts of him. I cannot be of your
+opinion: I don't see anything in him yet that looks like it." "As to
+that, madam," says Amy, "I don't see anything of it yet neither; but
+what should move a gentleman to take pity of us as he does?" "Nay," says
+I, "that's a hard thing too, that we should judge a man to be wicked
+because he's charitable, and vicious because he's kind." "Oh, madam,"
+says Amy, "there's abundance of charity begins in that vice; and he is
+not so unacquainted with things as not to know that poverty is the
+strongest incentive--a temptation against which no virtue is powerful
+enough to stand out. He knows your condition as well as you do." "Well,
+and what then?" "Why, then, he knows too that you are young and
+handsome, and he has the surest bait in the world to take you with."
+
+"Well, Amy," said I, "but he may find himself mistaken too in such a
+thing as that." "Why, madam," says Amy, "I hope you won't deny him if he
+should offer it."
+
+"What d'ye mean by that, hussy?" said I. "No, I'd starve first."
+
+"I hope not, madam, I hope you would be wiser; I'm sure if he will set
+you up, as he talks of, you ought to deny him nothing; and you will
+starve if you do not consent, that's certain."
+
+"What! consent to lie with him for bread? Amy," said I, "how can you
+talk so!"
+
+"Nay, madam," says Amy, "I don't think you would for anything else; it
+would not be lawful for anything else, but for bread, madam; why, nobody
+can starve, there's no bearing that, I'm sure."
+
+"Ay," says I, "but if he would give me an estate to live on, he should
+not lie with me, I assure you."
+
+"Why, look you, madam; if he would but give you enough to live easy
+upon, he should lie with me for it with all my heart."
+
+"That's a token, Amy, of inimitable kindness to me," said I, "and I know
+how to value it; but there's more friendship than honesty in it, Amy."
+
+"Oh, madam," says Amy, "I'd do anything to get you out of this sad
+condition; as to honesty, I think honesty is out of the question when
+starving is the case. Are not we almost starved to death?"
+
+"I am indeed," said I, "and thou art for my sake; but to be a whore,
+Amy!" and there I stopped.
+
+"Dear madam," says Amy, "if I will starve for your sake, I will be a
+whore or anything for your sake; why, I would die for you if I were put
+to it."
+
+"Why, that's an excess of affection, Amy," said I, "I never met with
+before; I wish I may be ever in condition to make you some returns
+suitable. But, however, Amy, you shall not be a whore to him, to oblige
+him to be kind to me; no, Amy, nor I won't be a whore to him, if he
+would give me much more than he is able to give me or do for me."
+
+"Why, madam," says Amy, "I don't say I will go and ask him; but I say,
+if he should promise to do so and so for you, and the condition was such
+that he would not serve you unless I would let him lie with me, he
+should lie with me as often as he would, rather than you should not have
+his assistance. But this is but talk, madam; I don't see any need of
+such discourse, and you are of opinion that there will be no need of
+it."
+
+"Indeed so I am, Amy; but," said I, "if there was, I tell you again, I'd
+die before I would consent, or before you should consent for my sake."
+
+Hitherto I had not only preserved the virtue itself, but the virtuous
+inclination and resolution; and had I kept myself there I had been
+happy, though I had perished of mere hunger; for, without question, a
+woman ought rather to die than to prostitute her virtue and honour, let
+the temptation be what it will.
+
+But to return to my story; he walked about the garden, which was,
+indeed, all in disorder, and overrun with weeds, because I had not been
+able to hire a gardener to do anything to it, no, not so much as to dig
+up ground enough to sow a few turnips and carrots for family use. After
+he had viewed it, he came in, and sent Amy to fetch a poor man, a
+gardener, that used to help our man-servant, and carried him into the
+garden, and ordered him to do several things in it, to put it into a
+little order; and this took him up near an hour.
+
+By this time I had dressed me as well as I could; for though I had good
+linen left still, yet I had but a poor head-dress, and no knots, but old
+fragments; no necklace, no earrings; all those things were gone long ago
+for mere bread.
+
+However, I was tight and clean, and in better plight than he had seen me
+in a great while, and he looked extremely pleased to see me so; for, he
+said, I looked so disconsolate and so afflicted before, that it grieved
+him to see me; and he bade me pluck up a good heart, for he hoped to put
+me in a condition to live in the world, and be beholden to nobody.
+
+I told him that was impossible, for I must be beholden to him for it,
+for all the friends I had in the world would not or could not do so much
+for me as that he spoke of "Well, widow," says he (so he called me, and
+so indeed I was in the worst sense that desolate word could be used
+in), "if you are beholden to me, you shall be beholden to nobody else."
+
+By this time dinner was ready, and Amy came in to lay the cloth, and
+indeed it was happy there was none to dine but he and I, for I had but
+six plates left in the house, and but two dishes; however, he knew how
+things were, and bade me make no scruple about bringing out what I had.
+He hoped to see me in a better plight. He did not come, he said, to be
+entertained, but to entertain me, and comfort and encourage me. Thus he
+went on, speaking so cheerfully to me, and such cheerful things, that it
+was a cordial to my very soul to hear him speak.
+
+Well, we went to dinner. I'm sure I had not ate a good meal hardly in a
+twelvemonth, at least not of such a joint of meat as the loin of veal
+was. I ate, indeed, very heartily, and so did he, and he made me drink
+three or four glasses of wine; so that, in short, my spirits were lifted
+up to a degree I had not been used to, and I was not only cheerful, but
+merry; and so he pressed me to be.
+
+I told him I had a great deal of reason to be merry, seeing he had been
+so kind to me, and had given me hopes of recovering me from the worst
+circumstances that ever woman of any sort of fortune was sunk into; that
+he could not but believe that what he had said to me was like life from
+the dead; that it was like recovering one sick from the brink of the
+grave; how I should ever make him a return any way suitable was what I
+had not yet had time to think of; I could only say that I should never
+forget it while I had life, and should be always ready to acknowledge
+it.
+
+He said that was all he desired of me; that his reward would be the
+satisfaction of having rescued me from misery; that he found he was
+obliging one that knew what gratitude meant; that he would make it his
+business to make me completely easy, first or last, if it lay in his
+power; and in the meantime he bade me consider of anything that I
+thought he might do for me, for my advantage, and in order to make me
+perfectly easy.
+
+After we had talked thus, he bade me be cheerful. "Come," says he, "lay
+aside these melancholy things, and let us be merry." Amy waited at the
+table, and she smiled and laughed, and was so merry she could hardly
+contain it, for the girl loved me to an excess hardly to be described;
+and it was such an unexpected thing to hear any one talk to her
+mistress, that the wench was beside herself almost, and, as soon as
+dinner was over, Amy went upstairs, and put on her best clothes too, and
+came down dressed like a gentlewoman.
+
+We sat together talking of a thousand things--of what had been, and what
+was to be--all the rest of the day, and in the evening he took his
+leave of me, with a thousand expressions of kindness and tenderness and
+true affection to me, but offered not the least of what my maid Amy had
+suggested.
+
+At his going away he took me in his arms, protested an honest kindness
+to me; said a thousand kind things to me, which I cannot now recollect;
+and, after kissing me twenty times or thereabouts, put a guinea into my
+hand, which, he said, was for my present supply, and told me that he
+would see me again before it was out; also he gave Amy half-a-crown.
+
+When he was gone, "Well, Amy," said I, "are you convinced now that he is
+an honest as well as a true friend, and that there has been nothing, not
+the least appearance of anything, of what you imagined in his
+behaviour?" "Yes," says Amy, "I am, but I admire at it. He is such a
+friend as the world, sure, has not abundance of to show."
+
+"I am sure," says I, "he is such a friend as I have long wanted, and as
+I have as much need of as any creature in the world has or ever had."
+And, in short, I was so overcome with the comfort of it that I sat down
+and cried for joy a good while, as I had formerly cried for sorrow. Amy
+and I went to bed that night (for Amy lay with me) pretty early, but lay
+chatting almost all night about it, and the girl was so transported that
+she got up two or three times in the night and danced about the room in
+her shift; in short, the girl was half distracted with the joy of it; a
+testimony still of her violent affection for her mistress, in which no
+servant ever went beyond her.
+
+We heard no more of him for two days, but the third day he came again;
+then he told me, with the same kindness, that he had ordered me a supply
+of household goods for the furnishing the house; that, in particular, he
+had sent me back all the goods that he had seized for rent, which
+consisted, indeed, of the best of my former furniture. "And now," says
+he, "I'll tell you what I have had in my head for you for your present
+supply, and that is," says he, "that the house being well furnished, you
+shall let it out to lodgings for the summer gentry," says he, "by which
+you will easily get a good comfortable subsistence, especially seeing
+you shall pay me no rent for two years, nor after neither, unless you
+can afford it."
+
+This was the first view I had of living comfortably indeed, and it was a
+very probable way, I must confess, seeing we had very good conveniences,
+six rooms on a floor, and three stories high. While he was laying down
+the scheme of my management, came a cart to the door with a load of
+goods, and an upholsterer's man to put them up. They were chiefly the
+furniture of two rooms which he had carried away for his two years'
+rent, with two fine cabinets, and some pier-glasses out of the parlour,
+and several other valuable things.
+
+These were all restored to their places, and he told me he gave them me
+freely, as a satisfaction for the cruelty he had used me with before;
+and the furniture of one room being finished and set up, he told me he
+would furnish one chamber for himself, and would come and be one of my
+lodgers, if I would give him leave.
+
+I told him he ought not to ask me leave, who had so much right to make
+himself welcome. So the house began to look in some tolerable figure,
+and clean; the garden also, in about a fortnight's work, began to look
+something less like a wilderness than it used to do; and he ordered me
+to put up a bill for letting rooms, reserving one for himself, to come
+to as he saw occasion.
+
+When all was done to his mind, as to placing the goods, he seemed very
+well pleased, and we dined together again of his own providing; and the
+upholsterer's man gone, after dinner he took me by the hand. "Come now,
+madam," says he, "you must show me your house" (for he had a mind to see
+everything over again). "No, sir," said I; "but I'll go show you your
+house, if you please;" so we went up through all the rooms, and in the
+room which was appointed for himself Amy was doing something. "Well,
+Amy," says he, "I intend to lie with you to-morrow night." "To-night if
+you please, sir," says Amy very innocently; "your room is quite ready."
+"Well, Amy," says he, "I am glad you are so willing." "No," says Amy, "I
+mean your chamber is ready to-night," and away she run out of the room,
+ashamed enough; for the girl meant no harm, whatever she had said to me
+in private.
+
+However, he said no more then; but when Amy was gone he walked about the
+room, and looked at everything, and taking me by the hand he kissed me,
+and spoke a great many kind, affectionate things to me indeed; as of his
+measures for my advantage, and what he would do to raise me again in the
+world; told me that my afflictions and the conduct I had shown in
+bearing them to such an extremity, had so engaged him to me that he
+valued me infinitely above all the women in the world; that though he
+was under such engagements that he could not marry me (his wife and he
+had been parted for some reasons, which make too long a story to
+intermix with mine), yet that he would be everything else that a woman
+could ask in a husband; and with that he kissed me again, and took me in
+his arms, but offered not the least uncivil action to me, and told me he
+hoped I would not deny him all the favours he should ask, because he
+resolved to ask nothing of me but what it was fit for a woman of virtue
+and modesty, for such he knew me to be, to yield.
+
+I confess the terrible pressure of my former misery, the memory of which
+lay heavy upon my mind, and the surprising kindness with which he had
+delivered me, and, withal, the expectations of what he might still do
+for me, were powerful things, and made me have scarce the power to deny
+him anything he would ask. However, I told him thus, with an air of
+tenderness too, that he had done so much for me that I thought I ought
+to deny him nothing; only I hoped and depended upon him that he would
+not take the advantage of the infinite obligations I was under to him,
+to desire anything of me the yielding to which would lay me lower in his
+esteem than I desired to be; that as I took him to be a man of honour,
+so I knew he could not like me better for doing anything that was below
+a woman of honesty and good manners to do.
+
+He told me that he had done all this for me, without so much as telling
+me what kindness or real affection he had for me, that I might not be
+under any necessity of yielding to him in anything for want of bread;
+and he would no more oppress my gratitude now than he would my necessity
+before, nor ask anything, supposing he would stop his favours or
+withdraw his kindness, if he was denied; it was true, he said, he might
+tell me more freely his mind now than before, seeing I had let him see
+that I accepted his assistance, and saw that he was sincere in his
+design of serving me; that he had gone thus far to show me that he was
+kind to me, but that now he would tell me that he loved me, and yet
+would demonstrate that his love was both honourable, and that what he
+should desire was what he might honestly ask and I might honestly grant.
+
+I answered that, within those two limitations, I was sure I ought to
+deny him nothing, and I should think myself not ungrateful only, but
+very unjust, if I should; so he said no more, but I observed he kissed
+me more, and took me in his arms in a kind of familiar way, more than
+usual, and which once or twice put me in mind of my maid Amy's words;
+and yet, I must acknowledge, I was so overcome with his goodness to me
+in those many kind things he had done that I not only was easy at what
+he did and made no resistance, but was inclined to do the like, whatever
+he had offered to do. But he went no farther than what I have said, nor
+did he offer so much as to sit down on the bedside with me, but took his
+leave, said he loved me tenderly, and would convince me of it by such
+demonstrations as should be to my satisfaction. I told him I had a great
+deal of reason to believe him, that he was full master of the whole
+house and of me, as far as was within the bounds we had spoken of, which
+I believe he would not break, and asked him if he would not lodge there
+that night.
+
+He said he could not well stay that night, business requiring him in
+London, but added, smiling, that he would come the next day and take a
+night's lodging with me. I pressed him to stay that night, and told him
+I should be glad a friend so valuable should be under the same roof with
+me; and indeed I began at that time not only to be much obliged to him,
+but to love him too, and that in a manner that I had not been acquainted
+with myself.
+
+Oh! let no woman slight the temptation that being generously delivered
+from trouble is to any spirit furnished with gratitude and just
+principles. This gentleman had freely and voluntarily delivered me from
+misery, from poverty, and rags; he had made me what I was, and put me
+into a way to be even more than I ever was, namely, to live happy and
+pleased, and on his bounty I depended. What could I say to this
+gentleman when he pressed me to yield to him, and argued the lawfulness
+of it? But of that in its place.
+
+I pressed him again to stay that night, and told him it was the first
+completely happy night that I had ever had in the house in my life, and
+I should be very sorry to have it be without his company, who was the
+cause and foundation of it all; that we would be innocently merry, but
+that it could never be without him; and, in short, I courted him so,
+that he said he could not deny me, but he would take his horse and go
+to London, do the business he had to do, which, it seems, was to pay a
+foreign bill that was due that night, and would else be protested, and
+that he would come back in three hours at farthest, and sup with me; but
+bade me get nothing there, for since I was resolved to be merry, which
+was what he desired above all things, he would send me something from
+London. "And we will make it a wedding supper, my dear," says he; and
+with that word took me in his arms, and kissed me so vehemently that I
+made no question but he intended to do everything else that Amy had
+talked of.
+
+I started a little at the word wedding. "What do ye mean, to call it by
+such a name?" says I; adding, "We will have a supper, but t'other is
+impossible, as well on your side as mine." He laughed. "Well," says he,
+"you shall call it what you will, but it may be the same thing, for I
+shall satisfy you it is not so impossible as you make it."
+
+"I don't understand you," said I. "Have not I a husband and you a wife?"
+
+"Well, well," says he, "we will talk of that after supper;" so he rose
+up, gave me another kiss, and took his horse for London.
+
+This kind of discourse had fired my blood, I confess, and I knew not
+what to think of it. It was plain now that he intended to lie with me,
+but how he would reconcile it to a legal thing, like a marriage, that I
+could not imagine. We had both of us used Amy with so much intimacy, and
+trusted her with everything, having such unexampled instances of her
+fidelity, that he made no scruple to kiss me and say all these things to
+me before her; nor had he cared one farthing, if I would have let him
+lie with me, to have had Amy there too all night. When he was gone,
+"Well, Amy," says I, "what will all this come to now? I am all in a
+sweat at him." "Come to, madam?" says Amy. "I see what it will come to;
+I must put you to bed to-night together." "Why, you would not be so
+impudent, you jade you," says I, "would you?" "Yes, I would," says she,
+"with all my heart, and think you both as honest as ever you were in
+your lives."
+
+"What ails the slut to talk so?" said I. "Honest! How can it be honest?"
+"Why, I'll tell you, madam," says Amy; "I sounded it as soon as I heard
+him speak, and it is very true too; he calls you widow, and such indeed
+you are; for, as my master has left you so many years, he is dead, to be
+sure; at least he is dead to you; he is no husband. You are, and ought
+to be, free to marry who you will; and his wife being gone from him, and
+refusing to lie with him, then he is a single man again as much as ever;
+and though you cannot bring the laws of the land to join you together,
+yet, one refusing to do the office of a wife, and the other of a
+husband, you may certainly take one another fairly."
+
+"Nay, Amy," says I, "if I could take him fairly, you may be sure I'd
+take him above all the men in the world; it turned the very heart within
+me when I heard him say he loved me. How could it be otherwise, when you
+know what a condition I was in before, despised and trampled on by all
+the world? I could have took him in my arms and kissed him as freely as
+he did me, if it had not been for shame."
+
+"Ay, and all the rest too," says Amy, "at the first word. I don't see
+how you can think of denying him anything. Has he not brought you out of
+the devil's clutches, brought you out of the blackest misery that ever
+poor lady was reduced to? Can a woman deny such a man anything?"
+
+"Nay, I don't know what to do, Amy," says I. "I hope he won't desire
+anything of that kind of me; I hope he won't attempt it. If he does, I
+know not what to say to him."
+
+"Not ask you!" says Amy. "Depend upon it, he will ask you, and you will
+grant it too. I am sure my mistress is no fool. Come, pray, madam, let
+me go air you a clean shift; don't let him find you in foul linen the
+wedding-night."
+
+"But that I know you to be a very honest girl, Amy," says I, "you would
+make me abhor you. Why, you argue for the devil, as if you were one of
+his privy councillors."
+
+"It's no matter for that, madam, I say nothing but what I think. You own
+you love this gentleman, and he has given you sufficient testimony of
+his affection to you; your conditions are alike unhappy, and he is of
+opinion that he may take another woman, his first wife having broke her
+honour, and living from him; and that though the laws of the land will
+not allow him to marry formally, yet that he may take another woman into
+his arms, provided he keeps true to the other woman as a wife; nay, he
+says it is usual to do so, and allowed by the custom of the place, in
+several countries abroad. And, I must own, I am of the same mind; else
+it is in the power of a whore, after she has jilted and abandoned her
+husband, to confine him from the pleasure as well as convenience of a
+woman all the days of his life, which would be very unreasonable, and,
+as times go, not tolerable to all people; and the like on your side,
+madam."
+
+Had I now had my senses about me, and had my reason not been overcome by
+the powerful attraction of so kind, so beneficent a friend; had I
+consulted conscience and virtue, I should have repelled this Amy,
+however faithful and honest to me in other things, as a viper and engine
+of the devil. I ought to have remembered that neither he or I, either
+by the laws of God or man, could come together upon any other terms
+than that of notorious adultery. The ignorant jade's argument, that he
+had brought me out of the hands of the devil, by which she meant the
+devil of poverty and distress, should have been a powerful motive to me
+not to plunge myself into the jaws of hell, and into the power of the
+real devil, in recompense for that deliverance. I should have looked
+upon all the good this man had done for me to have been the particular
+work of the goodness of Heaven, and that goodness should have moved me
+to a return of duty and humble obedience. I should have received the
+mercy thankfully, and applied it soberly, to the praise and honour of my
+Maker; whereas, by this wicked course, all the bounty and kindness of
+this gentleman became a snare to me, was a mere bait to the devil's
+hook; I received his kindness at the dear expense of body and soul,
+mortgaging faith, religion, conscience, and modesty for (as I may call
+it) a morsel of bread; or, if you will, ruined my soul from a principle
+of gratitude, and gave myself up to the devil, to show myself grateful
+to my benefactor. I must do the gentleman that justice as to say I
+verily believe that he did nothing but what he thought was lawful; and I
+must do that justice upon myself as to say I did what my own conscience
+convinced me, at the very time I did it, was horribly unlawful,
+scandalous, and abominable.
+
+But poverty was my snare; dreadful poverty! The misery I had been in was
+great, such as would make the heart tremble at the apprehensions of its
+return; and I might appeal to any that has had any experience of the
+world, whether one so entirely destitute as I was of all manner of all
+helps or friends, either to support me or to assist me to support
+myself, could withstand the proposal; not that I plead this as a
+justification of my conduct, but that it may move the pity even of those
+that abhor the crime.
+
+Besides this, I was young, handsome, and, with all the mortifications I
+had met with, was vain, and that not a little; and, as it was a new
+thing, so it was a pleasant thing to be courted, caressed, embraced, and
+high professions of affection made to me, by a man so agreeable and so
+able to do me good.
+
+Add to this, that if I had ventured to disoblige this gentleman, I had
+no friend in the world to have recourse to; I had no prospect--no, not
+of a bit of bread; I had nothing before me but to fall back into the
+same misery that I had been in before.
+
+Amy had but too much rhetoric in this cause; she represented all those
+things in their proper colours; she argued them all with her utmost
+skill; and at last the merry jade, when she came to dress me, "Look ye,
+madam," said she, "if you won't consent, tell him you will do as Rachel
+did to Jacob, when she could have no children--put her maid to bed to
+him; tell him you cannot comply with him, but there's Amy, he may ask
+her the question; she has promised me she won't deny you."
+
+"And would you have me say so, Amy?" said I.
+
+"No, madam; but I would really have you do so. Besides, you are undone
+if you do not; and if my doing it would save you from being undone, as I
+said before, he shall, if he will; if he asks me, I won't deny him, not
+I; hang me if I do," says Amy.
+
+"Well, I know not what to do," says I to Amy.
+
+"Do!" says Amy. "Your choice is fair and plain. Here you may have a
+handsome, charming gentleman, be rich, live pleasantly and in plenty, or
+refuse him, and want a dinner, go in rags, live in tears; in short, beg
+and starve. You know this is the case, madam," says Amy. "I wonder how
+you can say you know not what to do."
+
+"Well, Amy," says I, "the case is as you say, and I think verily I must
+yield to him; but then," said I, moved by conscience, "don't talk any
+more of your cant of its being lawful that I ought to marry again, and
+that he ought to marry again, and such stuff as that; 'tis all
+nonsense," says I, "Amy, there's nothing in it; let me hear no more of
+that, for if I yield, 'tis in vain to mince the matter, I am a whore,
+Amy; neither better nor worse, I assure you."
+
+"I don't think so, madam, by no means," says Amy. "I wonder how you can
+talk so;" and then she run on with her argument of the unreasonableness
+that a woman should be obliged to live single, or a man to live single,
+in such cases as before. "Well, Amy," said I, "come, let us dispute no
+more, for the longer I enter into that part, the greater my scruples
+will be; but if I let it alone, the necessity of my present
+circumstances is such that I believe I shall yield to him, if he should
+importune me much about it; but I should be glad he would not do it at
+all, but leave me as I am."
+
+"As to that, madam, you may depend," says Amy, "he expects to have you
+for his bedfellow to-night. I saw it plainly in his management all day;
+and at last he told you so too, as plain, I think, as he could." "Well,
+well, Amy," said I, "I don't know what to say; if he will he must, I
+think; I don't know how to resist such a man, that has done so much for
+me." "I don't know how you should," says Amy.
+
+Thus Amy and I canvassed the business between us; the jade prompted the
+crime which I had but too much inclination to commit, that is to say,
+not as a crime, for I had nothing of the vice in my constitution; my
+spirits were far from being high, my blood had no fire in it to kindle
+the flame of desire; but the kindness and good humour of the man and
+the dread of my own circumstances concurred to bring me to the point,
+and I even resolved, before he asked, to give up my virtue to him
+whenever he should put it to the question.
+
+In this I was a double offender, whatever he was, for I was resolved to
+commit the crime, knowing and owning it to be a crime; he, if it was
+true as he said, was fully persuaded it was lawful, and in that
+persuasion he took the measures and used all the circumlocutions which I
+am going to speak of.
+
+About two hours after he was gone, came a Leadenhall basket-woman, with
+a whole load of good things for the mouth (the particulars are not to
+the purpose), and brought orders to get supper by eight o'clock.
+However, I did not intend to begin to dress anything till I saw him; and
+he gave me time enough, for he came before seven, so that Amy, who had
+gotten one to help her, got everything ready in time.
+
+We sat down to supper about eight, and were indeed very merry. Amy made
+us some sport, for she was a girl of spirit and wit, and with her talk
+she made us laugh very often, and yet the jade managed her wit with all
+the good manners imaginable.
+
+But to shorten the story. After supper he took me up into his chamber,
+where Amy had made a good fire, and there he pulled out a great many
+papers, and spread them upon a little table, and then took me by the
+hand, and after kissing me very much, he entered into a discourse of his
+circumstances and of mine, how they agreed in several things exactly;
+for example, that I was abandoned of a husband in the prime of my youth
+and vigour, and he of a wife in his middle age; how the end of marriage
+was destroyed by the treatment we had either of us received, and it
+would be very hard that we should be tied by the formality of the
+contract where the essence of it was destroyed. I interrupted him, and
+told him there was a vast difference between our circumstances, and that
+in the most essential part, namely, that he was rich, and I was poor;
+that he was above the world, and I infinitely below it; that his
+circumstances were very easy, mine miserable, and this was an inequality
+the most essential that could be imagined. "As to that, my dear," says
+he, "I have taken such measures as shall make an equality still;" and
+with that he showed me a contract in writing, wherein he engaged himself
+to me to cohabit constantly with me, to provide for me in all respects
+as a wife, and repeating in the preamble a long account of the nature
+and reason of our living together, and an obligation in the penalty of
+L7000 never to abandon me; and at last showed me a bond for L500, to be
+paid to me, or to my assigns, within three months after his death.
+
+He read over all these things to me, and then, in a most moving,
+affectionate manner, and in words not to be answered, he said, "Now, my
+dear, is this not sufficient? Can you object anything against it? If
+not, as I believe you will not, then let us debate this matter no
+longer." With that he pulled out a silk purse, which had threescore
+guineas in it, and threw them into my lap, and concluded all the rest of
+his discourse with kisses and protestations of his love, of which indeed
+I had abundant proof.
+
+Pity human frailty, you that read of a woman reduced in her youth and
+prime to the utmost misery and distress, and raised again, as above, by
+the unexpected and surprising bounty of a stranger; I say, pity her if
+she was not able, after all these things, to make any more resistance.
+
+However, I stood out a little longer still. I asked him how he could
+expect that I could come into a proposal of such consequence the very
+first time it was moved to me; and that I ought, if I consented to it,
+to capitulate with him that he should never upbraid me with easiness and
+consenting too soon. He said no; but, on the contrary, he would take it
+as a mark of the greatest kindness I could show him. Then he went on to
+give reasons why there was no occasion to use the ordinary ceremony of
+delay, or to wait a reasonable time of courtship, which was only to
+avoid scandal; but, as this was private, it had nothing of that nature
+in it; that he had been courting me some time by the best of courtship,
+viz., doing acts of kindness to me; and that he had given testimonies of
+his sincere affection to me by deeds, not by flattering trifles and the
+usual courtship of words, which were often found to have very little
+meaning; that he took me, not as a mistress, but as his wife, and
+protested it was clear to him he might lawfully do it, and that I was
+perfectly at liberty, and assured me, by all that it was possible for an
+honest man to say, that he would treat me as his wife as long as he
+lived. In a word, he conquered all the little resistance I intended to
+make; he protested he loved me above all the world, and begged I would
+for once believe him; that he had never deceived me, and never would,
+but would make it his study to make my life comfortable and happy, and
+to make me forget the misery I had gone through. I stood still a while,
+and said nothing; but seeing him eager for my answer, I smiled, and
+looking up at him, "And must I, then," says I, "say yes at first asking?
+Must I depend upon your promise? Why, then," said I, "upon the faith of
+that promise, and in the sense of that inexpressible kindness you have
+shown me, you shall be obliged, and I will be wholly yours to the end of
+my life;" and with that I took his hand, which held me by the hand, and
+gave it a kiss.
+
+And thus, in gratitude for the favours I received from a man, was all
+sense of religion and duty to God, all regard to virtue and honour,
+given up at once, and we were to call one another man and wife, who, in
+the sense of the laws both of God and our country, were no more than two
+adulterers; in short, a whore and a rogue. Nor, as I have said above,
+was my conscience silent in it, though it seems his was; for I sinned
+with open eyes, and thereby had a double guilt upon me. As I always
+said, his notions were of another kind, and he either was before of the
+opinion, or argued himself into it now, that we were both free and might
+lawfully marry.
+
+But I was quite of another side--nay, and my judgment was right, but my
+circumstances were my temptation; the terrors behind me looked blacker
+than the terrors before me; and the dreadful argument of wanting bread,
+and being run into the horrible distresses I was in before, mastered all
+my resolution, and I gave myself up as above.
+
+The rest of the evening we spent very agreeably to me; he was perfectly
+good-humoured, and was at that time very merry. Then he made Amy dance
+with him, and I told him I would put Amy to bed to him. Amy said, with
+all her heart; she never had been a bride in her life. In short, he made
+the girl so merry that, had he not been to lie with me the same night,
+I believe he would have played the fool with Amy for half-an-hour, and
+the girl would no more have refused him than I intended to do. Yet
+before, I had always found her a very modest wench as any I ever saw in
+all my life; but, in short, the mirth of that night, and a few more such
+afterwards, ruined the girl's modesty for ever, as shall appear
+by-and-by, in its place.
+
+So far does fooling and toying sometimes go that I know nothing a young
+woman has to be more cautious of; so far had this innocent girl gone in
+jesting between her and I, and in talking that she would let him lie
+with her, if he would but be kinder to me, that at last she let him lie
+with her in earnest; and so empty was I now of all principle, that I
+encouraged the doing it almost before my face.
+
+I say but too justly that I was empty of principle, because, as above, I
+had yielded to him, not as deluded to believe it lawful, but as overcome
+by his kindness, and terrified at the fear of my own misery if he should
+leave me. So with my eyes open, and with my conscience, as I may say,
+awake, I sinned, knowing it to be a sin, but having no power to resist.
+When this had thus made a hole in my heart, and I was come to such a
+height as to transgress against the light of my own conscience, I was
+then fit for any wickedness, and conscience left off speaking where it
+found it could not be heard.
+
+But to return to our story. Having consented, as above, to his proposal,
+we had not much more to do. He gave me my writings, and the bond for my
+maintenance during his life, and for five hundred pounds after his
+death. And so far was he from abating his affection to me afterwards,
+that two years after we were thus, as he called it, married, he made his
+will, and gave me a thousand pounds more, and all my household stuff,
+plate, &c., which was considerable too.
+
+Amy put us to bed, and my new friend--I cannot call him husband--was so
+well pleased with Amy for her fidelity and kindness to me that he paid
+her all the arrear of her wages that I owed her, and gave her five
+guineas over; and had it gone no farther, Amy had richly deserved what
+she had, for never was a maid so true to her mistress in such dreadful
+circumstances as I was in. Nor was what followed more her own fault than
+mine, who led her almost into it at first, and quite into it at last;
+and this may be a farther testimony what a hardness of crime I was now
+arrived to, which was owing to the conviction, that was from the
+beginning upon me, that I was a whore, not a wife; nor could I ever
+frame my mouth to call him husband or to say "my husband" when I was
+speaking of him.
+
+We lived, surely, the most agreeable life, the grand exception only
+excepted, that ever two lived together. He was the most obliging,
+gentlemanly man, and the most tender of me, that ever woman gave herself
+up to. Nor was there ever the least interruption to our mutual kindness,
+no, not to the last day of his life. But I must bring Amy's disaster in
+at once, that I may have done with her.
+
+Amy was dressing me one morning, for now I had two maids, and Amy was my
+chambermaid. "Dear madam," says Amy, "what! a'nt you with child yet?"
+"No, Amy," says I; "nor any sign of it."
+
+"Law, madam!" says Amy, "what have you been doing? Why, you have been
+married a year and a half. I warrant you master would have got me with
+child twice in that time." "It may be so, Amy," says I. "Let him try,
+can't you?" "No," says Amy; "you'll forbid it now. Before, I told you he
+should, with all my heart; but I won't now, now he's all your own."
+"Oh," says I, "Amy, I'll freely give you my consent. It will be nothing
+at all to me. Nay, I'll put you to bed to him myself one night or other,
+if you are willing." "No, madam, no," says Amy, "not now he's yours."
+
+"Why, you fool you," says I, "don't I tell you I'll put you to bed to
+him myself?" "Nay, nay," says Amy, "if you put me to bed to him, that's
+another case; I believe I shall not rise again very soon." "I'll venture
+that, Amy," says I.
+
+After supper that night, and before we were risen from table, I said to
+him, Amy being by, "Hark ye, Mr. ----, do you know that you are to lie
+with Amy to-night?" "No, not I," says he; but turns to Amy, "Is it so,
+Amy?" says he. "No, sir," says she. "Nay, don't say no, you fool; did
+not I promise to put you to bed to him?" But the girl said "No," still,
+and it passed off.
+
+At night, when we came to go to bed, Amy came into the chamber to
+undress me, and her master slipped into bed first; then I began, and
+told him all that Amy had said about my not being with child, and of her
+being with child twice in that time. "Ay, Mrs. Amy," says he, "I believe
+so too. Come hither, and, we'll try." But Amy did not go. "Go, you
+fool," says I, "can't you? I freely give you both leave." But Amy would
+not go. "Nay, you whore," says I, "you said, if I would put you to bed,
+you would with all your heart." And with that I sat her down, pulled off
+her stockings and shoes, and all her clothes piece by piece, and led her
+to the bed to him. "Here," says I, "try what you can do with your maid
+Amy." She pulled back a little, would not let me pull off her clothes at
+first, but it was hot weather, and she had not many clothes on, and
+particularly no stays on; and at last, when she saw I was in earnest,
+she let me do what I would. So I fairly stripped her, and then I threw
+open the bed and thrust her in.
+
+I need say no more. This is enough to convince anybody that I did not
+think him my husband, and that I had cast off all principle and all
+modesty, and had effectually stifled conscience.
+
+Amy, I dare say, began now to repent, and would fain have got out of bed
+again; but he said to her, "Nay, Amy, you see your mistress has put you
+to bed; 'tis all her doing; you must blame her." So he held her fast,
+and the wench being naked in the bed with him, it was too late to look
+back, so she lay still and let him do what he would with her.
+
+Had I looked upon myself as a wife, you cannot suppose I would have been
+willing to have let my husband lie with my maid, much less before my
+face, for I stood by all the while; but as I thought myself a whore, I
+cannot say but that it was something designed in my thoughts that my
+maid should be a whore too, and should not reproach me with it.
+
+Amy, however, less vicious than I, was grievously out of sorts the next
+morning, and cried and took on most vehemently, that she was ruined and
+undone, and there was no pacifying her; she was a whore, a slut, and she
+was undone! undone! and cried almost all day. I did all I could to
+pacify her. "A whore!" says I. "Well, and am not I a whore as well as
+you?" "No, no," says Amy; "no, you are not, for you are married." "Not
+I, Amy," says I; "I do not pretend to it. He may marry you to-morrow,
+if he will, for anything I could do to hinder it. I am not married. I do
+not look upon it as anything." Well, all did not pacify Amy, but she
+cried two or three days about it; but it wore off by degrees.
+
+But the case differed between Amy and her master exceedingly; for Amy
+retained the same kind temper she always had; but, on the contrary, he
+was quite altered, for he hated her heartily, and could, I believe, have
+killed her after it, and he told me so, for he thought this a vile
+action; whereas what he and I had done he was perfectly easy in, thought
+it just, and esteemed me as much his wife as if we had been married from
+our youth, and had neither of us known any other; nay, he loved me, I
+believe, as entirely as if I had been the wife of his youth. Nay, he
+told me it was true, in one sense, that he had two wives, but that I was
+the wife of his affection, the other the wife of his aversion.
+
+I was extremely concerned at the aversion he had taken to my maid Amy,
+and used my utmost skill to get it altered; for though he had, indeed,
+debauched the wench, I knew that I was the principal occasion of it; and
+as he was the best-humoured man in the world, I never gave him over till
+I prevailed with him to be easy with her, and as I was now become the
+devil's agent, to make others as wicked as myself, I brought him to lie
+with her again several times after that, till at last, as the poor girl
+said, so it happened, and she was really with child.
+
+She was terribly concerned at it, and so was he too. "Come, my dear,"
+says I, "when Rachel put her handmaid to bed to Jacob, she took the
+children as her own. Don't be uneasy; I'll take the child as my own. Had
+not I a hand in the frolic of putting her to bed to you? It was my fault
+as much as yours." So I called Amy, and encouraged her too, and told her
+that I would take care of the child and her too, and added the same
+argument to her. "For," says I, "Amy, it was all my fault. Did not I
+drag your clothes off your back, and put you to bed to him?" Thus I,
+that had, indeed, been the cause of all the wickedness between them,
+encouraged them both, when they had any remorse about it, and rather
+prompted them to go on with it than to repent it.
+
+When Amy grew big she went to a place I had provided for her, and the
+neighbours knew nothing but that Amy and I was parted. She had a fine
+child indeed, a daughter, and we had it nursed; and Amy came again in
+about half a year to live with her old mistress; but neither my
+gentleman, or Amy either, cared for playing that game over again; for,
+as he said, the jade might bring him a houseful of children to keep.
+
+We lived as merrily and as happily after this as could be expected,
+considering our circumstances; I mean as to the pretended marriage, &c.;
+and as to that, my gentleman had not the least concern about him for it.
+But as much as I was hardened, and that was as much as I believe ever
+any wicked creature was, yet I could not help it, there was and would be
+hours of intervals and of dark reflections which came involuntarily in,
+and thrust in sighs into the middle of all my songs; and there would be
+sometimes a heaviness of heart which intermingled itself with all my
+joy, and which would often fetch a tear from my eye. And let others
+pretend what they will, I believe it impossible to be otherwise with
+anybody. There can be no substantial satisfaction in a life of known
+wickedness; conscience will, and does often, break in upon them at
+particular times, let them do what they can to prevent it.
+
+But I am not to preach, but to relate; and whatever loose reflections
+were, and how often soever those dark intervals came on, I did my utmost
+to conceal them from him; ay, and to suppress and smother them too in
+myself; and, to outward appearance, we lived as cheerfully and agreeably
+as it was possible for any couple in the world to live.
+
+After I had thus lived with him something above two years, truly I found
+myself with child too. My gentleman was mightily pleased at it, and
+nothing could be kinder than he was in the preparations he made for me,
+and for my lying-in, which was, however, very private, because I cared
+for as little company as possible; nor had I kept up my neighbourly
+acquaintance, so that I had nobody to invite upon such an occasion.
+
+I was brought to bed very well (of a daughter too, as well as Amy), but
+the child died at about six weeks old, so all that work was to do over
+again--that is to say, the charge, the expense, the travail, &c.
+
+The next year I made him amends, and brought him a son, to his great
+satisfaction. It was a charming child, and did very well. After this my
+husband, as he called himself, came to me one evening, and told me he
+had a very difficult thing happened to him, which he knew not what to do
+in, or how to resolve about, unless I would make him easy; this was,
+that his occasions required him to go over to France for about two
+months.
+
+"Well, my dear," says I, "and how shall I make you easy?"
+
+"Why, by consenting to let me go," says he; "upon which condition, I'll
+tell you the occasion of my going, that you may judge of the necessity
+there is for it on my side." Then, to make me easy in his going, he told
+me he would make his will before he went, which should be to my full
+satisfaction.
+
+I told him the last part was so kind that I could not decline the first
+part, unless he would give me leave to add that, if it was not for
+putting him to an extraordinary expense, I would go over along with him.
+
+He was so pleased with this offer that he told me he would give me full
+satisfaction for it, and accept of it too; so he took me to London with
+him the next day, and there he made his will, and showed it to me, and
+sealed it before proper witnesses, and then gave it to me to keep. In
+this will he gave a thousand pounds to a person that we both knew very
+well, in trust, to pay it, with the interest from the time of his
+decease, to me or my assigns; then he willed the payment of my jointure,
+as he called it, viz., his bond of five hundred pounds after his death;
+also, he gave me all my household stuff, plate, &c.
+
+This was a most engaging thing for a man to do to one under my
+circumstances; and it would have been hard, as I told him, to deny him
+anything, or to refuse to go with him anywhere. So we settled everything
+as well as we could, left Amy in charge with the house, and for his
+other business, which was in jewels, he had two men he intrusted, who he
+had good security for, and who managed for him, and corresponded with
+him.
+
+Things being thus concerted, we went away to France, arrived safe at
+Calais, and by easy journeys came in eight days more to Paris, where we
+lodged in the house of an English merchant of his acquaintance, and was
+very courteously entertained.
+
+My gentleman's business was with some persons of the first rank, and to
+whom he had sold some jewels of very good value, and received a great
+sum of money in specie; and, as he told me privately, he gained three
+thousand pistoles by his bargain, but would not suffer the most intimate
+friend he had there to know what he had received; for it is not so safe
+a thing in Paris to have a great sum of money in keeping as it might be
+in London.
+
+We made this journey much longer than we intended, and my gentleman sent
+for one of his managers in London to come over to us in Paris with some
+diamonds, and sent him back to London again to fetch more. Then other
+business fell into his hands so unexpectedly that I began to think we
+should take up our constant residence there, which I was not very averse
+to, it being my native country, and I spoke the language perfectly well.
+So we took a good house in Paris, and lived very well there; and I sent
+for Amy to come over to me, for I lived gallantly, and my gentleman was
+two or three times going to keep me a coach, but I declined it,
+especially at Paris, but as they have those conveniences by the day
+there, at a certain rate, I had an equipage provided for me whenever I
+pleased, and I lived here in a very good figure, and might have lived
+higher if I pleased.
+
+But in the middle of all this felicity a dreadful disaster befell me,
+which entirely unhinged all my affairs, and threw me back into the same
+state of life that I was in before; with this one happy exception,
+however, that whereas before I was poor, even to misery, now I was not
+only provided for, but very rich.
+
+My gentleman had the name in Paris for a rich man, and indeed he was so,
+though not so immensely rich as people imagined; but that which was
+fatal to him was, that he generally carried a shagreen case in his
+pocket, especially when he went to court, or to the houses of any of the
+princes of the blood, in which he had jewels of very great value.
+
+It happened one day that, being to go to Versailles to wait upon the
+Prince of ----, he came up into my chamber in the morning, and laid out
+his jewel-case, because he was not going to show any jewels, but to get
+a foreign bill accepted, which he had received from Amsterdam; so, when
+he gave me the case, he said, "My dear, I think I need not carry this
+with me, because it may be I may not come back till night, and it is too
+much to venture." I returned, "Then, my dear, you shan't go." "Why?"
+says he. "Because, as they are too much for you, so you are too much for
+me to venture, and you shall not go, unless you will promise me not to
+stay so as to come back in the night."
+
+"I hope there's no danger," said he, "seeing that I have nothing about
+me of any value; and therefore, lest I should, take that too," says he,
+and gives me his gold watch and a rich diamond which he had in a ring,
+and always wore on his finger.
+
+"Well, but, my dear," says I, "you make me more uneasy now than before;
+for if you apprehend no danger, why do you use this caution? and if you
+apprehend there is danger, why do you go at all?"
+
+"There is no danger," says he, "if I do not stay late, and I do not
+design to do so."
+
+"Well, but promise me, then, that you won't," says I, "or else I cannot
+let you go."
+
+"I won't indeed, my dear," says he, "unless I am obliged to it. I assure
+you I do not intend it; but if I should, I am not worth robbing now, for
+I have nothing about me but about six pistoles in my little purse and
+that little ring," showing me a small diamond ring, worth about ten or
+twelve pistoles, which he put upon his finger, in the room of the rich
+one he usually wore.
+
+[Illustration: THE JEWELLER IS ABOUT TO LEAVE FOR VERSAILLES
+
+_And gives me his gold watch and a rich diamond which he had in a ring,
+and always wore on his finger_]
+
+I still pressed him not to stay late, and he said he would not. "But if
+I am kept late," says he, "beyond my expectation, I'll stay all night,
+and come next morning." This seemed a very good caution; but still my
+mind was very uneasy about him, and I told him so, and entreated him
+not to go. I told him I did not know what might be the reason, but that
+I had a strange terror upon my mind about his going, and that if he did
+go, I was persuaded some harm would attend him. He smiled, and returned,
+"Well, my dear, if it should be so, you are now richly provided for; all
+that I have here I give to you." And with that he takes up the casket or
+case, "Here," says he, "hold your hand; there is a good estate for you
+in this case; if anything happens to me 'tis all your own. I give it
+you for yourself;" and with that he put the casket, the fine ring, and
+his gold watch all into my hands, and the key of his scrutoire besides,
+adding, "And in my scrutoire there is some money; it is all your own."
+
+I stared at him as if I was frighted, for I thought all his face looked
+like a death's-head; and then immediately I thought I perceived his head
+all bloody, and then his clothes looked bloody too, and immediately it
+all went off, and he looked as he really did. Immediately I fell
+a-crying, and hung about him. "My dear," said I, "I am frighted to
+death; you shall not go. Depend upon it some mischief will befall you."
+I did not tell him how my vapourish fancy had represented him to me;
+that, I thought, was not proper. Besides, he would only have laughed at
+me, and would have gone away with a jest about it; but I pressed him
+seriously not to go that day, or, if he did, to promise me to come home
+to Paris again by daylight. He looked a little graver then than he did
+before, told me he was not apprehensive of the least danger, but if
+there was, he would either take care to come in the day, or, as he had
+said before, would stay all night.
+
+But all these promises came to nothing, for he was set upon in the open
+day and robbed by three men on horseback, masked, as he went; and one of
+them, who, it seems, rifled him while the rest stood to stop the coach,
+stabbed him into the body with a sword, so that he died immediately. He
+had a footman behind the coach, who they knocked down with the stock or
+butt-end of a carbine. They were supposed to kill him because of the
+disappointment they met with in not getting his case or casket of
+diamonds, which they knew he carried about him; and this was supposed
+because, after they had killed him, they made the coachman drive out of
+the road a long way over the heath, till they came to a convenient
+place, where they pulled him out of the coach and searched his clothes
+more narrowly than they could do while he was alive. But they found
+nothing but his little ring, six pistoles, and the value of about seven
+livres in small moneys.
+
+This was a dreadful blow to me, though I cannot say I was so surprised
+as I should otherwise have been, for all the while he was gone my mind
+was oppressed with the weight of my own thoughts, and I was as sure
+that I should never see him any more that I think nothing could be like
+it. The impression was so strong that I think nothing could make so deep
+a wound that was imaginary; and I was so dejected and disconsolate that,
+when I received the news of his disaster, there was no room for any
+extraordinary alteration in me. I had cried all that day, ate nothing,
+and only waited, as I might say, to receive the dismal news, which I had
+brought to me about five o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+I was in a strange country, and, though I had a pretty many
+acquaintances, had but very few friends that I could consult on this
+occasion. All possible inquiry was made after the rogues that had been
+thus barbarous, but nothing could be heard of them; nor was it possible
+that the footman could make any discovery of them by his description,
+for they knocked him down immediately, so that he knew nothing of what
+was done afterwards. The coachman was the only man that could say
+anything, and all his account amounted to no more than this, that one of
+them had soldier's clothes, but he could not remember the particulars of
+his mounting, so as to know what regiment he belonged to; and as to
+their faces, that he could know nothing of, because they had all of them
+masks on.
+
+I had him buried as decently as the place would permit a Protestant
+stranger to be buried, and made some of the scruples and difficulties on
+that account easy by the help of money to a certain person, who went
+impudently to the curate of the parish of St. Sulpitius, in Paris, and
+told him that the gentleman that was killed was a Catholic; that the
+thieves had taken from him a cross of gold, set with diamonds, worth six
+thousand livres; that his widow was a Catholic, and had sent by him
+sixty crowns to the church of ----, for masses to be said for the repose
+of his soul. Upon all which, though not one word was true, he was buried
+with all the ceremonies of the Roman Church.
+
+I think I almost cried myself to death for him, for I abandoned myself
+to all the excesses of grief; and indeed I loved him to a degree
+inexpressible; and considering what kindness he had shown me at first,
+and how tenderly he had used me to the last, what could I do less?
+
+Then the manner of his death was terrible and frightful to me, and,
+above all, the strange notices I had of it. I had never pretended to the
+second-sight, or anything of that kind, but certainly, if any one ever
+had such a thing, I had it at this time, for I saw him as plainly in all
+those terrible shapes as above; first, as a skeleton, not dead only, but
+rotten and wasted; secondly, as killed, and his face bloody; and,
+thirdly, his clothes bloody, and all within the space of one minute, or
+indeed of a very few moments.
+
+These things amazed me, and I was a good while as one stupid. However,
+after some time I began to recover, and look into my affairs. I had the
+satisfaction not to be left in distress, or in danger of poverty. On the
+contrary, besides what he had put into my hands fairly in his lifetime,
+which amounted to a very considerable value, I found above seven hundred
+pistoles in gold in his scrutoire, of which he had given me the key; and
+I found foreign bills accepted for about twelve thousand livres; so
+that, in a word, I found myself possessed of almost ten thousand pounds
+sterling in a very few days after the disaster.
+
+The first thing I did upon this occasion was to send a letter to my
+maid, as I still called her, Amy, wherein I gave her an account of my
+disaster, how my husband, as she called him (for I never called him so),
+was murdered; and as I did not know how his relations, or his wife's
+friends might act upon that occasion, I ordered her to convey away all
+the plate, linen, and other things of value, and to secure them in a
+person's hands that I directed her to, and then to sell or dispose of
+the furniture of the house, if she could, and so, without acquainting
+anybody with the reason of her going, withdraw; sending notice to his
+head manager at London that the house was quitted by the tenant, and
+they might come and take possession of it for the executors. Amy was so
+dexterous, and did her work so nimbly, that she gutted the house, and
+sent the key to the said manager, almost as soon as he had notice of the
+misfortune that befell their master.
+
+Upon their receiving the surprising news of his death, the head manager
+came over to Paris, and came to the house. I made no scruple of calling
+myself Madame ----, the widow of Monsieur ----, the English jeweller.
+And as I spoke French naturally, I did not let him know but that I was
+his wife, married in France, and that I had not heard that he had any
+wife in England, but pretended to be surprised, and exclaim against him
+for so base an action; and that I had good friends in Poictou, where I
+was born, who would take care to have justice done me in England out of
+his estate.
+
+I should have observed that, as soon as the news was public of a man
+being murdered, and that he was a jeweller, fame did me the favour as to
+publish presently that he was robbed of his casket of jewels, which he
+always carried about him. I confirmed this, among my daily lamentations
+for his disaster, and added that he had with him a fine diamond ring,
+which he was known to wear frequently about him, valued at one hundred
+pistoles, a gold watch, and a great quantity of diamonds of inestimable
+value in his casket, which jewels he was carrying to the Prince of
+----, to show some of them to him; and the prince owned that he had
+spoken to him to bring some such jewels, to let him see them. But I
+sorely repented this part afterward, as you shall hear.
+
+This rumour put an end to all inquiry after his jewels, his ring, or his
+watch; and as for the seven hundred pistoles, that I secured. For the
+bills which were in hand, I owned I had them, but that, as I said I
+brought my husband thirty thousand livres portion, I claimed the said
+bills, which came to not above twelve thousand livres, for my _amende_;
+and this, with the plate and the household stuff, was the principal of
+all his estate which they could come at. As to the foreign bill which he
+was going to Versailles to get accepted, it was really lost with him;
+but his manager, who had remitted the bill to him, by way of Amsterdam,
+bringing over the second bill, the money was saved, as they call it,
+which would otherwise have been also gone; the thieves who robbed and
+murdered him were, to be sure, afraid to send anybody to get the bill
+accepted, for that would undoubtedly have discovered them.
+
+By this time my maid Amy was arrived, and she gave me an account of her
+management, and how she had secured everything, and that she had quitted
+the house, and sent the key to the head manager of his business, and
+let me know how much she had made of everything very punctually and
+honestly.
+
+I should have observed, in the account of his dwelling with me so long
+at ----, that he never passed for anything there but a lodger in the
+house; and though he was landlord, that did not alter the case. So that
+at his death, Amy coming to quit the house and give them the key, there
+was no affinity between that and the case of their master who was newly
+killed.
+
+I got good advice at Paris from an eminent lawyer, a counsellor of the
+Parliament there, and laying my case before him, he directed me to make
+a process in dower upon the estate, for making good my new fortune upon
+matrimony, which accordingly I did; and, upon the whole, the manager
+went back to England well satisfied that he had gotten the unaccepted
+bill of exchange, which was for two thousand five hundred pounds, with
+some other things, which together amounted to seventeen thousand livres;
+and thus I got rid of him.
+
+I was visited with great civility on this sad occasion of the loss of my
+husband, as they thought him, by a great many ladies of quality. And the
+Prince of ----, to whom it was reported he was carrying the jewels, sent
+his gentleman with a very handsome compliment of condolence to me; and
+his gentleman, whether with or without order, hinted as if his Highness
+did intend to have visited me himself, but that some accident, which he
+made a long story of, had prevented him.
+
+By the concourse of ladies and others that thus came to visit me, I
+began to be much known; and as I did not forget to set myself out with
+all possible advantage, considering the dress of a widow, which in those
+days was a most frightful thing; I say, as I did thus from my own
+vanity, for I was not ignorant that I was very handsome; I say, on this
+account I was soon made very public, and was known by the name of _La
+belle veufeu de Poictou_, or the pretty widow of Poictou. As I was very
+well pleased to see myself thus handsomely used in my affliction, it
+soon dried up all my tears; and though I appeared as a widow, yet, as we
+say in England, it was of a widow comforted. I took care to let the
+ladies see that I knew how to receive them; that I was not at a loss how
+to behave to any of them; and, in short, I began to be very popular
+there. But I had an occasion afterwards which made me decline that kind
+of management, as you shall hear presently.
+
+About four days after I had received the compliments of condolence from
+the Prince ----, the same gentleman he had sent before came to tell me
+that his Highness was coming to give me a visit. I was indeed surprised
+at that, and perfectly at a loss how to behave. However, as there was
+no remedy, I prepared to receive him as well as I could. It was not many
+minutes after but he was at the door, and came in, introduced by his own
+gentleman, as above, and after by my woman Amy.
+
+He treated me with abundance of civility, and condoled handsomely on the
+loss of my husband, and likewise the manner of it. He told me he
+understood he was coming to Versailles to himself, to show him some
+jewels; that it was true that he had discoursed with him about jewels,
+but could not imagine how any villains should hear of his coming at that
+time with them; that he had not ordered him to attend with them at
+Versailles, but told him that he would come to Paris by such a day, so
+that he was no way accessory to the disaster. I told him gravely I knew
+very well that all his Highness had said of that part was true; that
+these villains knew his profession, and knew, no doubt, that he always
+carried a casket of jewels about him, and that he always wore a diamond
+ring on his finger worth a hundred pistoles, which report had magnified
+to five hundred; and that, if he had been going to any other place, it
+would have been the same thing. After this his Highness rose up to go,
+and told me he had resolved, however, to make me some reparation; and
+with these words put a silk purse into my hand with a hundred pistoles,
+and told me he would make me a farther compliment of a small pension,
+which his gentleman would inform me of.
+
+You may be sure I behaved with a due sense of so much goodness, and
+offered to kneel to kiss his hand; but he took me up and saluted me, and
+sat down again (though before he made as if he was going away), making
+me sit down by him.
+
+He then began to talk with me more familiarly; told me he hoped I was
+not left in bad circumstances; that Mr. ---- was reputed to be very rich,
+and that he had gained lately great sums by some jewels, and he hoped,
+he said, that I had still a fortune agreeable to the condition I had
+lived in before.
+
+I replied, with some tears, which, I confess, were a little forced, that
+I believed, if Mr. ---- had lived, we should have been out of danger of
+want, but that it was impossible to estimate the loss which I had
+sustained, besides that of the life of my husband; that, by the opinion
+of those that knew something of his affairs, and of what value the
+jewels were which he intended to have shown to his Highness, he could
+not have less about him than the value of a hundred thousand livres;
+that it was a fatal blow to me, and to his whole family, especially that
+they should be lost in such a manner.
+
+His Highness returned, with an air of concern, that he was very sorry
+for it; but he hoped, if I settled in Paris, I might find ways to
+restore my fortune; at the same time he complimented me upon my being
+very handsome, as he was pleased to call it, and that I could not fail
+of admirers. I stood up and humbly thanked his Highness, but told him I
+had no expectations of that kind; that I thought I should be obliged to
+go over to England, to look after my husband's effects there, which, I
+was told, were considerable, but that I did not know what justice a poor
+stranger would get among them; and as for Paris, my fortune being so
+impaired, I saw nothing before me but to go back to Poictou to my
+friends, where some of my relations, I hoped, might do something for me,
+and added that one of my brothers was an abbot at ----, near Poictiers.
+
+He stood up, and taking me by the hand, led me to a large looking-glass,
+which made up the pier in the front of the parlour. "Look there, madam,"
+said he; "is it fit that that face" (pointing to my figure in the glass)
+"should go back to Poictou? No, madam," says he; "stay and make some
+gentleman of quality happy, that may, in return, make you forget all
+your sorrows;" and with that he took me in his arms, and kissing me
+twice, told me he would see me again, but with less ceremony.
+
+Some little time after this, but the same day, his gentleman came to me
+again, and with great ceremony and respect, delivered me a black box
+tied with a scarlet riband and sealed with a noble coat-of-arms, which,
+I suppose, was the prince's.
+
+There was in it a grant from his Highness, or an assignment--I know not
+which to call it--with a warrant to his banker to pay me two thousand
+livres a year during my stay in Paris, as the widow of Monsieur ----,
+the jeweller, mentioning the horrid murder of my late husband as the
+occasion of it, as above.
+
+I received it with great submission, and expressions of being infinitely
+obliged to his master, and of my showing myself on all occasions his
+Highness's most obedient servant; and after giving my most humble duty
+to his Highness, with the utmost acknowledgments of the obligation, &c.,
+I went to a little cabinet, and taking out some money, which made a
+little sound in taking it out, offered to give him five pistoles.
+
+He drew back, but with the greatest respect, and told me he humbly
+thanked me, but that he durst not take a farthing; that his Highness
+would take it so ill of him, he was sure he would never see his face
+more; but that he would not fail to acquaint his Highness what respect I
+had offered; and added, "I assure you, madam, you are more in the good
+graces of my master, the Prince of ----, than you are aware of; and I
+believe you will hear more of him."
+
+Now I began to understand him, and resolved, if his Highness did come
+again, he should see me under no disadvantages, if I could help it. I
+told him, if his Highness did me the honour to see me again, I hoped he
+would not let me be so surprised as I was before; that I would be glad
+to have some little notice of it, and would be obliged to him if he
+would procure it me. He told me he was very sure that when his Highness
+intended to visit me he should be sent before to give me notice of it,
+and that he would give me as much warning of it as possible.
+
+He came several times after this on the same errand, that is, about the
+settlement, the grant requiring several things yet to be done for making
+it payable without going every time to the prince again for a fresh
+warrant. The particulars of this part I did not understand; but as soon
+as it was finished, which was above two months, the gentleman came one
+afternoon, and said his Highness designed to visit me in the evening,
+but desired to be admitted without ceremony.
+
+I prepared not my rooms only, but myself; and when he came in there was
+nobody appeared in the house but his gentleman and my maid Amy; and of
+her I bid the gentleman acquaint his Highness that she was an
+Englishwoman, that she did not understand a word of French, and that she
+was one also that might be trusted.
+
+When he came into my room, I fell down at his feet before he could come
+to salute me, and with words that I had prepared, full of duty and
+respect, thanked him for his bounty and goodness to a poor, desolate
+woman, oppressed under the weight of so terrible a disaster; and refused
+to rise till he would allow me the honour to kiss his hand.
+
+"_Levez vous donc_," says the prince, taking me in his arms; "I design
+more favours for you than this trifle;" and going on, he added, "You
+shall for the future find a friend where you did not look for it, and I
+resolve to let you see how kind I can be to one who is to me the most
+agreeable creature on earth."
+
+I was dressed in a kind of half mourning, had turned off my weeds, and
+my head, though I had yet no ribands or lace, was so dressed as failed
+not to set me out with advantage enough, for I began to understand his
+meaning; and the prince professed I was the most beautiful creature on
+earth. "And where have I lived," says he, "and how ill have I been
+served, that I should never till now be showed the finest woman in
+France!"
+
+This was the way in all the world the most likely to break in upon my
+virtue, if I had been mistress of any; for I was now become the vainest
+creature upon earth, and particularly of my beauty, which as other
+people admired, so I became every day more foolishly in love with myself
+than before.
+
+He said some very kind things to me after this, and sat down with me for
+an hour or more, when, getting up and calling his gentleman by his name,
+he threw open the door: "_Au boire_," says he; upon which his gentleman
+immediately brought up a little table covered with a fine damask cloth,
+the table no bigger than he could bring in his two hands, but upon it
+was set two decanters, one of champagne and the other of water, six
+silver plates, and a service of fine sweetmeats in fine china dishes, on
+a set of rings standing up about twenty inches high, one above another.
+Below was three roasted partridges and a quail. As soon as his gentleman
+had set it all down, he ordered him to withdraw. "Now," says the prince,
+"I intend to sup with you."
+
+When he sent away his gentleman, I stood up and offered to wait on his
+Highness while he ate; but he positively refused, and told me, "No;
+to-morrow you shall be the widow of Monsieur ----, the jeweller, but
+to-night you shall be my mistress; therefore sit here," says he, "and
+eat with me, or I will get up and serve."
+
+I would then have called up my woman Amy, but I thought that would not
+be proper neither; so I made my excuse, that since his Highness would
+not let his own servant wait, I would not presume to let my woman come
+up; but if he would please to let me wait, it would be my honour to fill
+his Highness's wine. But, as before, he would by no means allow me;
+so we sat and ate together.
+
+[Illustration: THE VISIT OF THE PRINCE
+
+_And refused to rise till he would allow me the honour to kiss his
+hand_]
+
+"Now, madam," says the prince, "give me leave to lay aside my character;
+let us talk together with the freedom of equals. My quality sets me at a
+distance from you, and makes you ceremonious. Your beauty exalts you to
+more than an equality. I must, then, treat you as lovers do their
+mistresses, but I cannot speak the language; it is enough to tell you
+how agreeable you are to me, how I am surprised at your beauty, and
+resolve to make you happy, and to be happy with you."
+
+I knew not what to say to him a good while, but blushed, and looking up
+towards him, said I was already made happy in the favour of a person of
+such rank, and had nothing to ask of his Highness but that he would
+believe me infinitely obliged.
+
+After he had eaten, he poured the sweetmeats into my lap; and the wine
+being out, he called his gentleman again to take away the table, who, at
+first, only took the cloth and the remains of what was to eat away; and,
+laying another cloth, set the table on one side of the room with a noble
+service of plate upon it, worth at least two hundred pistoles. Then,
+having set the two decanters again upon the table, filled as before, he
+withdrew; for I found the fellow understood his business very well, and
+his lord's business too.
+
+About half-an-hour after, the prince told me that I offered to wait a
+little before, that if I would now take the trouble he would give me
+leave to give him some wine; so I went to the table, filled a glass of
+wine, and brought it to him on a fine salver, which the glasses stood
+on, and brought the bottle or decanter for water in my other hand, to
+mix as he thought fit.
+
+He smiled, and bid me look on that salver, which I did, and admired it
+much, for it was a very fine one indeed. "You may see," says he, "I
+resolve to have more of your company, for my servant shall leave you
+that plate for my use." I told him I believed his Highness would not
+take it ill that I was not furnished fit to entertain a person of his
+rank, and that I would take great care of it, and value myself
+infinitely upon the honour of his Highness's visit.
+
+It now began to grow late, and he began to take notice of it. "But,"
+says he, "I cannot leave you; have you not a spare lodging for one
+night?" I told him I had but a homely lodging to entertain such a guest.
+He said something exceeding kind on that head, but not fit to repeat,
+adding that my company would make him amends.
+
+About midnight he sent his gentleman of an errand, after telling him
+aloud that he intended to stay here all night. In a little time his
+gentleman brought him a nightgown, slippers, two caps, a neckcloth, and
+shirt, which he gave me to carry into his chamber, and sent his man
+home; and then, turning to me, said I should do him the honour to be his
+chamberlain of the household, and his dresser also. I smiled, and told
+him I would do myself the honour to wait on him upon all occasions.
+
+About one in the morning, while his gentleman was yet with him, I begged
+leave to withdraw, supposing he would go to bed; but he took the hint,
+and said, "I'm not going to bed yet; pray let me see you again."
+
+I took this time to undress me, and to come in a new dress, which was,
+in a manner, _une dishabille_, but so fine, and all about me so clean
+and so agreeable, that he seemed surprised. "I thought," says he, "you
+could not have dressed to more advantage than you had done before; but
+now," says he, "you charm me a thousand times more, if that be
+possible."
+
+"It is only a loose habit, my lord," said I, "that I may the better wait
+on your Highness." He pulls me to him. "You are perfectly obliging,"
+says he; and, sitting on the bedside, says he, "Now you shall be a
+princess, and know what it is to oblige the gratefullest man alive;" and
+with that he took me in his arms.... I can go no farther in the
+particulars of what passed at that time, but it ended in this, that, in
+short, I lay with him all night.
+
+I have given you the whole detail of this story to lay it down as a
+black scheme of the way how unhappy women are ruined by great men; for,
+though poverty and want is an irresistible temptation to the poor,
+vanity and great things are as irresistible to others. To be courted by
+a prince, and by a prince who was first a benefactor, then an admirer;
+to be called handsome, the finest woman in France, and to be treated as
+a woman fit for the bed of a prince--these are things a woman must have
+no vanity in her, nay, no corruption in her, that is not overcome by it;
+and my case was such that, as before, I had enough of both.
+
+I had now no poverty attending me; on the contrary, I was mistress of
+ten thousand pounds before the prince did anything for me. Had I been
+mistress of my resolution, had I been less obliging, and rejected the
+first attack, all had been safe; but my virtue was lost before, and the
+devil, who had found the way to break in upon me by one temptation,
+easily mastered me now by another; and I gave myself up to a person who,
+though a man of high dignity, was yet the most tempting and obliging
+that ever I met with in my life.
+
+I had the same particular to insist upon here with the prince that I had
+with my gentleman before. I hesitated much at consenting at first
+asking, but the prince told me princes did not court like other men;
+that they brought more powerful arguments; and he very prettily added
+that they were sooner repulsed than other men, and ought to be sooner
+complied with; intimating, though very genteely, that after a woman had
+positively refused him once, he could not, like other men, wait with
+importunities and stratagems, and laying long sieges; but as such men as
+he stormed warmly, so, if repulsed, they made no second attacks; and,
+indeed, it was but reasonable; for as it was below their rank to be long
+battering a woman's constancy, so they ran greater hazards in being
+exposed in their amours than other men did.
+
+I took this for a satisfactory answer, and told his Highness that I had
+the same thoughts in respect to the manner of his attacks; for that his
+person and his arguments were irresistible; that a person of his rank
+and a munificence so unbounded could not be withstood; that no virtue
+was proof against him, except such as was able, too, to suffer
+martyrdom; that I thought it impossible I could be overcome, but that
+now I found it was impossible I should not be overcome; that so much
+goodness, joined with so much greatness, would have conquered a saint;
+and that I confessed he had the victory over me, by a merit infinitely
+superior to the conquest he had made.
+
+He made me a most obliging answer; told me abundance of fine things,
+which still flattered my vanity, till at last I began to have pride
+enough to believe him, and fancied myself a fit mistress for a prince.
+
+As I had thus given the prince the last favour, and he had all the
+freedom with me that it was possible for me to grant, so he gave me
+leave to use as much freedom with him another way, and that was to have
+everything of him I thought fit to command; and yet I did not ask of him
+with an air of avarice, as if I was greedily making a penny of him, but
+I managed him with such art that he generally anticipated my demands. He
+only requested of me that I would not think of taking another house, as
+I had intimated to his Highness that I intended, not thinking it good
+enough to receive his visits in; but he said my house was the most
+convenient that could possibly be found in all Paris for an amour,
+especially for him, having a way out into three streets, and not
+overlooked by any neighbours, so that he could pass and repass without
+observation; for one of the back-ways opened into a narrow dark alley,
+which alley was a thoroughfare or passage out of one street into
+another; and any person that went in or out by the door had no more to
+do but to see that there was nobody following him in the alley before he
+went in at the door. This request, I knew, was reasonable, and therefore
+I assured him I would not change my dwelling, seeing his Highness did
+not think it too mean for me to receive him in.
+
+He also desired me that I would not take any more servants or set up any
+equipage, at least for the present; for that it would then be
+immediately concluded I had been left very rich, and then I should be
+thronged with the impertinence of admirers, who would be attracted by
+the money, as well as by the beauty of a young widow, and he should be
+frequently interrupted in his visits; or that the world would conclude I
+was maintained by somebody, and would be indefatigable to find out the
+person; so that he should have spies peeping at him every time he went
+out or in, which it would be impossible to disappoint; and that he
+should presently have it talked over all the toilets in Paris that the
+Prince de ---- had got the jeweller's widow for a mistress.
+
+This was too just to oppose, and I made no scruple to tell his Highness
+that, since he had stooped so low as to make me his own, he ought to
+have all the satisfaction in the world that I was all his own; that I
+would take all the measures he should please to direct me to avoid the
+impertinent attacks of others; and that, if he thought fit, I would be
+wholly within doors, and have it given out that I was obliged to go to
+England to solicit my affairs there, after my husband's misfortune, and
+that I was not expected there again for at least a year or two. This he
+liked very well; only he said that he would by no means have me
+confined; that it would injure my health, and that I should then take a
+country-house in some village, a good way off of the city, where it
+should not be known who I was, and that he should be there sometimes to
+divert me.
+
+I made no scruple of the confinement, and told his Highness no place
+could be a confinement where I had such a visitor, and so I put off the
+country-house, which would have been to remove myself farther from him
+and have less of his company; so I made the house be, as it were, shut
+up. Amy, indeed, appeared, and when any of the neighbours and servants
+inquired, she answered, in broken French, that I was gone to England to
+look after my affairs, which presently went current through the streets
+about us. For you are to note that the people of Paris, especially the
+women, are the most busy and impertinent inquirers into the conduct of
+their neighbours, especially that of a single woman, that are in the
+world, though there are no greater intriguers in the universe than
+themselves; and perhaps that may be the reason of it, for it is an old
+but a sure rule, that
+
+    "When deep intrigues are close and shy,
+    The guilty are the first that spy."
+
+Thus his Highness had the most easy, and yet the most undiscoverable,
+access to me imaginable, and he seldom failed to come two or three
+nights in a week, and sometimes stayed two or three nights together.
+Once he told me he was resolved I should be weary of his company, and
+that he would learn to know what it was to be a prisoner; so he gave out
+among his servants that he was gone to ----, where he often went
+a-hunting, and that he should not return under a fortnight; and that
+fortnight he stayed wholly with me, and never went out of my doors.
+
+Never woman in such a station lived a fortnight in so complete a fulness
+of human delight; for to have the entire possession of one of the most
+accomplished princes in the world, and of the politest, best-bred man;
+to converse with him all day, and, as he professed, charm him all night,
+what could be more inexpressibly pleasing, and especially to a woman of
+a vast deal of pride, as I was?
+
+To finish the felicity of this part, I must not forget that the devil
+had played a new game with me, and prevailed with me to satisfy myself
+with this amour, as a lawful thing; that a prince of such grandeur and
+majesty, so infinitely superior to me, and one who had made such an
+introduction by an unparalleled bounty, I could not resist; and,
+therefore, that it was very lawful for me to do it, being at that time
+perfectly single, and unengaged to any other man, as I was, most
+certainly, by the unaccountable absence of my first husband, and the
+murder of my gentleman who went for my second.
+
+It cannot be doubted but that I was the easier to persuade myself of the
+truth of such a doctrine as this when it was so much for my ease and for
+the repose of my mind to have it be so:--
+
+    "In things we wish, 'tis easy to deceive;
+    What we would have, we willingly believe."
+
+Besides, I had no casuists to resolve this doubt; the same devil that
+put this into my head bade me go to any of the Romish clergy, and, under
+the pretence of confession, state the case exactly, and I should see
+they would either resolve it to be no sin at all or absolve me upon the
+easiest penance. This I had a strong inclination to try, but I know not
+what scruple put me off of it, for I could never bring myself to like
+having to do with those priests. And though it was strange that I, who
+had thus prostituted my chastity and given up all sense of virtue in two
+such particular cases, living a life of open adultery, should scruple
+anything, yet so it was. I argued with myself that I could not be a
+cheat in anything that was esteemed sacred; that I could not be of one
+opinion, and then pretend myself to be of another; nor could I go to
+confession, who knew nothing of the manner of it, and should betray
+myself to the priest to be a Huguenot, and then might come into
+trouble; but, in short, though I was a whore, yet I was a Protestant
+whore, and could not act as if I was popish, upon any account
+whatsoever.
+
+But, I say, I satisfied myself with the surprising occasion, that as it
+was all irresistible, so it was all lawful; for that Heaven would not
+suffer us to be punished for that which it was not possible for us to
+avoid; and with these absurdities I kept conscience from giving me any
+considerable disturbance in all this matter; and I was as perfectly easy
+as to the lawfulness of it as if I had been married to the prince and
+had had no other husband; so possible is it for us to roll ourselves up
+in wickedness, till we grow invulnerable by conscience; and that
+sentinel, once dozed, sleeps fast, not to be awakened while the tide of
+pleasure continues to flow, or till something dark and dreadful brings
+us to ourselves again.
+
+I have, I confess, wondered at the stupidity that my intellectual part
+was under all that while; what lethargic fumes dozed the soul; and how
+was it possible that I, who in the case before, where the temptation was
+many ways more forcible and the arguments stronger and more
+irresistible, was yet under a continued inquietude on account of the
+wicked life I led, could now live in the most profound tranquillity and
+with an uninterrupted peace, nay, even rising up to satisfaction and
+joy, and yet in a more palpable state of adultery than before; for
+before, my gentleman, who called me wife, had the pretence of his wife
+being parted from him, refusing to do the duty of her office as a wife
+to him. As for me, my circumstances were the same; but as for the
+prince, as he had a fine and extraordinary lady, or princess, of his
+own, so he had had two or three mistresses more besides me, and made no
+scruple of it at all.
+
+However, I say, as to my own part, I enjoyed myself in perfect
+tranquillity; and as the prince was the only deity I worshipped, so I
+was really his idol; and however it was with his princess, I assure you
+his other mistresses found a sensible difference, and though they could
+never find me out, yet I had good intelligence that they guessed very
+well that their lord had got some new favourite that robbed them of his
+company, and, perhaps, of some of his usual bounty too. And now I must
+mention the sacrifices he made to his idol, and they were not a few, I
+assure you.
+
+As he loved like a prince, so he rewarded like a prince; for though he
+declined my making a figure, as above, he let me see that he was above
+doing it for the saving the expense of it, and so he told me, and that
+he would make it up in other things. First of all, he sent me a toilet,
+with all the appurtenances of silver, even so much as the frame of the
+table; and then for the house, he gave me the table, or sideboard of
+plate, I mentioned above, with all things belonging to it of massy
+silver; so that, in short, I could not for my life study to ask him for
+anything of plate which I had not.
+
+He could, then, accommodate me in nothing more but jewels and clothes,
+or money for clothes. He sent his gentleman to the mercer's, and bought
+me a suit, or whole piece, of the finest brocaded silk, figured with
+gold, and another with silver, and another of crimson; so that I had
+three suits of clothes, such as the Queen of France would not have
+disdained to have worn at that time. Yet I went out nowhere; but as
+those were for me to put on when I went out of mourning, I dressed
+myself in them, one after another, always when his Highness came to see
+me.
+
+I had no less than five several morning dresses besides these, so that I
+need never be seen twice in the same dress; to these he added several
+parcels of fine linen and of lace, so much that I had no room to ask for
+more, or, indeed, for so much.
+
+I took the liberty once, in our freedoms, to tell him he was too
+bountiful, and that I was too chargeable to him for a mistress, and that
+I would be his faithful servant at less expense to him; and that he not
+only left me no room to ask him for anything, but that he supplied me
+with such a profusion of good things that I could scarce wear them, or
+use them, unless I kept a great equipage, which, he knew, was no way
+convenient for him or for me. He smiled, and took me in his arms, and
+told me he was resolved, while I was his, I should never be able to ask
+him for anything, but that he would be daily asking new favours of me.
+
+After we were up (for this conference was in bed), he desired I would
+dress me in the best suit of clothes I had. It was a day or two after
+the three suits were made and brought home. I told him, if he pleased, I
+would rather dress me in that suit which I knew he liked best. He asked
+me how I could know which he would like best before he had seen them. I
+told him I would presume for once to guess at his fancy by my own; so I
+went away and dressed me in the second suit, brocaded with silver, and
+returned in full dress, with a suit of lace upon my head, which would
+have been worth in England two hundred pounds sterling; and I was every
+way set out as well as Amy could dress me, who was a very genteel
+dresser too. In this figure I came to him, out of my dressing-room,
+which opened with folding-doors into his bedchamber.
+
+He sat as one astonished a good while, looking at me, without speaking a
+word, till I came quite up to him, kneeled on one knee to him, and
+almost, whether he would or no, kissed his hand. He took me up, and
+stood up himself, but was surprised when, taking me in his arms, he
+perceived tears to run down my cheeks. "My dear," says he aloud, "what
+mean these tears?" "My lord," said I, after some little check, for I
+could not speak presently, "I beseech you to believe me, they are not
+tears of sorrow, but tears of joy. It is impossible for me to see myself
+snatched from the misery I was fallen into, and at once to be in the
+arms of a prince of such goodness, such immense bounty, and be treated
+in such a manner; it is not possible, my lord," said I, "to contain the
+satisfaction of it; and it will break out in an excess in some measure
+proportioned to your immense bounty, and to the affection which your
+Highness treats me with, who am so infinitely below you."
+
+It would look a little too much like a romance here to repeat all the
+kind things he said to me on that occasion, but I can't omit one
+passage. As he saw the tears drop down my cheek, he pulls out a fine
+cambric handkerchief, and was going to wipe the tears off, but checked
+his hand, as if he was afraid to deface something; I say, he checked his
+hand, and tossed the handkerchief to me to do it myself. I took the hint
+immediately, and with a kind of pleasant disdain, "How, my lord," said
+I, "have you kissed me so often, and don't you know whether I am painted
+or not? Pray let your Highness satisfy yourself that you have no cheats
+put upon you; for once let me be vain enough to say I have not deceived
+you with false colours." With this I put a handkerchief into his hand,
+and taking his hand into mine, I made him wipe my face so hard that he
+was unwilling to do it, for fear of hurting me.
+
+He appeared surprised more than ever, and swore, which was the first
+time that I had heard him swear from my first knowing him, that he could
+not have believed there was any such skin without paint in the world.
+"Well, my lord," said I, "your Highness shall have a further
+demonstration than this, as to that which you are pleased to accept for
+beauty, that it is the mere work of nature;" and with that I stepped to
+the door and rung a little bell for my woman Amy, and bade her bring me
+a cup full of hot water, which she did; and when it was come, I desired
+his Highness to feel if it was warm, which he did, and I immediately
+washed my face all over with it before him. This was, indeed, more than
+satisfaction, that is to say, than believing, for it was an undeniable
+demonstration, and he kissed my cheeks and breasts a thousand times,
+with expressions of the greatest surprise imaginable.
+
+Nor was I a very indifferent figure as to shape; though I had had two
+children by my gentleman, and six by my true husband, I say I was no
+despisable shape; and my prince (I must be allowed the vanity to call
+him so) was taking his view of me as I walked from one end of the room
+to the other. At last he leads me to the darkest part of the room, and
+standing behind me, bade me hold up my head, when, putting both his
+hands round my neck, as if he was spanning my neck to see how small it
+was, for it was long and small, he held my neck so long and so hard in
+his hand that I complained he hurt me a little. What he did it for I
+knew not, nor had I the least suspicion but that he was spanning my
+neck; but when I said he hurt me, he seemed to let go, and in half a
+minute more led me to a pier-glass, and behold I saw my neck clasped
+with a fine necklace of diamonds; whereas I felt no more what he was
+doing than if he had really done nothing at all, nor did I suspect it in
+the least. If I had an ounce of blood in me that did not fly up into my
+face, neck, and breasts, it must be from some interruption in the
+vessels. I was all on fire with the sight, and began to wonder what it
+was that was coming to me.
+
+However, to let him see that I was not unqualified to receive benefits,
+I turned about: "My lord," says I, "your Highness is resolved to
+conquer, by your bounty, the very gratitude of your servants; you will
+leave no room for anything but thanks, and make those thanks useless
+too, by their bearing no proportion to the occasion."
+
+"I love, child," says he, "to see everything suitable. A fine gown and
+petticoat, a fine laced head, a fine face and neck, and no necklace,
+would not have made the object perfect. But why that blush, my dear?"
+says the prince. "My lord," said I, "all your gifts call for blushes,
+but, above all, I blush to receive what I am so ill able to merit, and
+may become so ill also."
+
+Thus far I am a standing mark of the weakness of great men in their
+vice, that value not squandering away immense wealth upon the most
+worthless creatures; or, to sum it up in a word, they raise the value of
+the object which they pretend to pitch upon by their fancy; I say, raise
+the value of it at their own expense; give vast presents for a ruinous
+favour, which is so far from being equal to the price that nothing will
+at last prove more absurd than the cost men are at to purchase their own
+destruction.
+
+I could not, in the height of all this fine doings--I say, I could not
+be without some just reflection, though conscience was, as I said, dumb,
+as to any disturbance it gave me in my wickedness. My vanity was fed up
+to such a height that I had no room to give way to such reflections. But
+I could not but sometimes look back with astonishment at the folly of
+men of quality, who, immense in their bounty as in their wealth, give to
+a profusion and without bounds to the most scandalous of our sex, for
+granting them the liberty of abusing themselves and ruining both.
+
+I, that knew what this carcase of mine had been but a few years before;
+how overwhelmed with grief, drowned in tears, frightened with the
+prospect of beggary, and surrounded with rags and fatherless children;
+that was pawning and selling the rags that covered me for a dinner, and
+sat on the ground despairing of help and expecting to be starved, till
+my children were snatched from me to be kept by the parish; I, that was
+after this a whore for bread, and, abandoning conscience and virtue,
+lived with another woman's husband; I, that was despised by all my
+relations, and my husband's too; I, that was left so entirely desolate,
+friendless, and helpless that I knew not how to get the least help to
+keep me from starving,--that I should be caressed by a prince, for the
+honour of having the scandalous use of my prostituted body, common
+before to his inferiors, and perhaps would not have denied one of his
+footmen but a little while before, if I could have got my bread by it.
+
+I say, I could not but reflect upon the brutality and blindness of
+mankind; that because nature had given me a good skin and some agreeable
+features, should suffer that beauty to be such a bait to appetite as to
+do such sordid, unaccountable things to obtain the possession of it.
+
+It is for this reason that I have so largely set down the particulars of
+the caresses I was treated with by the jeweller, and also by this
+prince; not to make the story an incentive to the vice, which I am now
+such a sorrowful penitent for being guilty of (God forbid any should
+make so vile a use of so good a design), but to draw the just picture of
+a man enslaved to the rage of his vicious appetite; how he defaces the
+image of God in his soul, dethrones his reason, causes conscience to
+abdicate the possession, and exalts sense into the vacant throne; how he
+deposes the man and exalts the brute.
+
+Oh! could we hear the reproaches this great man afterwards loaded
+himself with when he grew weary of this admired creature, and became
+sick of his vice, how profitable would the report of them be to the
+reader of this story! But had he himself also known the dirty history of
+my actings upon the stage of life that little time I had been in the
+world, how much more severe would those reproaches have been upon
+himself! But I shall come to this again.
+
+I lived in this gay sort of retirement almost three years, in which time
+no amour of such a kind, sure, was ever carried up so high. The prince
+knew no bounds to his munificence; he could give me nothing, either for
+my wearing, or using, or eating, or drinking, more than he had done from
+the beginning.
+
+His presents were after that in gold, and very frequent and large,
+often a hundred pistoles, never less than fifty at a time; and I must do
+myself the justice that I seemed rather backward to receive than craving
+and encroaching. Not that I had not an avaricious temper, nor was it
+that I did not foresee that this was my harvest, in which I was to
+gather up, and that it would not last long; but it was that really his
+bounty always anticipated my expectations, and even my wishes; and he
+gave me money so fast that he rather poured it in upon me than left me
+room to ask it; so that, before I could spend fifty pistoles, I had
+always a hundred to make it up.
+
+After I had been near a year and a half in his arms as above, or
+thereabouts, I proved with child. I did not take any notice of it to him
+till I was satisfied that I was not deceived; when one morning early,
+when we were in bed together, I said to him, "My lord, I doubt your
+Highness never gives yourself leave to think what the case should be if
+I should have the honour to be with child by you." "Why, my dear," says
+he, "we are able to keep it if such a thing should happen; I hope you
+are not concerned about that." "No, my lord," said I; "I should think
+myself very happy if I could bring your Highness a son; I should hope to
+see him a lieutenant-general of the king's armies by the interest of his
+father, and by his own merit." "Assure yourself, child," says he, "if
+it should be so, I will not refuse owning him for my son, though it be,
+as they call it, a natural son; and shall never slight or neglect him,
+for the sake of his mother." Then he began to importune me to know if it
+was so, but I positively denied it so long, till at last I was able to
+give him the satisfaction of knowing it himself by the motion of the
+child within me.
+
+He professed himself overjoyed at the discovery, but told me that now it
+was absolutely necessary for me to quit the confinement which, he said,
+I had suffered for his sake, and to take a house somewhere in the
+country, in order for health as well as for privacy, against my
+lying-in. This was quite out of my way; but the prince, who was a man of
+pleasure, had, it seems, several retreats of this kind, which he had
+made use of, I suppose, upon like occasions. And so, leaving it, as it
+were, to his gentleman, he provided a very convenient house, about four
+miles south of Paris, at the village of ----, where I had very agreeable
+lodgings, good gardens, and all things very easy to my content. But one
+thing did not please me at all, viz., that an old woman was provided,
+and put into the house to furnish everything necessary to my lying-in,
+and to assist at my travail.
+
+I did not like this old woman at all; she looked so like a spy upon me,
+or (as sometimes I was frighted to imagine) like one set privately to
+despatch me out of the world, as might best suit with the circumstance
+of my lying-in. And when his Highness came the next time to see me,
+which was not many days, I expostulated a little on the subject of the
+old woman; and by the management of my tongue, as well as by the
+strength of reasoning, I convinced him that it would not be at all
+convenient; that it would be the greater risk on his side; and at first
+or last it would certainly expose him and me also. I assured him that my
+servant, being an Englishwoman, never knew to that hour who his Highness
+was; that I always called him the Count de Clerac, and that she knew
+nothing else of him, nor ever should; that if he would give me leave to
+choose proper persons for my use, it should be so ordered that not one
+of them should know who he was, or perhaps ever see his face; and that,
+for the reality of the child that should be born, his Highness, who had
+alone been at the first of it, should, if he pleased, be present in the
+room all the time, so that he would need no witnesses on that account.
+
+This discourse fully satisfied him, so that he ordered his gentleman to
+dismiss the old woman the same day; and without any difficulty I sent my
+maid Amy to Calais, and thence to Dover, where she got an English
+midwife and an English nurse to come over on purpose to attend an
+English lady of quality, as they styled me, for four months certain.
+
+The midwife, Amy had agreed to pay a hundred guineas to, and bear her
+charges to Paris, and back again to Dover. The poor woman that was to be
+my nurse had twenty pounds, and the same terms for charges as the other.
+
+I was very easy when Amy returned, and the more because she brought with
+the midwife a good motherly sort of woman, who was to be her assistant,
+and would be very helpful on occasion; and bespoke a man midwife at
+Paris too, if there should be any necessity for his help. Having thus
+made provision for everything, the Count, for so we all called him in
+public, came as often to see me as I could expect, and continued
+exceeding kind, as he had always been. One day, conversing together upon
+the subject of my being with child, I told him how all things were in
+order, but that I had a strange apprehension that I should die with that
+child. He smiled. "So all the ladies say, my dear," says he, "when they
+are with child." "Well, however, my lord," said I, "it is but just that
+care should be taken that what you have bestowed in your excess of
+bounty upon me should not be lost;" and upon this I pulled a paper out
+of my bosom, folded up, but not sealed, and I read it to him, wherein I
+had left order that all the plate and jewels and fine furniture which
+his Highness had given me should be restored to him by my women, and the
+keys be immediately delivered to his gentleman in case of disaster.
+
+Then I recommended my woman, Amy, to his favour for a hundred pistoles,
+on condition she gave the keys up as above to his gentleman, and his
+gentleman's receipt for them. When he saw this, "My dear child," said
+he, and took me in his arms, "what! have you been making your will and
+disposing of your effects? Pray, who do you make your universal heir?"
+"So far as to do justice to your Highness, in case of mortality, I have,
+my lord," said I, "and who should I dispose the valuable things to,
+which I have had from your hand as pledges of your favour and
+testimonies of your bounty, but to the giver of them? If the child
+should live, your Highness will, I don't question, act like yourself in
+that part, and I shall have the utmost satisfaction that it will be well
+used by your direction."
+
+I could see he took this very well. "I have forsaken all the ladies in
+Paris," says he, "for you, and I have lived every day since I knew you
+to see that you know how to merit all that a man of honour can do for
+you. Be easy, child; I hope you shall not die, and all you have is your
+own, to do what with it you please."
+
+I was then within about two months of my time, and that soon wore off.
+When I found my time was come, it fell out very happily that he was in
+the house, and I entreated he would continue a few hours in the house,
+which he agreed to. They called his Highness to come into the room, if
+he pleased, as I had offered and as I desired him; and I sent word I
+would make as few cries as possible to prevent disturbing him. He came
+into the room once, and called to me to be of good courage, it would
+soon be over, and then he withdrew again; and in about half-an-hour more
+Amy carried him the news that I was delivered, and had brought him a
+charming boy. He gave her ten pistoles for her news, stayed till they
+had adjusted things about me, and then came into the room again, cheered
+me and spoke kindly to me, and looked on the child, then withdrew, and
+came again the next day to visit me.
+
+Since this, and when I have looked back upon these things with eyes
+unpossessed with crime, when the wicked part has appeared in its clearer
+light and I have seen it in its own natural colours, when no more
+blinded with the glittering appearances which at that time deluded me,
+and as in like cases, if I may guess at others by myself, too much
+possessed the mind; I say, since this I have often wondered with what
+pleasure or satisfaction the prince could look upon the poor innocent
+infant, which, though his own, and that he might that way have some
+attachment in his affections to it, yet must always afterwards be a
+remembrancer to him of his most early crime, and, which was worse, must
+bear upon itself, unmerited, an eternal mark of infamy, which should be
+spoken of, upon all occasions, to its reproach, from the folly of its
+father and wickedness of its mother.
+
+Great men are indeed delivered from the burthen of their natural
+children, or bastards, as to their maintenance. This is the main
+affliction in other cases, where there is not substance sufficient
+without breaking into the fortunes of the family. In those cases either
+a man's legitimate children suffer, which is very unnatural, or the
+unfortunate mother of that illegitimate birth has a dreadful affliction,
+either of being turned off with her child, and be left to starve, &c.,
+or of seeing the poor infant packed off with a piece of money to those
+she-butchers who take children off their hands, as 'tis called, that is
+to say, starve them, and, in a word, murder them.
+
+Great men, I say, are delivered from this burthen, because they are
+always furnished to supply the expense of their out-of-the-way
+offspring, by making little assignments upon the Bank of Lyons or the
+townhouse of Paris, and settling those sums, to be received for the
+maintenance of such expense as they see cause.
+
+Thus, in the case of this child of mine, while he and I conversed, there
+was no need to make any appointment as an appanage or maintenance for
+the child or its nurse, for he supplied me more than sufficiently for
+all those things; but afterwards, when time, and a particular
+circumstance, put an end to our conversing together (as such things
+always meet with a period, and generally break off abruptly), I say,
+after that, I found he appointed the children a settled allowance, by an
+assignment of annual rent upon the Bank of Lyons, which was sufficient
+for bringing them handsomely, though privately, up in the world, and
+that not in a manner unworthy of their father's blood, though I came to
+be sunk and forgotten in the case; nor did the children ever know
+anything of their mother to this day, other than as you may have an
+account hereafter.
+
+But to look back to the particular observation I was making, which I
+hope may be of use to those who read my story, I say it was something
+wonderful to me to see this person so exceedingly delighted at the birth
+of this child, and so pleased with it; for he would sit and look at it,
+and with an air of seriousness sometimes a great while together, and
+particularly, I observed, he loved to look at it when it was asleep.
+
+It was indeed a lovely, charming child, and had a certain vivacity in
+its countenance that is far from being common to all children so young;
+and he would often say to me that he believed there was something
+extraordinary in the child, and he did not doubt but he would come to be
+a great man.
+
+I could never hear him say so, but though secretly it pleased me, yet it
+so closely touched me another way that I could not refrain sighing, and
+sometimes tears; and one time in particular it so affected me that I
+could not conceal it from him; but when he saw tears run down my face,
+there was no concealing the occasion from him; he was too importunate to
+be denied in a thing of that moment; so I frankly answered, "It sensibly
+affects me, my lord," said I, "that, whatever the merit of this little
+creature may be, he must always have a bend on his arms. The disaster of
+his birth will be always, not a blot only to his honour, but a bar to
+his fortunes in the world. Our affection will be ever his affliction,
+and his mother's crime be the son's reproach. The blot can never be
+wiped out by the most glorious action; nay, if it lives to raise a
+family," said I, "the infamy must descend even to its innocent
+posterity."
+
+He took the thought, and sometimes told me afterwards that it made a
+deeper impression on him than he discovered to me at that time; but for
+the present he put it off with telling me these things could not be
+helped; that they served for a spur to the spirits of brave men,
+inspired them with the principles of gallantry, and prompted them to
+brave actions; that though it might be true that the mention of
+illegitimacy might attend the name, yet that personal virtue placed a
+man of honour above the reproach of his birth; that, as he had no share
+in the offence, he would have no concern at the blot; when, having by
+his own merit placed himself out of the reach of scandal, his fame
+should drown the memory of his beginning; that as it was usual for men
+of quality to make such little escapes, so the number of their natural
+children were so great, and they generally took such good care of their
+education, that some of the greatest men in the world had a bend in
+their coats-of-arms, and that it was of no consequence to them,
+especially when their fame began to rise upon the basis of their
+acquired merit; and upon this he began to reckon up to me some of the
+greatest families in France and in England also.
+
+This carried off our discourse for a time; but I went farther with him
+once, removing the discourse from the part attending our children to the
+reproach which those children would be apt to throw upon us, their
+originals; and when speaking a little too feelingly on the subject, he
+began to receive the impression a little deeper than I wished he had
+done. At last he told me I had almost acted the confessor to him; that I
+might, perhaps, preach a more dangerous doctrine to him than we should
+either of us like, or than I was aware of. "For, my dear," says he, "if
+once we come to talk of repentance we must talk of parting."
+
+If tears were in my eyes before, they flowed too fast now to be
+restrained, and I gave him but too much satisfaction by my looks that I
+had yet no reflections upon my mind strong enough to go that length, and
+that I could no more think of parting than he could.
+
+He said a great many kind things, which were great, like himself, and,
+extenuating our crime, intimated to me that he could no more part with
+me than I could with him; so we both, as I may say, even against our
+light and against our conviction, concluded to sin on; indeed, his
+affection to the child was one great tie to him, for he was extremely
+fond of it.
+
+The child lived to be a considerable man. He was first an officer of the
+_Garde du Corps_ of France, and afterwards colonel of a regiment of
+dragoons in Italy, and on many extraordinary occasions showed that he
+was not unworthy such a father, but many ways deserving a legitimate
+birth and a better mother; of which hereafter.
+
+I think I may say now that I lived indeed like a queen; or, if you will
+have me confess that my condition had still the reproach of a whore, I
+may say I was, sure, the queen of whores; for no woman was ever more
+valued or more caressed by a person of such quality only in the station
+of a mistress. I had, indeed, one deficiency which women in such
+circumstances seldom are chargeable with, namely, I craved nothing of
+him, I never asked him for anything in my life, nor suffered myself to
+be made use of, as is too much the custom of mistresses, to ask favours
+for others. His bounty always prevented me in the first, and my strict
+concealing myself in the last, which was no less to my convenience than
+his.
+
+The only favour I ever asked of him was for his gentleman, who he had
+all along entrusted with the secret of our affair, and who had once so
+much offended him by some omissions in his duty that he found it very
+hard to make his peace. He came and laid his case before my woman Amy,
+and begged her to speak to me to intercede for him, which I did, and on
+my account he was received again and pardoned, for which the grateful
+dog requited me by getting to bed to his benefactress, Amy, at which I
+was very angry. But Amy generously acknowledged that it was her fault as
+much as his; that she loved the fellow so much that she believed if he
+had not asked her she should have asked him. I say, this pacified me,
+and I only obtained of her that she should not let him know that I knew
+it.
+
+I might have interspersed this part of my story with a great many
+pleasant parts and discourses which happened between my maid Amy and I,
+but I omit them on account of my own story, which has been so
+extraordinary. However, I must mention something as to Amy and her
+gentleman.
+
+I inquired of Amy upon what terms they came to be so intimate, but Amy
+seemed backward to explain herself. I did not care to press her upon a
+question of that nature, knowing that she might have answered my
+question with a question, and have said, "Why, how did I and the prince
+come to be so intimate?" So I left off farther inquiring into it, till,
+after some time, she told it me all freely of her own accord, which, to
+cut it short, amounted to no more than this, that, like mistress like
+maid, as they had many leisure hours together below, while they waited
+respectively when his lord and I were together above; I say, they could
+hardly avoid the usual question one to another, namely, why might not
+they do the same thing below that we did above?
+
+On that account, indeed, as I said above, I could not find in my heart
+to be angry with Amy. I was, indeed, afraid the girl would have been
+with child too, but that did not happen, and so there was no hurt done;
+for Amy had been hanselled before, as well as her mistress, and by the
+same party too, as you have heard.
+
+After I was up again, and my child provided with a good nurse, and,
+withal, winter coming on, it was proper to think of coming to Paris
+again, which I did; but as I had now a coach and horses, and some
+servants to attend me, by my lord's allowance, I took the liberty to
+have them come to Paris sometimes, and so to take a tour into the garden
+of the Tuileries and the other pleasant places of the city. It happened
+one day that my prince (if I may call him so) had a mind to give me some
+diversion, and to take the air with me; but, that he might do it and not
+be publicly known, he comes to me in a coach of the Count de ----, a
+great officer of the court, attended by his liveries also; so that, in a
+word, it was impossible to guess by the equipage who I was or who I
+belonged to; also, that I might be the more effectually concealed, he
+ordered me to be taken up at a mantua-maker's house, where he sometimes
+came, whether upon other amours or not was no business of mine to
+inquire. I knew nothing whither he intended to carry me; but when he was
+in the coach with me, he told me he had ordered his servants to go to
+court with me, and he would show me some of the _beau monde_. I told him
+I cared not where I went while I had the honour to have him with me. So
+he carried me to the fine palace of Meudon, where the Dauphin then was,
+and where he had some particular intimacy with one of the Dauphin's
+domestics, who procured a retreat for me in his lodgings while we
+stayed there, which was three or four days.
+
+While I was there the king happened to come thither from Versailles, and
+making but a short stay, visited Madame the Dauphiness, who was then
+living. The prince was here incognito, only because of his being with
+me, and therefore, when he heard that the king was in the gardens, he
+kept close within the lodgings; but the gentleman in whose lodgings we
+were, with his lady and several others, went out to see the king, and I
+had the honour to be asked to go with them.
+
+After we had seen the king, who did not stay long in the gardens, we
+walked up the broad terrace, and crossing the hall towards the great
+staircase, I had a sight which confounded me at once, as I doubt not it
+would have done to any woman in the world. The horse guards, or what
+they call there the _gens d'armes_, had, upon some occasion, been either
+upon duty or been reviewed, or something (I did not understand that
+part) was the matter that occasioned their being there, I know not what;
+but, walking in the guard-chamber, and with his jack-boots on, and the
+whole habit of the troop, as it is worn when our horse guards are upon
+duty, as they call it, at St. James's Park; I say, there, to my
+inexpressible confusion, I saw Mr. ----, my first husband, the brewer.
+
+I could not be deceived; I passed so near him that I almost brushed him
+with my clothes, and looked him full in the face, but having my fan
+before my face, so that he could not know me. However, I knew him
+perfectly well, and I heard him speak, which was a second way of knowing
+him. Besides being, you may be sure, astonished and surprised at such a
+sight, I turned about after I had passed him some steps, and pretending
+to ask the lady that was with me some questions, I stood as if I had
+viewed the great hall, the outer guard-chamber, and some things; but I
+did it to take a full view of his dress, that I might farther inform
+myself.
+
+While I stood thus amusing the lady that was with me with questions, he
+walked, talking with another man of the same cloth, back again, just by
+me; and to my particular satisfaction, or dissatisfaction--take it which
+way you will--I heard him speak English, the other being, it seems, an
+Englishman.
+
+I then asked the lady some other questions. "Pray, madam," says I, "what
+are these troopers here? Are they the king's guards?" "No," says she;
+"they are the _gens d'armes_; a small detachment of them, I suppose,
+attended the king to-day, but they are not his Majesty's ordinary
+guard." Another lady that was with her said, "No, madam, it seems that
+is not the case, for I heard them saying the _gens d'armes_ were here
+to-day by special order, some of them being to march towards the Rhine,
+and these attend for orders; but they go back to-morrow to Orleans,
+where they are expected."
+
+This satisfied me in part, but I found means after this to inquire whose
+particular troop it was that the gentlemen that were here belonged to;
+and with that I heard they would all be at Paris the week after.
+
+Two days after this we returned for Paris, when I took occasion to speak
+to my lord, that I heard the _gens d'armes_ were to be in the city the
+next week, and that I should be charmed with seeing them march if they
+came in a body. He was so obliging in such things that I need but just
+name a thing of that kind and it was done; so he ordered his gentleman
+(I should now call him Amy's gentleman) to get me a place in a certain
+house, where I might see them march.
+
+As he did not appear with me on this occasion, so I had the liberty of
+taking my woman Amy with me, and stood where we were very well
+accommodated for the observation which I was to make. I told Amy what I
+had seen, and she was as forward to make the discovery as I was to have
+her, and almost as much surprised at the thing itself. In a word, the
+_gens d'armes_ entered the city, as was expected, and made a most
+glorious show indeed, being new clothed and armed, and being to have
+their standards blessed by the Archbishop of Paris. On this occasion
+they indeed looked very gay; and as they marched very leisurely, I had
+time to take as critical a view and make as nice a search among them as
+I pleased. Here, in a particular rank, eminent for one monstrous-sized
+man on the right; here, I say, I saw my gentleman again, and a very
+handsome, jolly fellow he was, as any in the troop, though not so
+monstrous large as that great one I speak of, who, it seems, was,
+however, a gentleman of a good family in Gascony, and was called the
+giant of Gascony.
+
+It was a kind of a good fortune to us, among the other circumstances of
+it, that something caused the troops to halt in their march a little
+before that particular rank came right against that window which I stood
+in, so that then we had occasion to take our full view of him at a small
+distance, and so as not to doubt of his being the same person.
+
+Amy, who thought she might, on many accounts, venture with more safety
+to be particular than I could, asked her gentleman how a particular man,
+who she saw there among the _gens d'armes_, might be inquired after and
+found out; she having seen an Englishman riding there which was supposed
+to be dead in England for several years before she came out of London
+and that his wife had married again. It was a question the gentleman
+did not well understand how to answer; but another person that stood by
+told her, if she would tell him the gentleman's name, he would endeavour
+to find him out for her, and asked jestingly if he was her lover. Amy
+put that off with a laugh, but still continued her inquiry, and in such
+a manner as the gentleman easily perceived she was in earnest; so he
+left bantering, and asked her in what part of the troop he rode. She
+foolishly told him his name, which she should not have done; and
+pointing to the cornet that troop carried, which was not then quite out
+of sight, she let him easily know whereabouts he rode, only she could
+not name the captain. However, he gave her such directions afterwards
+that, in short, Amy, who was an indefatigable girl, found him out. It
+seems he had not changed his name, not supposing any inquiry would be
+made after him here; but, I say, Amy found him out, and went boldly to
+his quarters, asked for him, and he came out to her immediately.
+
+I believe I was not more confounded at my first seeing him at Meudon
+than he was at seeing Amy. He started and turned pale as death. Amy
+believed if he had seen her at first, in any convenient place for so
+villainous a purpose, he would have murdered her.
+
+But he started, as I say above, and asked in English, with an
+admiration, "What are you?" "Sir," says she, "don't you know me?"
+"Yes," says he, "I knew you when you were alive; but what are you
+now?--whether ghost or substance I know not." "Be not afraid, sir, of
+that," says Amy; "I am the same Amy that I was in your service, and do
+not speak to you now for any hurt, but that I saw you accidentally
+yesterday ride among the soldiers; I thought you might be glad to hear
+from your friends at London." "Well, Amy," says he then (having a little
+recovered himself), "how does everybody do? What! is your mistress
+here?" Thus they begun:--
+
+_Amy._ My mistress, sir, alas! not the mistress you mean; poor
+gentlewoman, you left her in a sad condition.
+
+_Gent._ Why, that's true, Amy; but it could not be helped; I was in a
+sad condition myself.
+
+_Amy._ I believe so, indeed, sir, or else you had not gone away as you
+did; for it was a very terrible condition you left them all in, that I
+must say.
+
+_Gent._ What did they do after I was gone?
+
+_Amy._ Do, sir! Very miserably, you may be sure. How could it be
+otherwise?
+
+_Gent._ Well, that's true indeed; but you may tell me, Amy, what became
+of them, if you please; for though I went so away, it was not because I
+did not love them all very well, but because I could not bear to see the
+poverty that was coming upon them, and which it was not in my power to
+help. What could I do?
+
+_Amy._ Nay, I believe so indeed; and I have heard my mistress say many
+times she did not doubt but your affliction was as great as hers,
+almost, wherever you were.
+
+_Gent._ Why, did she believe I was alive, then?
+
+_Amy._ Yes, sir; she always said she believed you were alive, because
+she thought she should have heard something of you if you had been dead.
+
+_Gent._ Ay, ay; my perplexity was very great indeed, or else I had never
+gone away.
+
+_Amy._ It was very cruel, though, to the poor lady, sir, my mistress;
+she almost broke her heart for you at first, for fear of what might
+befall you, and at last because she could not hear from you.
+
+_Gent._ Alas, Amy! what could I do? Things were driven to the last
+extremity before I went. I could have done nothing but help starve them
+all if I had stayed; and, besides, I could not bear to see it.
+
+_Amy._ You know, sir, I can say little to what passed before, but I am a
+melancholy witness to the sad distresses of my poor mistress as long as
+I stayed with her, and which would grieve your heart to hear them.
+
+[Here she tells my whole story to the time that the parish took off one
+of my children, and which she perceived very much affected him; and he
+shook his head, and said some things very bitter when he heard of the
+cruelty of his own relations to me.]
+
+_Gent._ Well, Amy, I have heard enough so far. What did she do
+afterwards?
+
+_Amy._ I can't give you any farther account, sir; my mistress would not
+let me stay with her any longer. She said she could neither pay me or
+subsist me. I told her I would serve her without any wages, but I could
+not live without victuals, you know; so I was forced to leave her, poor
+lady, sore against my will; and I heard afterwards that the landlord
+seized her goods, so she was, I suppose, turned out of doors; for as I
+went by the door, about a month after, I saw the house shut up; and,
+about a fortnight after that, I found there were workmen at work,
+fitting it up, as I suppose, for a new tenant. But none of the
+neighbours could tell me what was become of my poor mistress, only that
+they said she was so poor that it was next to begging; that some of the
+neighbouring gentlefolks had relieved her, or that else she must have
+starved.
+
+Then she went on, and told him that after that they never heard any more
+of (me) her mistress, but that she had been seen once or twice in the
+city very shabby and poor in clothes, and it was thought she worked with
+her needle for her bread.
+
+All this the jade said with so much cunning, and managed and humoured it
+so well, and wiped her eyes and cried so artificially, that he took it
+all as it was intended he should, and once or twice she saw tears in his
+eyes too. He told her it was a moving, melancholy story, and it had
+almost broke his heart at first, but that he was driven to the last
+extremity, and could do nothing but stay and see them all starve, which
+he could not bear the thoughts of, but should have pistolled himself if
+any such thing had happened while he was there; that he left (me) his
+wife all the money he had in the world but L25, which was as little as
+he could take with him to seek his fortune in the world. He could not
+doubt but that his relations, seeing they were all rich, would have
+taken the poor children off, and not let them come to the parish; and
+that his wife was young and handsome, and, he thought, might marry
+again, perhaps, to her advantage, and for that very reason he never
+wrote to her or let her know he was alive, that she might in a
+reasonable term of years marry, and perhaps mend her fortunes; that he
+resolved never to claim her, because he should rejoice to hear that she
+had settled to her mind; and that he wished there had been a law made to
+empower a woman to marry if her husband was not heard of in so long a
+time, which time, he thought, should not be above four years, which was
+long enough to send word in to a wife or family from any part of the
+world.
+
+Amy said she could say nothing to that but this, that she was satisfied
+her mistress would marry nobody unless she had certain intelligence that
+he had been dead from somebody that saw him buried. "But, alas!" says
+Amy, "my mistress was reduced to such dismal circumstances that nobody
+would be so foolish to think of her, unless it had been somebody to go
+a-begging with her."
+
+Amy then, seeing him so perfectly deluded, made a long and lamentable
+outcry how she had been deluded away to marry a poor footman. "For he is
+no worse or better," says she, "though he calls himself a lord's
+gentleman. And here," says Amy, "he has dragged me over into a strange
+country to make a beggar of me;" and then she falls a-howling again, and
+snivelling, which, by the way, was all hypocrisy, but acted so to the
+life as perfectly deceived him, and he gave entire credit to every word
+of it.
+
+"Why, Amy," says he, "you are very well dressed; you don't look as if
+you were in danger of being a beggar." "Ay, hang 'em!" says Amy, "they
+love to have fine clothes here, if they have never a smock under them.
+But I love to have money in cash, rather than a chestful of fine
+clothes. Besides, sir," says she, "most of the clothes I have were given
+me in the last place I had, when I went away from my mistress."
+
+Upon the whole of the discourse, Amy got out of him what condition he
+was in and how he lived, upon her promise to him that if ever she came
+to England, and should see her old mistress, she should not let her know
+that he was alive. "Alas, sir!" says Amy, "I may never come to see
+England again as long as I live; and if I should, it would be ten
+thousand to one whether I shall see my old mistress, for how should I
+know which way to look for her, or what part of England she may be
+in?--not I," says she. "I don't so much as know how to inquire for her;
+and if I should," says Amy, "ever be so happy as to see her, I would not
+do her so much mischief as to tell her where you were, sir, unless she
+was in a condition to help herself and you too." This farther deluded
+him, and made him entirely open in his conversing with her. As to his
+own circumstances, he told her she saw him in the highest preferment he
+had arrived to, or was ever like to arrive to; for, having no friends or
+acquaintance in France, and, which was worse, no money, he never
+expected to rise; that he could have been made a lieutenant to a troop
+of light horse but the week before, by the favour of an officer in the
+_gens d'armes_ who was his friend, but that he must have found eight
+thousand livres to have paid for it to the gentleman who possessed it,
+and had leave given him to sell. "But where could I get eight thousand
+livres," says he, "that have never been master of five hundred livres
+ready money at a time since I came into France?"
+
+"Oh dear, sir!" says Amy, "I am very sorry to hear you say so. I fancy
+if you once got up to some preferment, you would think of my old
+mistress again, and do something for her. Poor lady," says Amy, "she
+wants it, to be sure;" and then she falls a-crying again. "It is a sad
+thing indeed," says she, "that you should be so hard put to it for
+money, when you had got a friend to recommend you, and should lose it
+for want of money." "Ay, so it was, Amy, indeed," says he; "but what can
+a stranger do that has neither money or friends?" Here Amy puts in again
+on my account. "Well," says she, "my poor mistress has had the loss,
+though she knows nothing of it. Oh dear! how happy it would have been!
+To be sure, sir, you would have helped her all you could." "Ay," says
+he, "Amy, so I would with all my heart; and even as I am, I would send
+her some relief, if I thought she wanted it, only that then letting her
+know I was alive might do her some prejudice, in case of her settling,
+or marrying anybody."
+
+"Alas," says Amy, "marry! Who will marry her in the poor condition she
+is in?" And so their discourse ended for that time.
+
+All this was mere talk on both sides, and words of course; for on
+farther inquiry, Amy found that he had no such offer of a lieutenant's
+commission, or anything like it; and that he rambled in his discourse
+from one thing to another; but of that in its place.
+
+You may be sure that this discourse, as Amy at first related it, was
+moving to the last degree upon me, and I was once going to have sent him
+the eight thousand livres to purchase the commission he had spoken of;
+but as I knew his character better than anybody, I was willing to search
+a little farther into it, and so I set Amy to inquire of some other of
+the troop, to see what character he had, and whether there was anything
+in the story of a lieutenant's commission or no.
+
+But Amy soon came to a better understanding of him, for she presently
+learnt that he had a most scoundrel character; that there was nothing of
+weight in anything he said; but that he was, in short, a mere sharper,
+one that would stick at nothing to get money, and that there was no
+depending on anything he said; and that more especially about the
+lieutenant's commission, she understood that there was nothing at all in
+it, but they told her how he had often made use of that sham to borrow
+money, and move gentlemen to pity him and lend him money, in hopes to
+get him preferment; that he had reported that he had a wife and five
+children in England, who he maintained out of his pay, and by these
+shifts had run into debt in several places; and upon several complaints
+for such things, he had been threatened to be turned out of the _gens
+d'armes_; and that, in short, he was not to be believed in anything he
+said, or trusted on any account.
+
+Upon this information, Amy began to cool in her farther meddling with
+him, and told me it was not safe for me to attempt doing him any good,
+unless I resolved to put him upon suspicions and inquiries which might
+be to my ruin, in the condition I was now in.
+
+I was soon confirmed in this part of his character, for the next time
+that Amy came to talk with him, he discovered himself more effectually;
+for, while she had put him in hopes of procuring one to advance the
+money for the lieutenant's commission for him upon easy conditions, he
+by degrees dropped the discourse, then pretended it was too late, and
+that he could not get it, and then descended to ask poor Amy to lend him
+five hundred pistoles.
+
+Amy pretended poverty, that her circumstances were but mean, and that
+she could not raise such a sum; and this she did to try him to the
+utmost. He descended to three hundred, then to one hundred, then to
+fifty, and then to a pistole, which she lent him, and he, never
+intending to pay it, played out of her sight as much as he could. And
+thus being satisfied that he was the same worthless thing he had ever
+been, I threw off all thoughts of him; whereas, had he been a man of any
+sense and of any principle of honour, I had it in my thoughts to retire
+to England again, send for him over, and have lived honestly with him.
+But as a fool is the worst of husbands to do a woman good, so a fool is
+the worst husband a woman can do good to. I would willingly have done
+him good, but he was not qualified to receive it or make the best use of
+it. Had I sent him ten thousand crowns instead of eight thousand livres,
+and sent it with express condition that he should immediately have
+bought himself the commission he talked of with part of the money, and
+have sent some of it to relieve the necessities of his poor miserable
+wife at London, and to prevent his children to be kept by the parish, it
+was evident he would have been still but a private trooper, and his wife
+and children should still have starved at London, or been kept of mere
+charity, as, for aught he knew, they then were.
+
+Seeing, therefore, no remedy, I was obliged to withdraw my hand from
+him, that had been my first destroyer, and reserve the assistance that I
+intended to have given him for another more desirable opportunity. All
+that I had now to do was to keep myself out of his sight, which was not
+very difficult for me to do, considering in what station he lived.
+
+Amy and I had several consultations then upon the main question,
+namely, how to be sure never to chop upon him again by chance, and to be
+surprised into a discovery, which would have been a fatal discovery
+indeed. Amy proposed that we should always take care to know where the
+_gens d'armes_ were quartered, and thereby effectually avoid them; and
+this was one way.
+
+But this was not so as to be fully to my satisfaction; no ordinary way
+of inquiring where the _gens d'armes_ were quartered was sufficient to
+me; but I found out a fellow who was completely qualified for the work
+of a spy (for France has plenty of such people). This man I employed to
+be a constant and particular attendant upon his person and motions; and
+he was especially employed and ordered to haunt him as a ghost, that he
+should scarce let him be ever out of his sight. He performed this to a
+nicety, and failed not to give me a perfect journal of all his motions
+from day to day, and, whether for his pleasure or his business, was
+always at his heels.
+
+This was somewhat expensive, and such a fellow merited to be well paid,
+but he did his business so exquisitely punctual that this poor man
+scarce went out of the house without my knowing the way he went, the
+company he kept, when he went abroad, and when he stayed at home.
+
+By this extraordinary conduct I made myself safe, and so went out in
+public or stayed at home as I found he was or was not in a possibility
+of being at Paris, at Versailles, or any place I had occasion to be at.
+This, though it was very chargeable, yet as I found it absolutely
+necessary, so I took no thought about the expense of it, for I knew I
+could not purchase my safety too dear.
+
+By this management I found an opportunity to see what a most
+insignificant, unthinking life the poor, indolent wretch, who, by his
+unactive temper, had at first been my ruin, now lived; how he only rose
+in the morning to go to bed at night; that, saving the necessary motion
+of the troops, which he was obliged to attend, he was a mere motionless
+animal, of no consequence in the world; that he seemed to be one who,
+though he was indeed alive, had no manner of business in life but to
+stay to be called out of it. He neither kept any company, minded any
+sport, played at any game, or indeed did anything of moment; but, in
+short, sauntered about like one that it was not two livres value whether
+he was dead or alive; that when he was gone, would leave no remembrance
+behind him that ever he was here; that if ever he did anything in the
+world to be talked of, it was only to get five beggars and starve his
+wife. The journal of his life, which I had constantly sent me every
+week, was the least significant of anything of its kind that was ever
+seen, as it had really nothing of earnest in it, so it would make no
+jest to relate it. It was not important enough so much as to make the
+reader merry withal, and for that reason I omit it.
+
+Yet this nothing-doing wretch was I obliged to watch and guard against,
+as against the only thing that was capable of doing me hurt in the
+world. I was to shun him as we would shun a spectre, or even the devil,
+if he was actually in our way; and it cost me after the rate of a
+hundred and fifty livres a month, and very cheap too, to have this
+creature constantly kept in view. That is to say, my spy undertook never
+to let him be out of his sight an hour, but so as that he could give an
+account of him, which was much the easier for to be done considering his
+way of living; for he was sure that, for whole weeks together, he would
+be ten hours of the day half asleep on a bench at the tavern-door where
+he quartered, or drunk within the house. Though this wicked life he led
+sometimes moved me to pity him, and to wonder how so well-bred,
+gentlemanly a man as he once was could degenerate into such a useless
+thing as he now appeared, yet at the same time it gave me most
+contemptible thoughts of him, and made me often say I was a warning for
+all the ladies of Europe against marrying of fools. A man of sense falls
+in the world and gets up again, and a woman has some chance for herself;
+but with a fool, once fall, and ever undone; once in the ditch, and die
+in the ditch; once poor, and sure to starve.
+
+But it is time to have done with him. Once I had nothing to hope for but
+to see him again; now my only felicity was, if possible, never to see
+him, and, above all, to keep him from seeing me, which, as above, I took
+effectual care of.
+
+I was now returned to Paris. My little son of honour, as I called him,
+was left at ----, where my last country-seat then was, and I came to
+Paris at the prince's request. Thither he came to me as soon as I
+arrived, and told me he came to give me joy of my return, and to make
+his acknowledgments for that I had given him a son. I thought, indeed,
+he had been going to give me a present, and so he did the next day, but
+in what he said then he only jested with me. He gave me his company all
+the evening, supped with me about midnight, and did me the honour, as I
+then called it, to lodge me in his arms all the night, telling me, in
+jest, that the best thanks for a son born was giving the pledge for
+another.
+
+But as I hinted, so it was; the next morning he laid me down on my
+toilet a purse with three hundred pistoles. I saw him lay it down, and
+understood what he meant, but I took no notice of it till I came to it,
+as it were, casually; then I gave a great cry out, and fell a-scolding
+in my way, for he gave me all possible freedom of speech on such
+occasions. I told him he was unkind, that he would never give me an
+opportunity to ask for anything, and that he forced me to blush by being
+too much obliged, and the like; all which I knew was very agreeable to
+him, for as he was bountiful beyond measure, so he was infinitely
+obliged by my being so backward to ask any favours; and I was even with
+him, for I never asked him for a farthing in my life.
+
+Upon this rallying him, he told me I had either perfectly studied the
+art of humour, or else what was the greatest difficulty to others was
+natural to me, adding that nothing could be more obliging to a man of
+honour than not to be soliciting and craving.
+
+I told him nothing could be craving upon him, that he left no room for
+it; that I hoped he did not give merely to avoid the trouble of being
+importuned. I told him he might depend upon it that I should be reduced
+very low indeed before I offered to disturb him that way.
+
+He said a man of honour ought always to know what he ought to do; and as
+he did nothing but what he knew was reasonable, he gave me leave to be
+free with him if I wanted anything; that he had too much value for me to
+deny me anything if I asked, but that it was infinitely agreeable to
+him to hear me say that what he did was to my satisfaction.
+
+We strained compliments thus a great while, and as he had me in his arms
+most part of the time, so upon all my expressions of his bounty to me he
+put a stop to me with his kisses, and would admit me to go on no
+farther.
+
+I should in this place mention that this prince was not a subject of
+France, though at that time he resided at Paris and was much at court,
+where, I suppose, he had or expected some considerable employment. But I
+mention it on this account, that a few days after this he came to me and
+told me he was come to bring me not the most welcome news that ever I
+heard from him in his life. I looked at him a little surprised; but he
+returned, "Do not be uneasy; it is as unpleasant to me as to you, but I
+come to consult with you about it and see if it cannot be made a little
+easy to us both."
+
+I seemed still more concerned and surprised. At last he said it was that
+he believed he should be obliged to go into Italy, which, though
+otherwise it was very agreeable to him, yet his parting with me made it
+a very dull thing but to think of.
+
+I sat mute, as one thunderstruck, for a good while; and it presently
+occurred to me that I was going to lose him, which, indeed, I could but
+ill bear the thoughts of; and as he told me I turned pale. "What's the
+matter?" said he hastily. "I have surprised you indeed," and stepping to
+the sideboard fills a dram of cordial water, which was of his own
+bringing, and comes to me. "Be not surprised," said he; "I'll go nowhere
+without you;" adding several other things so kind as nothing could
+exceed it.
+
+I might indeed turn pale, for I was very much surprised at first,
+believing that this was, as it often happens in such cases, only a
+project to drop me, and break off an amour which he had now carried on
+so long; and a thousand thoughts whirled about my head in the few
+moments while I was kept in suspense, for they were but a few. I say, I
+was indeed surprised, and might, perhaps, look pale, but I was not in
+any danger of fainting that I knew of.
+
+However, it not a little pleased me to see him so concerned and anxious
+about me, but I stopped a little when he put the cordial to my mouth,
+and taking the glass in my hand, I said, "My lord, your words are
+infinitely more of a cordial to me than this citron; for as nothing can
+be a greater affliction than to lose you, so nothing can be a greater
+satisfaction than the assurance that I shall not have that misfortune."
+
+He made me sit down, and sat down by me, and after saying a thousand
+kind things to me, he turns upon me with a smile: "Why, will you
+venture yourself to Italy with me?" says he. I stopped a while, and then
+answered that I wondered he would ask me that question, for I would go
+anywhere in the world, or all over the world, wherever he should desire
+me, and give me the felicity of his company.
+
+Then he entered into a long account of the occasion of his journey, and
+how the king had engaged him to go, and some other circumstances which
+are not proper to enter into here; it being by no means proper to say
+anything that might lead the reader into the least guess at the person.
+
+But to cut short this part of the story, and the history of our journey
+and stay abroad, which would almost fill up a volume of itself, I say we
+spent all that evening in cheerful consultations about the manner of our
+travelling, the equipage and figure he should go in, and in what manner
+I should go. Several ways were proposed, but none seemed feasible, till
+at last I told him I thought it would be so troublesome, so expensive,
+and so public that it would be many ways inconvenient to him; and though
+it was a kind of death to me to lose him, yet that, rather than so very
+much perplex his affairs, I would submit to anything.
+
+At the next visit I filled his head with the same difficulties, and then
+at last came over him with a proposal that I would stay in Paris, or
+where else he should direct; and when I heard of his safe arrival, would
+come away by myself, and place myself as near him as I could.
+
+This gave him no satisfaction at all, nor would he hear any more of it;
+but if I durst venture myself, as he called it, such a journey, he would
+not lose the satisfaction of my company; and as for the expense, that
+was not to be named; neither, indeed, was there room to name it, for I
+found that he travelled at the king's expense, as well for himself as
+for all his equipage, being upon a piece of secret service of the last
+importance.
+
+But after several debates between ourselves, he came to this resolution,
+viz., that he would travel incognito, and so he should avoid all public
+notice either of himself or of who went with him; and that then he
+should not only carry me with him, but have a perfect leisure of
+enjoying my agreeable company (as he was pleased to call it) all the
+way.
+
+This was so obliging that nothing could be more so. Upon this foot he
+immediately set to work to prepare things for his journey, and, by his
+directions, so did I too. But now I had a terrible difficulty upon me,
+and which way to get over it I knew not; and that was, in what manner to
+take care of what I had to leave behind me. I was rich, as I have said,
+very rich, and what to do with it I knew not; nor who to leave in trust
+I knew not. I had nobody but Amy in the world, and to travel without Amy
+was very uncomfortable, or to leave all I had in the world with her,
+and, if she miscarried, be ruined at once, was still a frightful
+thought; for Amy might die, and whose hands things might fall into I
+knew not. This gave me great uneasiness, and I knew not what to do; for
+I could not mention it to the prince, lest he should see that I was
+richer than he thought I was.
+
+But the prince made all this easy to me; for in concerting measures for
+our journey he started the thing himself, and asked me merrily one
+evening who I would trust with all my wealth in my absence.
+
+"My wealth, my lord," said I, "except what I owe to your goodness is but
+small, but yet that little I have, I confess, causes some
+thoughtfulness, because I have no acquaintance in Paris that I dare
+trust with it, nor anybody but my woman to leave in the house; and how
+to do without her upon the road I do not well know."
+
+"As to the road, be not concerned," says the prince; "I'll provide you
+servants to your mind; and as for your woman, if you can trust her,
+leave her here, and I'll put you in a way how to secure things as well
+as if you were at home." I bowed, and told him I could not be put into
+better hands than his own, and that, therefore, I would govern all my
+measures by his directions; so we talked no more of it that night.
+
+The next day he sent me in a great iron chest, so large that it was as
+much as six lusty fellows could get up the steps into the house; and in
+this I put, indeed, all my wealth; and for my safety he ordered a good,
+honest, ancient man and his wife to be in the house with her, to keep
+her company, and a maid-servant and boy; so that there was a good
+family, and Amy was madam, the mistress of the house.
+
+Things being thus secured, we set out incog., as he called it; but we
+had two coaches and six horses, two chaises, and about eight
+men-servants on horseback, all very well armed.
+
+Never was woman better used in this world that went upon no other
+account than I did. I had three women-servants to wait on me, one
+whereof was an old Madame ----, who thoroughly understood her business,
+and managed everything as if she had been major-domo; so I had no
+trouble. They had one coach to themselves, and the prince and I in the
+other; only that sometimes, where he knew it necessary, I went into
+their coach, and one particular gentleman of the retinue rode with him.
+
+I shall say no more of the journey than that when we came to those
+frightful mountains, the Alps, there was no travelling in our coaches,
+so he ordered a horse-litter, but carried by mules, to be provided for
+me, and himself went on horseback. The coaches went some other way back
+to Lyons. Then we had coaches hired at Turin, which met us at Suza; so
+that we were accommodated again, and went by easy journeys afterwards to
+Rome, where his business, whatever it was, called him to stay some time,
+and from thence to Venice.
+
+He was as good as his word, indeed; for I had the pleasure of his
+company, and, in a word, engrossed his conversation almost all the way.
+He took delight in showing me everything that was to be seen, and
+particularly in telling me something of the history of everything he
+showed me.
+
+What valuable pains were here thrown away upon one who he was sure, at
+last, to abandon with regret! How below himself did a man of quality and
+of a thousand accomplishments behave in all this! It is one of my
+reasons for entering into this part, which otherwise would not be worth
+relating. Had I been a daughter or a wife, of whom it might be said that
+he had a just concern in their instruction or improvement, it had been
+an admirable step; but all this to a whore; to one who he carried with
+him upon no account that could be rationally agreeable, and none but to
+gratify the meanest of human frailties--this was the wonder of it. But
+such is the power of a vicious inclination. Whoring was, in a word, his
+darling crime, the worst excursion he made, for he was otherwise one of
+the most excellent persons in the world. No passions, no furious
+excursions, no ostentatious pride; the most humble, courteous, affable
+person in the world. Not an oath, not an indecent word, or the least
+blemish in behaviour was to be seen in all his conversation, except as
+before excepted; and it has given me occasion for many dark reflections
+since, to look back and think that I should be the snare of such a
+person's life; that I should influence him to so much wickedness, and
+that I should be the instrument in the hand of the devil to do him so
+much prejudice.
+
+We were near two years upon this grand tour, as it may be called, during
+most of which I resided at Rome or at Venice, having only been twice at
+Florence and once at Naples. I made some very diverting and useful
+observations in all these places, and particularly of the conduct of the
+ladies; for I had opportunity to converse very much among them, by the
+help of the old witch that travelled with us. She had been at Naples and
+at Venice, and had lived in the former several years, where, as I found,
+she had lived but a loose life, as indeed the women of Naples generally
+do; and, in short, I found she was fully acquainted with all the
+intriguing arts of that part of the world.
+
+Here my lord bought me a little female Turkish slave, who, being taken
+at sea by a Maltese man-of-war, was brought in there, and of her I
+learnt the Turkish language, their way of dressing and dancing, and some
+Turkish, or rather Moorish, songs, of which I made use to my advantage
+on an extraordinary occasion some years after, as you shall hear in its
+place. I need not say I learnt Italian too, for I got pretty well
+mistress of that before I had been there a year; and as I had leisure
+enough and loved the language, I read all the Italian books I could come
+at.
+
+I began to be so in love with Italy, especially with Naples and Venice,
+that I could have been very well satisfied to have sent for Amy and have
+taken up my residence there for life.
+
+As to Rome, I did not like it at all. The swarms of ecclesiastics of all
+kinds on one side, and the scoundrel rabbles of the common people on the
+other, make Rome the unpleasantest place in the world to live in. The
+innumerable number of valets, lackeys, and other servants is such that
+they used to say that there are very few of the common people in Rome
+but what have been footmen, or porters, or grooms to cardinals or
+foreign ambassadors. In a word, they have an air of sharping and
+cozening, quarrelling and scolding, upon their general behaviour; and
+when I was there the footmen made such a broil between two great
+families in Rome, about which of their coaches (the ladies being in the
+coaches on either side) should give way to the other, that there was
+about thirty people wounded on both sides, five or six killed outside,
+and both the ladies frighted almost to death.
+
+But I have no mind to write the history of my travels on this side of
+the world, at least not now; it would be too full of variety.
+
+I must not, however, omit that the prince continued in all this journey
+the most kind, obliging person to me in the world, and so constant that,
+though we were in a country where it is well known all manner of
+liberties are taken, I am yet well assured he neither took the liberty
+he knew he might have, or so much as desired it.
+
+I have often thought of this noble person on that account. Had he been
+but half so true, so faithful and constant, to the best lady in the
+world--I mean his princess--how glorious a virtue had it been in him!
+And how free had he been from those just reflections which touched him
+in her behalf when it was too late!
+
+We had some very agreeable conversations upon this subject, and once he
+told me, with a kind of more than ordinary concern upon his thoughts,
+that he was greatly beholden to me for taking this hazardous and
+difficult journey, for that I had kept him honest. I looked up in his
+face, and coloured as red as fire. "Well, well," says he, "do not let
+that surprise you, I do say you have kept me honest." "My lord," said I,
+"'tis not for me to explain your words, but I wish I could turn them my
+own way. I hope," says I, "and believe we are both as honest as we can
+be in our circumstances." "Ay, ay," says he; "and honester than I doubt
+I should have been if you had not been with me. I cannot say but if you
+had not been here I should have wandered among the gay world here, in
+Naples, and in Venice too, for 'tis not such a crime here as 'tis in
+other places. But I protest," says he, "I have not touched a woman in
+Italy but yourself; and more than that, I have not so much as had any
+desire to it. So that, I say, you have kept me honest."
+
+I was silent, and was glad that he interrupted me, or kept me from
+speaking, with kissing me, for really I knew not what to say. I was once
+going to say that if his lady, the princess, had been with him, she
+would doubtless have had the same influence upon his virtue, with
+infinitely more advantage to him; but I considered this might give him
+offence; and, besides, such things might have been dangerous to the
+circumstance I stood in, so it passed off. But I must confess I saw that
+he was quite another man as to women than I understood he had always
+been before, and it was a particular satisfaction to me that I was
+thereby convinced that what he said was true, and that he was, as I may
+say, all my own.
+
+I was with child again in this journey, and lay in at Venice, but was
+not so happy as before. I brought him another son, and a very fine boy
+it was, but it lived not above two months; nor, after the first touches
+of affection (which are usual, I believe, to all mothers) were over, was
+I sorry the child did not live, the necessary difficulties attending it
+in our travelling being considered.
+
+After these several perambulations, my lord told me his business began
+to close, and we would think of returning to France, which I was very
+glad of, but principally on account of my treasure I had there, which,
+as you have heard, was very considerable. It is true I had letters very
+frequently from my maid Amy, with accounts that everything was very
+safe, and that was very much to my satisfaction. However, as the
+prince's negotiations were at an end, and he was obliged to return, I
+was very glad to go; so we returned from Venice to Turin, and in the way
+I saw the famous city of Milan. From Turin we went over the mountains
+again, as before, and our coaches met us at Pont a Voisin, between
+Chambery and Lyons; and so, by easy journeys, we arrived safely at
+Paris, having been absent two years, wanting about eleven days, as
+above.
+
+I found the little family we left just as we left them, and Amy cried
+for joy when she saw me, and I almost did the same.
+
+The prince took his leave of me the night before, for, as he told me, he
+knew he should be met upon the road by several persons of quality, and
+perhaps by the princess herself; so we lay at two different inns that
+night, lest some should come quite to the place, as indeed it happened.
+
+After this I saw him not for above twenty days, being taken up in his
+family, and also with business; but he sent me his gentleman to tell me
+the reason of it, and bid me not be uneasy, and that satisfied me
+effectually.
+
+In all this affluence of my good fortune I did not forget that I had
+been rich and poor once already alternately, and that I ought to know
+that the circumstances I was now in were not to be expected to last
+always; that I had one child, and expected another; and if I had bred
+often, it would something impair me in the great article that supported
+my interest--I mean, what he called beauty; that as that declined, I
+might expect the fire would abate, and the warmth with which I was now
+so caressed would cool, and in time, like the other mistresses of great
+men, I might be dropped again; and that therefore it was my business to
+take care that I should fall as softly as I could.
+
+I say, I did not forget, therefore, to make as good provision for
+myself as if I had had nothing to have subsisted on but what I now
+gained; whereas I had not less than ten thousand pounds, as I said
+above, which I had amassed, or secured rather, out of the ruins of my
+faithful friend the jeweller, and which he, little thinking of what was
+so near him when he went out, told me, though in a kind of a jest, was
+all my own, if he was knocked on the head, and which, upon that title, I
+took care to preserve.
+
+My greatest difficulty now was how to secure my wealth and to keep what
+I had got; for I had greatly added to this wealth by the generous bounty
+of the Prince ----, and the more by the private, retired mode of living,
+which he rather desired for privacy than parsimony; for he supplied me
+for a more magnificent way of life than I desired, if it had been
+proper.
+
+I shall cut short the history of this prosperous wickedness with telling
+you I brought him a third son, within little more than eleven months
+after our return from Italy; that now I lived a little more openly, and
+went by a particular name which he gave me abroad, but which I must
+omit, viz., the Countess de ----; and had coaches and servants, suitable
+to the quality he had given me the appearance of; and, which is more
+than usually happens in such cases, this held eight years from the
+beginning, during which time, as I had been very faithful to him, so I
+must say, as above, that I believe he was so separated to me, that
+whereas he usually had two or three women, which he kept privately, he
+had not in all that time meddled with any of them, but that I had so
+perfectly engrossed him that he dropped them all. Not, perhaps, that he
+saved much by it, for I was a very chargeable mistress to him, that I
+must acknowledge, but it was all owing to his particular affection to
+me, not to my extravagance, for, as I said, he never gave me leave to
+ask him for anything, but poured in his favours and presents faster than
+I expected, and so fast as I could not have the assurance to make the
+least mention of desiring more. Nor do I speak this of my own guess, I
+mean about his constancy to me and his quitting all other women; but the
+old harridan, as I may call her, whom he made the guide of our
+travelling, and who was a strange old creature, told me a thousand
+stories of his gallantry, as she called it, and how, as he had no less
+than three mistresses at one time, and, as I found, all of her
+procuring, he had of a sudden dropped them all, and that he was entirely
+lost to both her and them; that they did believe he had fallen into some
+new hands, but she could never hear who, or where, till he sent for her
+to go this journey; and then the old hag complimented me upon his
+choice; that she did not wonder I had so engrossed him; so much beauty,
+&c.; and there she stopped.
+
+Upon the whole, I found by her what was, you may be sure, to my
+particular satisfaction, viz., that, as above, I had him all my own. But
+the highest tide has its ebb; and in all things of this kind there is a
+reflux which sometimes, also, is more impetuously violent than the first
+aggression. My prince was a man of a vast fortune, though no sovereign,
+and therefore there was no probability that the expense of keeping a
+mistress could be injurious to him, as to his estate. He had also
+several employments, both out of France as well as in it; for, as above,
+I say he was not a subject of France, though he lived in that court. He
+had a princess, a wife with whom he had lived several years, and a woman
+(so the voice of fame reported) the most valuable of her sex, of birth
+equal to him, if not superior, and of fortune proportionable; but in
+beauty, wit, and a thousand good qualities superior, not to most women,
+but even to all her sex; and as to her virtue, the character which was
+justly her due was that of, not only the best of princesses, but even
+the best of women.
+
+They lived in the utmost harmony, as with such a princess it was
+impossible to be otherwise. But yet the princess was not insensible that
+her lord had his foibles, that he did make some excursions, and
+particularly that he had one favourite mistress, which sometimes
+engrossed him more than she (the princess) could wish, or be easily
+satisfied with. However, she was so good, so generous, so truly kind a
+wife, that she never gave him any uneasiness on this account; except so
+much as must arise from his sense of her bearing the affront of it with
+such patience, and such a profound respect for him as was in itself
+enough to have reformed him, and did sometimes shock his generous mind,
+so as to keep him at home, as I may call it, a great while together. And
+it was not long before I not only perceived it by his absence, but
+really got a knowledge of the reason of it, and once or twice he even
+acknowledged it to me.
+
+It was a point that lay not in me to manage. I made a kind of motion
+once or twice to him to leave me, and keep himself to her, as he ought
+by the laws and rites of matrimony to do, and argued the generosity of
+the princess to him, to persuade him; but I was a hypocrite, for had I
+prevailed with him really to be honest, I had lost him, which I could
+not bear the thoughts of; and he might easily see I was not in earnest.
+One time in particular, when I took upon me to talk at this rate, I
+found, when I argued so much for the virtue and honour, the birth, and,
+above all, the generous usage he found in the person of the princess
+with respect to his private amours, and how it should prevail upon him,
+&c., I found it began to affect him, and he returned, "And do you
+indeed," says he, "persuade me to leave you? Would you have me think
+you sincere?" I looked up in his face, smiling. "Not for any other
+favourite, my lord," says I; "that would break my heart; but for madam
+the princess!" said I; and then I could say no more. Tears followed, and
+I sat silent a while. "Well," said he, "if ever I do leave you, it shall
+be on the virtuous account; it shall be for the princess; I assure you
+it shall be for no other woman." "That's enough, my lord," said I;
+"there I ought to submit; and while I am assured it shall be for no
+other mistress, I promise your Highness I will not repine; or that, if I
+do, it shall be a silent grief; it shall not interrupt your felicity."
+
+All this while I said I knew not what, and said what I was no more able
+to do than he was able to leave me; which, at that time, he owned he
+could not do--no, not for the princess herself.
+
+But another turn of affairs determined this matter, for the princess was
+taken very ill, and, in the opinion of all her physicians, very
+dangerously so. In her sickness she desired to speak with her lord, and
+to take her leave of him. At this grievous parting she said so many
+passionate, kind things to him, lamented that she had left him no
+children (she had had three, but they were dead); hinted to him that it
+was one of the chief things which gave her satisfaction in death, as to
+this world, that she should leave him room to have heirs to his family,
+by some princess that should supply her place; with all humility, but
+with a Christian earnestness, recommended to him to do justice to such
+princess, whoever it should be, from whom, to be sure, he would expect
+justice; that is to say, to keep to her singly, according to the
+solemnest part of the marriage covenant; humbly asked his Highness's
+pardon if she had any way offended him; and appealing to Heaven, before
+whose tribunal she was to appear, that she had never violated her honour
+or her duty to him, and praying to Jesus and the blessed Virgin for his
+Highness; and thus, with the most moving and most passionate expressions
+of her affection to him, took her last leave of him, and died the next
+day.
+
+This discourse, from a princess so valuable in herself and so dear to
+him, and the loss of her following so immediately after, made such deep
+impressions on him that he looked back with detestation upon the former
+part of his life, grew melancholy and reserved, changed his society and
+much of the general conduct of his life, resolved on a life regulated
+most strictly by the rules of virtue and piety, and, in a word, was
+quite another man.
+
+The first part of his reformation was a storm upon me; for, about ten
+days after the princess's funeral, he sent a message to me by his
+gentleman, intimating, though in very civil terms, and with a short
+preamble or introduction, that he desired I would not take it ill that
+he was obliged to let me know that he could see me no more. His
+gentleman told me a long story of the new regulation of life his lord
+had taken up; and that he had been so afflicted for the loss of his
+princess that he thought it would either shorten his life or he would
+retire into some religious house, to end his days in solitude.
+
+I need not direct anybody to suppose how I received this news. I was
+indeed exceedingly surprised at it, and had much ado to support myself
+when the first part of it was delivered, though the gentleman delivered
+his errand with great respect, and with all the regard to me that he was
+able, and with a great deal of ceremony, also telling me how much he was
+concerned to bring me such a message.
+
+But when I heard the particulars of the story at large, and especially
+that of the lady's discourse to the prince a little before her death, I
+was fully satisfied. I knew very well he had done nothing but what any
+man must do that had a true sense upon him of the justice of the
+princess's discourse to him, and of the necessity there was of his
+altering his course of life, if he intended to be either a Christian or
+an honest man. I say, when I heard this I was perfectly easy. I confess
+it was a circumstance that it might be reasonably expected should have
+wrought something also upon me; I that had so much to reflect upon more
+than the prince; that had now no more temptation of poverty, or of the
+powerful motive which Amy used with me--namely, comply and live, deny
+and starve; I say, I that had no poverty to introduce vice, but was
+grown not only well supplied, but rich; and not only rich, but was very
+rich; in a word, richer than I knew how to think of, for the truth of it
+was, that thinking of it sometimes almost distracted me, for want of
+knowing how to dispose of it, and for fear of losing it all again by
+some cheat or trick, not knowing anybody that I could commit the trust
+of it to.
+
+Besides, I should add, at the close of this affair, that the prince did
+not, as I may say, turn me off rudely and with disgust, but with all the
+decency and goodness peculiar to himself, and that could consist with a
+man reformed and struck with the sense of his having abused so good a
+lady as his late princess had been. Nor did he send me away empty, but
+did everything like himself; and, in particular, ordered his gentleman
+to pay the rent of the house and all the expense of his two sons, and to
+tell me how they were taken care of, and where, and also that I might at
+all times inspect the usage they had, and if I disliked anything it
+should be rectified; and having thus finished everything, he retired
+into Lorraine, or somewhere that way, where he had an estate, and I
+never heard of him more--I mean, not as a mistress.
+
+Now I was at liberty to go to any part of the world, and take care of my
+money myself. The first thing that I resolved to do was to go directly
+to England, for there, I thought, being among my country-folks--for I
+esteemed myself an Englishwoman, though I was born in France--there, I
+say, I thought I could better manage things than in France; at least,
+that I would be in less danger of being circumvented and deceived; but
+how to get away with such a treasure as I had with me was a difficult
+point, and what I was greatly at a loss about.
+
+There was a Dutch merchant in Paris, that was a person of great
+reputation for a man of substance and of honesty, but I had no manner of
+acquaintance with him, nor did I know how to get acquainted with him, so
+as to discover my circumstances to him; but at last I employed my maid
+Amy (such I must be allowed to call her, notwithstanding what has been
+said of her, because she was in the place of a maid-servant); I say, I
+employed my maid Amy to go to him, and she got a recommendation to him
+from somebody else, I knew not who, so that she got access to him well
+enough.
+
+But now was my case as bad as before, for when I came to him what could
+I do? I had money and jewels to a vast value, and I might leave all
+those with him; that I might indeed do; and so I might with several
+other merchants in Paris, who would give me bills for it, payable at
+London; but then I ran a hazard of my money, and I had nobody at London
+to send the bills to, and so to stay till I had an account that they
+were accepted; for I had not one friend in London that I could have
+recourse to, so that indeed I knew not what to do.
+
+In this case I had no remedy but that I must trust somebody, so I sent
+Amy to this Dutch merchant, as I said above. He was a little surprised
+when Amy came to him and talked to him of remitting a sum of about
+twelve thousand pistoles to England, and began to think she came to put
+some cheat upon him; but when he found that Amy was but a servant, and
+that I came to him myself, the case was altered presently.
+
+When I came to him myself, I presently saw such a plainness in his
+dealing and such honesty in his countenance that I made no scruple to
+tell him my whole story, viz., that I was a widow, that I had some
+jewels to dispose of, and also some money which I had a mind to send to
+England, and to follow there myself; but being but a woman, and having
+no correspondence in London, or anywhere else, I knew not what to do,
+or how to secure my effects.
+
+He dealt very candidly with me, but advised me, when he knew my case so
+particularly, to take bills upon Amsterdam, and to go that way to
+England; for that I might lodge my treasure in the bank there, in the
+most secure manner in the world, and that there he could recommend me to
+a man who perfectly understood jewels, and would deal faithfully with me
+in the disposing them.
+
+I thanked him, but scrupled very much the travelling so far in a strange
+country, and especially with such a treasure about me; that, whether
+known or concealed, I did not know how to venture with it. Then he told
+me he would try to dispose of them there, that is, at Paris, and convert
+them into money, and so get me bills for the whole; and in a few days he
+brought a Jew to me, who pretended to buy the jewels. As soon as the Jew
+saw the jewels I saw my folly, and it was ten thousand to one but I had
+been ruined, and perhaps put to death in as cruel a manner as possible;
+and I was put in such a fright by it that I was once upon the point of
+flying for my life, and leaving the jewels and money too in the hands of
+the Dutchman, without any bills or anything else. The case was thus:--
+
+As soon as the Jew saw the jewels he falls a-jabbering, in Dutch or
+Portuguese, to the merchant; and I could presently perceive that they
+were in some great surprise, both of them. The Jew held up his hands,
+looked at me with some horror, then talked Dutch again, and put himself
+into a thousand shapes, twisting his body and wringing up his face this
+way and that way in his discourse, stamping with his feet, and throwing
+abroad his hands, as if he was not in a rage only, but in a mere fury.
+Then he would turn and give a look at me like the devil. I thought I
+never saw anything so frightful in my life.
+
+At length I put in a word. "Sir," says I to the Dutch merchant, "what is
+all this discourse to my business? What is this gentleman in all these
+passions about? I wish, if he is to treat with me, he would speak that I
+may understand him; or if you have business of your own between you that
+is to be done first, let me withdraw, and I'll come again when you are
+at leisure."
+
+"No, no, madam," says the Dutchman very kindly, "you must not go; all
+our discourse is about you and your jewels, and you shall hear it
+presently; it concerns you very much, I assure you." "Concern me!" says
+I. "What can it concern me so much as to put this gentleman into such
+agonies, and what makes him give me such devil's looks as he does? Why,
+he looks as if he would devour me."
+
+The Jew understood me presently, continuing in a kind of rage, and spoke
+in French: "Yes, madam, it does concern you much, very much, very much,"
+repeating the words, shaking his head; and then turning to the Dutchman,
+"Sir," says he, "pray tell her what is the case." "No," says the
+merchant, "not yet; let us talk a little farther of it by ourselves;"
+upon which they withdrew into another room, where still they talked very
+high, but in a language I did not understand. I began to be a little
+surprised at what the Jew had said, you may be sure, and eager to know
+what he meant, and was very impatient till the Dutch merchant came back,
+and that so impatient that I called one of his servants to let him know
+I desired to speak with him. When he came in I asked his pardon for
+being so impatient, but told him I could not be easy till he had told me
+what the meaning of all this was. "Why, madam," says the Dutch merchant,
+"in short, the meaning is what I am surprised at too. This man is a Jew,
+and understands jewels perfectly well, and that was the reason I sent
+for him, to dispose of them to him for you; but as soon as he saw them,
+he knew the jewels very distinctly, and flying out in a passion, as you
+see he did, told me, in short, that they were the very parcel of jewels
+which the English jeweller had about him who was robbed going to
+Versailles, about eight years ago, to show them the Prince de ----, and
+that it was for these very jewels that the poor gentleman was murdered;
+and he is in all this agony to make me ask you how you came by them; and
+he says you ought to be charged with the robbery and murder, and put to
+the question to discover who were the persons that did it, that they
+might be brought to justice." While he said this the Jew came impudently
+back into the room without calling, which a little surprised me again.
+
+The Dutch merchant spoke pretty good English, and he knew that the Jew
+did not understand English at all, so he told me the latter part, when
+he came into the room, in English, at which I smiled, which put the Jew
+into his mad fit again, and shaking his head and making his devil's
+faces again, he seemed to threaten me for laughing, saying, in French,
+this was an affair I should have little reason to laugh at, and the
+like. At this I laughed again, and flouted him, letting him see that I
+scorned him, and turning to the Dutch merchant, "Sir," says I, "that
+those jewels were belonging to Mr. ----, the English jeweller" (naming
+his name readily), "in that," says I, "this person is right; but that I
+should be questioned how I came to have them is a token of his
+ignorance, which, however, he might have managed with a little more good
+manners, till I told him who I am, and both he and you too will be more
+easy in that part when I should tell you that I am the unhappy widow of
+that Mr. ---- who was so barbarously murdered going to Versailles, and
+that he was not robbed of those jewels, but of others, Mr. ---- having
+left those behind him with me, lest he should be robbed. Had I, sir,
+come otherwise by them, I should not have been weak enough to have
+exposed them to sale here, where the thing was done, but have carried
+them farther off."
+
+This was an agreeable surprise to the Dutch merchant, who, being an
+honest man himself, believed everything I said, which, indeed, being all
+really and literally true, except the deficiency of my marriage, I spoke
+with such an unconcerned easiness that it might plainly be seen that I
+had no guilt upon me, as the Jew suggested.
+
+The Jew was confounded when he heard that I was the jeweller's wife. But
+as I had raised his passion with saying he looked at me with the devil's
+face, he studied mischief in his heart, and answered, that should not
+serve my turn; so called the Dutchman out again, when he told him that
+he resolved to prosecute this matter farther.
+
+There was one kind chance in this affair, which, indeed, was my
+deliverance, and that was, that the fool could not restrain his passion,
+but must let it fly to the Dutch merchant, to whom, when they withdrew a
+second time, as above, he told that he would bring a process against me
+for the murder, and that it should cost me dear for using him at that
+rate; and away he went, desiring the Dutch merchant to tell him when I
+would be there again. Had he suspected that the Dutchman would have
+communicated the particulars to me, he would never have been so foolish
+as to have mentioned that part to him.
+
+But the malice of his thoughts anticipated him, and the Dutch merchant
+was so good as to give me an account of his design, which, indeed, was
+wicked enough in its nature; but to me it would have been worse than
+otherwise it would to another, for, upon examination, I could not have
+proved myself to be the wife of the jeweller, so the suspicion might
+have been carried on with the better face; and then I should also have
+brought all his relations in England upon me, who, finding by the
+proceedings that I was not his wife, but a mistress, or, in English, a
+whore, would immediately have laid claim to the jewels, as I had owned
+them to be his.
+
+This thought immediately rushed into my head as soon as the Dutch
+merchant had told me what wicked things were in the head of that cursed
+Jew; and the villain (for so I must call him) convinced the Dutch
+merchant that he was in earnest by an expression which showed the rest
+of his design, and that was, a plot to get the rest of the jewels into
+his hand.
+
+When first he hinted to the Dutchman that the jewels were such a man's
+(meaning my husband's), he made wonderful exclamations on account of
+their having been concealed so long. Where must they have lain? And what
+was the woman that brought them? And that she (meaning me) ought to be
+immediately apprehended and put into the hands of justice. And this was
+the time that, as I said, he made such horrid gestures and looked at me
+so like a devil.
+
+The merchant, hearing him talk at that rate, and seeing him in earnest,
+said to him, "Hold your tongue a little; this is a thing of consequence.
+If it be so, let you and I go into the next room and consider of it
+there;" and so they withdrew, and left me.
+
+Here, as before, I was uneasy, and called him out, and, having heard how
+it was, gave him that answer, that I was his wife, or widow, which the
+malicious Jew said should not serve my turn. And then it was that the
+Dutchman called him out again; and in this time of his withdrawing, the
+merchant, finding, as above, that he was really in earnest,
+counterfeited a little to be of his mind, and entered into proposals
+with him for the thing itself.
+
+In this they agreed to go to an advocate, or counsel, for directions how
+to proceed, and to meet again the next day, against which time the
+merchant was to appoint me to come again with the jewels, in order to
+sell them. "No," says the merchant, "I will go farther with her than so;
+I will desire her to leave the jewels with me, to show to another
+person, in order to get the better price for them." "That's right," says
+the Jew; "and I'll engage she shall never be mistress of them again;
+they shall either be seized by us," says he, "in the king's name, or she
+shall be glad to give them up to us to prevent her being put to the
+torture."
+
+The merchant said "Yes" to everything he offered, and they agreed to
+meet the next morning about it, and I was to be persuaded to leave the
+jewels with him, and come to them the next day at four o'clock in order
+to make a good bargain for them; and on these conditions they parted.
+But the honest Dutchman, filled with indignation at the barbarous
+design, came directly to me and told me the whole story. "And now,
+madam," says he, "you are to consider immediately what you have to do."
+
+I told him, if I was sure to have justice, I would not fear all that
+such a rogue could do to me; but how such things were carried on in
+France I knew not. I told him the greatest difficulty would be to prove
+our marriage, for that it was done in England, and in a remote part of
+England too; and, which was worse, it would be hard to produce authentic
+vouchers of it, because we were married in private. "But as to the death
+of your husband, madam, what can be said to that?" said he. "Nay," said
+I, "what can they say to it? In England," added I, "if they would offer
+such an injury to any one, they must prove the fact or give just reason
+for their suspicions. That my husband was murdered, that every one
+knows; but that he was robbed, or of what, or how much, that none
+knows--no, not myself; and why was I not questioned for it then? I have
+lived in Paris ever since, lived publicly, and no man had yet the
+impudence to suggest such a thing of me."
+
+"I am fully satisfied of that," says the merchant; "but as this is a
+rogue who will stick at nothing, what can we say? And who knows what he
+may swear? Suppose he should swear that he knows your husband had those
+particular jewels with him the morning when he went out, and that he
+showed them to him to consider their value, and what price he should ask
+the Prince de ---- for them?"
+
+"Nay, by the same rule," said I, "he may swear that I murdered my
+husband, if he finds it for his turn." "That's true," said he; "and if
+he should, I do not see what could save you;" but added, "I have found
+out his more immediate design. His design is to have you carried to the
+Chatelet, that the suspicion may appear just, and then to get the jewels
+out of your hands if possible; then, at last, to drop the prosecution on
+your consenting to quit the jewels to him; and how you will do to avoid
+this is the question which I would have you consider of."
+
+"My misfortune, sir," said I, "is that I have no time to consider, and I
+have no person to consider with or advise about it. I find that
+innocence may be oppressed by such an impudent fellow as this; he that
+does not value perjury has any man's life at his mercy. But, sir," said
+I, "is the justice such here that, while I may be in the hands of the
+public and under prosecution, he may get hold of my effects and get my
+jewels into his hands?"
+
+"I don't know," says he, "what may be done in that case; but if not he,
+if the court of justice should get hold of them I do not know but you
+may find it as difficult to get them out of their hands again, and, at
+least, it may cost you half as much as they are worth; so I think it
+would be a much better way to prevent their coming at them at all."
+
+"But what course can I take to do that," says I, "now they have got
+notice that I have them? If they get me into their hands they will
+oblige me to produce them, or perhaps sentence me to prison till I do."
+
+"Nay," says he, "as this brute says, too, put you to the question--that
+is, to the torture, on pretence of making you confess who were the
+murderers of your husband."
+
+"Confess!" said I. "How can I confess what I know nothing of?"
+
+"If they come to have you to the rack," said he, "they will make you
+confess you did it yourself, whether you did it or no, and then you are
+cast."
+
+The very word rack frighted me to death almost, and I had no spirit left
+in me. "Did it myself!" said I. "That's impossible!"
+
+"No, madam," says he, "'tis far from impossible. The most innocent
+people in the world have been forced to confess themselves guilty of
+what they never heard of, much less had any hand in."
+
+"What, then, must I do?" said I. "What would you advise me to?"
+
+"Why," says he, "I would advise you to be gone. You intended to go away
+in four or five days, and you may as well go in two days; and if you can
+do so, I shall manage it so that he shall not suspect your being gone
+for several days after." Then he told me how the rogue would have me
+ordered to bring the jewels the next day for sale, and that then he
+would have me apprehended; how he had made the Jew believe he would join
+with him in his design, and that he (the merchant) would get the jewels
+into his hands. "Now," says the merchant, "I shall give you bills for
+the money you desired, immediately, and such as shall not fail of being
+paid. Take your jewels with you, and go this very evening to St.
+Germain-en-Laye; I'll send a man thither with you, and from thence he
+shall guide you to-morrow to Rouen, where there lies a ship of mine,
+just ready to sail for Rotterdam; you shall have your passage in that
+ship on my account, and I will send orders for him to sail as soon as
+you are on board, and a letter to my friend at Rotterdam to entertain
+and take care of you."
+
+This was too kind an offer for me, as things stood, not to be accepted,
+and be thankful for; and as to going away, I had prepared everything for
+parting, so that I had little to do but to go back, take two or three
+boxes and bundles, and such things, and my maid Amy, and be gone.
+
+Then the merchant told me the measures he had resolved to take to delude
+the Jew while I made my escape, which was very well contrived indeed.
+"First," said he, "when he comes to-morrow I shall tell him that I
+proposed to you to leave the jewels with me, as we agreed, but that you
+said you would come and bring them in the afternoon, so that we must
+stay for you till four o'clock; but then, at that time, I will show a
+letter from you, as if just come in, wherein you shall excuse your not
+coming, for that some company came to visit you, and prevented you; but
+that you desire me to take care that the gentleman be ready to buy your
+jewels, and that you will come to-morrow at the same hour, without
+fail.
+
+"When to-morrow is come, we shall wait at the time, but you not
+appearing, I shall seem most dissatisfied, and wonder what can be the
+reason; and so we shall agree to go the next day to get out a process
+against you. But the next day, in the morning, I'll send to give him
+notice that you have been at my house, but he not being there, have made
+another appointment, and that I desire to speak with him. When he comes,
+I'll tell him you appear perfectly blind as to your danger, and that you
+appeared much disappointed that he did not come, though you could not
+meet the night before; and obliged me to have him here to-morrow at
+three o'clock. When to-morrow comes," says he, "you shall send word that
+you are taken so ill that you cannot come out for that day, but that you
+will not fail the next day; and the next day you shall neither come or
+send, nor let us ever hear any more of you; for by that time you shall
+be in Holland, if you please."
+
+I could not but approve all his measures, seeing they were so well
+contrived, and in so friendly a manner, for my benefit; and as he seemed
+to be so very sincere, I resolved to put my life in his hands.
+Immediately I went to my lodgings, and sent away Amy with such bundles
+as I had prepared for my travelling. I also sent several parcels of my
+fine furniture to the merchant's house to be laid up for me, and
+bringing the key of the lodgings with me, I came back to his house. Here
+we finished our matters of money, and I delivered into his hands seven
+thousand eight hundred pistoles in bills and money, a copy of an
+assignment on the townhouse of Paris for four thousand pistoles, at
+three per cent. interest, attested, and a procuration for receiving the
+interest half-yearly; but the original I kept myself.
+
+I could have trusted all I had with him, for he was perfectly honest,
+and had not the least view of doing me any wrong. Indeed, after it was
+so apparent that he had, as it were, saved my life, or at least saved me
+from being exposed and ruined--I say, after this, how could I doubt him
+in anything?
+
+When I came to him, he had everything ready as I wanted, and as he had
+proposed. As to my money, he gave me first of all an accepted bill,
+payable at Rotterdam, for four thousand pistoles, and drawn from Genoa
+upon a merchant at Rotterdam, payable to a merchant at Paris, and
+endorsed by him to my merchant; this, he assured me, would be punctually
+paid; and so it was, to a day. The rest I had in other bills of
+exchange, drawn by himself upon other merchants in Holland. Having
+secured my jewels too, as well as I could, he sent me away the same
+evening in a friend's coach, which he had procured for me, to St.
+Germain, and the next morning to Rouen. He also sent a servant of his
+own on horseback with me, who provided everything for me, and who
+carried his orders to the captain of the ship, which lay about three
+miles below Rouen, in the river, and by his directions I went
+immediately on board. The third day after I was on board the ship went
+away, and we were out at sea the next day after that; and thus I took my
+leave of France, and got clear of an ugly business, which, had it gone
+on, might have ruined me, and sent me back as naked to England as I was
+a little before I left it.
+
+And now Amy and I were at leisure to look upon the mischiefs that we had
+escaped; and had I had any religion or any sense of a Supreme Power,
+managing, directing, and governing in both causes and events in this
+world, such a case as this would have given anybody room to have been
+very thankful to the Power who had not only put such a treasure into my
+hand, but given me such an escape from the ruin that threatened me; but
+I had none of those things about me. I had, indeed, a grateful sense
+upon my mind of the generous friendship of my deliverer, the Dutch
+merchant, by whom I was so faithfully served, and by whom, as far as
+relates to second causes, I was preserved from destruction.
+
+I say, I had a grateful sense upon my mind of his kindness and
+faithfulness to me, and I resolved to show him some testimony of it as
+soon as I came to the end of my rambles, for I was yet but in a state of
+uncertainty, and sometimes that gave me a little uneasiness too. I had
+paper indeed for my money, and he had showed himself very good to me in
+conveying me away, as above; but I had not seen the end of things yet,
+for unless the bills were paid, I might still be a great loser by my
+Dutchman, and he might, perhaps, have contrived all that affair of the
+Jew to put me into a fright and get me to run away, and that as if it
+were to save my life; that if the bills should be refused, I was cheated
+with a witness, and the like. But these were but surmises, and, indeed,
+were perfectly without cause, for the honest man acted as honest men
+always do, with an upright and disinterested principle, and with a
+sincerity not often to be found in the world. What gain he made by the
+exchange was just, and was nothing but what was his due, and was in the
+way of his business; but otherwise he made no advantage of me at all.
+
+When I passed in the ship between Dover and Calais and saw beloved
+England once more under my view--England, which I counted my native
+country, being the place I was bred up in, though not born there--a
+strange kind of joy possessed my mind, and I had such a longing desire
+to be there that I would have given the master of the ship twenty
+pistoles to have stood over and set me on shore in the Downs; and when
+he told me he could not do it--that is, that he durst not do it if I
+would have given him a hundred pistoles--I secretly wished that a storm
+would rise that might drive the ship over to the coast of England,
+whether they would or not, that I might be set on shore anywhere upon
+English ground.
+
+This wicked wish had not been out of my thoughts above two or three
+hours, but the master steering away to the north, as was his course to
+do, we lost sight of land on that side, and only had the Flemish shore
+in view on our right hand, or, as the seamen call it, the starboard
+side; and then, with the loss of the sight, the wish for landing in
+England abated, and I considered how foolish it was to wish myself out
+of the way of my business; that if I had been on shore in England, I
+must go back to Holland on account of my bills, which were so
+considerable, and I having no correspondence there, that I could not
+have managed it without going myself. But we had not been out of sight
+of England many hours before the weather began to change; the winds
+whistled and made a noise, and the seamen said to one another that it
+would blow hard at night. It was then about two hours before sunset, and
+we were passed by Dunkirk, and I think they said we were in sight of
+Ostend; but then the wind grew high and the sea swelled, and all things
+looked terrible, especially to us that understood nothing but just what
+we saw before us; in short, night came on, and very dark it was; the
+wind freshened and blew harder and harder, and about two hours within
+night it blew a terrible storm.
+
+I was not quite a stranger to the sea, having come from Rochelle to
+England when I was a child, and gone from London, by the River Thames,
+to France afterward, as I have said. But I began to be alarmed a little
+with the terrible clamour of the men over my head, for I had never been
+in a storm, and so had never seen the like, or heard it; and once
+offering to look out at the door of the steerage, as they called it, it
+struck me with such horror (the darkness, the fierceness of the wind,
+the dreadful height of the waves, and the hurry the Dutch sailors were
+in, whose language I did not understand one word of, neither when they
+cursed or when they prayed); I say, all these things together filled me
+with terror, and, in short, I began to be very much frighted.
+
+When I was come back into the great cabin, there sat Amy, who was very
+sea-sick, and I had a little before given her a sup of cordial waters to
+help her stomach. When Amy saw me come back and sit down without
+speaking, for so I did, she looked two or three times up at me; at last
+she came running to me. "Dear madam," says she, "what is the matter?
+What makes you look so pale? Why, you an't well; what is the matter?" I
+said nothing still, but held up my hands two or three times. Amy doubled
+her importunities; upon that I said no more but, "Step to the
+steerage-door, and look out, as I did;" so she went away immediately,
+and looked too, as I had bidden her; but the poor girl came back again
+in the greatest amazement and horror that ever I saw any poor creature
+in, wringing her hands and crying out she was undone! she was undone!
+she should be drowned! they were all lost! Thus she ran about the cabin
+like a mad thing, and as perfectly out of her senses as any one in such
+a case could be supposed to be. I was frighted myself, but when I saw
+the girl in such a terrible agony, it brought me a little to myself, and
+I began to talk to her and put her in a little hope. I told her there
+was many a ship in a storm that was not cast away, and I hoped we should
+not be drowned; that it was true the storm was very dreadful, but I did
+not see that the seamen were so much concerned as we were. And so I
+talked to her as well as I could, though my heart was full enough of it,
+as well as Amy's; and death began to stare in my face; ay, and something
+else too--that is to say, conscience, and my mind was very much
+disturbed; but I had nobody to comfort me.
+
+But Amy being in so much worse a condition--that is to say, so much more
+terrified at the storm than I was--I had something to do to comfort her.
+She was, as I have said, like one distracted, and went raving about the
+cabin, crying out she was undone! undone! she should be drowned! and the
+like. And at last, the ship giving a jerk, by the force, I suppose, of
+some violent wave, it threw poor Amy quite down, for she was weak enough
+before with being sea-sick, and as it threw her forward, the poor girl
+struck her head against the bulk-head, as the seamen call it, of the
+cabin, and laid her as dead as a stone upon the floor or deck; that is
+to say, she was so to all appearance.
+
+I cried out for help, but it had been all one to have cried out on the
+top of a mountain where nobody had been within five miles of me, for the
+seamen were so engaged and made so much noise that nobody heard me or
+came near me. I opened the great cabin door, and looked into the
+steerage to cry for help, but there, to increase my fright, was two
+seamen on their knees at prayers, and only one man who steered, and he
+made a groaning noise too, which I took to be saying his prayers, but it
+seems it was answering to those above, when they called to him to tell
+him which way to steer.
+
+Here was no help for me, or for poor Amy, and there she lay still so,
+and in such a condition, that I did not know whether she was dead or
+alive. In this fright I went to her, and lifted her a little way up,
+setting her on the deck, with her back to the boards of the bulk-head;
+and I got a little bottle out of my pocket, and I held it to her nose,
+and rubbed her temples and what else I could do, but still Amy showed no
+signs of life, till I felt for her pulse, but could hardly distinguish
+her to be alive. However, after a great while, she began to revive, and
+in about half-an-hour she came to herself, but remembered nothing at
+first of what had happened to her for a good while more.
+
+When she recovered more fully, she asked me where she was. I told her
+she was in the ship yet, but God knows how long it might be. "Why,
+madam," says she, "is not the storm over?" "No, no," says I, "Amy."
+"Why, madam," says she, "it was calm just now" (meaning when she was in
+the swooning fit occasioned by her fall). "Calm, Amy!" says I. "'Tis far
+from calm. It may be it will be calm by-and-by, when we are all drowned
+and gone to heaven."
+
+"Heaven, madam!" says she. "What makes you talk so? Heaven! I go to
+heaven! No, no; if I am drowned I am damned! Don't you know what a
+wicked creature I have been? I have been a whore to two men, and have
+lived a wretched, abominable life of vice and wickedness for fourteen
+years. Oh, madam! you know it, and God knows it, and now I am to die--to
+be drowned! Oh! what will become of me? I am undone for ever!--ay,
+madam, for ever! to all eternity! Oh! I am lost! I am lost! If I am
+drowned, I am lost for ever!"
+
+All these, you will easily suppose, must be so many stabs into the very
+soul of one in my own case. It immediately occurred to me, "Poor Amy!
+what art thou that I am not? What hast thou been that I have not been?
+Nay, I am guilty of my own sin and thine too." Then it came to my
+remembrance that I had not only been the same with Amy, but that I had
+been the devil's instrument to make her wicked; that I had stripped her,
+and prostituted her to the very man that I had been naught with myself;
+that she had but followed me, I had been her wicked example; and I had
+led her into all; and that, as we had sinned together, now we were
+likely to sink together.
+
+All this repeated itself to my thoughts at that very moment, and every
+one of Amy's cries sounded thus in my ears: "I am the wicked cause of it
+all! I have been thy ruin, Amy! I have brought thee to this, and now
+thou art to suffer for the sin I have enticed thee to! And if thou art
+lost for ever, what must I be? what must be my portion?"
+
+It is true this difference was between us, that I said all these things
+within myself, and sighed and mourned inwardly; but Amy, as her temper
+was more violent, spoke aloud, and cried, and called out aloud, like one
+in agony.
+
+I had but small encouragement to give her, and indeed could say but very
+little, but I got her to compose herself a little, and not let any of
+the people of the ship understand what she meant or what she said; but
+even in her greatest composure she continued to express herself with the
+utmost dread and terror on account of the wicked life she had lived,
+crying out she should be damned, and the like, which was very terrible
+to me, who knew what condition I was in myself.
+
+Upon these serious considerations, I was very penitent too for my former
+sins, and cried out, though softly, two or three times, "Lord, have
+mercy upon me!" To this I added abundance of resolutions of what a life
+I would live if it should please God but to spare my life but this one
+time; how I would live a single and a virtuous life, and spend a great
+deal of what I had thus wickedly got in acts of charity and doing good.
+
+Under these dreadful apprehensions I looked back on the life I had led
+with the utmost contempt and abhorrence. I blushed, and wondered at
+myself how I could act thus, how I could divest myself of modesty and
+honour, and prostitute myself for gain; and I thought, if ever it should
+please God to spare me this one time from death, it would not be
+possible that I should be the same creature again.
+
+Amy went farther; she prayed, she resolved, she vowed to lead a new
+life, if God would spare her but this time. It now began to be daylight,
+for the storm held all night long, and it was some comfort to see the
+light of another day, which none of us expected; but the sea went
+mountains high, and the noise of the water was as frightful to us as the
+sight of the waves; nor was any land to be seen, nor did the seamen know
+whereabout they were. At last, to our great joy, they made land, which
+was in England, and on the coast of Suffolk; and the ship being in the
+utmost distress, they ran for the shore at all hazards, and with great
+difficulty got into Harwich, where they were safe, as to the danger of
+death; but the ship was so full of water and so much damaged that if
+they had not laid her on shore the same day she would have sunk before
+night, according to the opinion of the seamen, and of the workmen on
+shore too who were hired to assist them in stopping their leaks.
+
+Amy was revived as soon as she heard they had espied land, and went out
+upon the deck; but she soon came in again to me. "Oh, madam!" says she,
+"there's the land indeed to be seen. It looks like a ridge of clouds,
+and may be all a cloud for aught I know; but if it be land, 'tis a
+great way off, and the sea is in such a combustion, we shall all perish
+before we can reach it. 'Tis the dreadfullest sight to look at the
+waves that ever was seen. Why, they are as high as mountains; we shall
+certainly be all swallowed up, for all the land is so near."
+
+I had conceived some hope that, if they saw land, we should be
+delivered; and I told her she did not understand things of that nature;
+that she might be sure if they saw land they would go directly towards
+it, and would make into some harbour; but it was, as Amy said, a
+frightful distance to it. The land looked like clouds, and the sea went
+as high as mountains, so that no hope appeared in the seeing the land,
+but we were in fear of foundering before we could reach it. This made
+Amy so desponding still; but as the wind, which blew from the east, or
+that way, drove us furiously towards the land, so when, about
+half-an-hour after, I stepped to the steerage-door and looked out, I saw
+the land much nearer than Amy represented it; so I went in and
+encouraged Amy again, and indeed was encouraged myself.
+
+In about an hour, or something more, we saw, to our infinite
+satisfaction, the open harbour of Harwich, and the vessel standing
+directly towards it, and in a few minutes more the ship was in smooth
+water, to our inexpressible comfort; and thus I had, though against my
+will and contrary to my true interest, what I wished for, to be driven
+away to England, though it was by a storm.
+
+Nor did this incident do either Amy or me much service, for, the danger
+being over, the fears of death vanished with it; ay, and our fear of
+what was beyond death also. Our sense of the life we had lived went off,
+and with our return to life our wicked taste of life returned, and we
+were both the same as before, if not worse. So certain is it that the
+repentance which is brought about by the mere apprehensions of death
+wears off as those apprehensions wear off, and deathbed repentance, or
+storm repentance, which is much the same, is seldom true.
+
+However, I do not tell you that this was all at once neither; the fright
+we had at sea lasted a little while afterwards; at least the impression
+was not quite blown off as soon as the storm; especially poor Amy. As
+soon as she set her foot on shore she fell flat upon the ground and
+kissed it, and gave God thanks for her deliverance from the sea; and
+turning to me when she got up, "I hope, madam," says she, "you will
+never go upon the sea again."
+
+I know not what ailed me, not I; but Amy was much more penitent at sea,
+and much more sensible of her deliverance when she landed and was safe,
+than I was. I was in a kind of stupidity, I know not well what to call
+it; I had a mind full of horror in the time of the storm, and saw death
+before me as plainly as Amy, but my thoughts got no vent, as Amy's did.
+I had a silent, sullen kind of grief, which could not break out either
+in words or tears, and which was therefore much the worse to bear.
+
+I had a terror upon me for my wicked life past, and firmly believed I
+was going to the bottom, launching into death, where I was to give an
+account of all my past actions; and in this state, and on that account,
+I looked back upon my wickedness with abhorrence, as I have said above,
+but I had no sense of repentance from the true motive of repentance; I
+saw nothing of the corruption of nature, the sin of my life, as an
+offence against God, as a thing odious to the holiness of His being, as
+abusing His mercy and despising His goodness. In short, I had no
+thorough effectual repentance, no sight of my sins in their proper
+shape, no view of a Redeemer, or hope in Him. I had only such a
+repentance as a criminal has at the place of execution, who is sorry,
+not that he has committed the crime, as it is a crime, but sorry that he
+is to be hanged for it.
+
+It is true Amy's repentance wore off too, as well as mine, but not so
+soon. However, we were both very grave for a time.
+
+As soon as we could get a boat from the town we went on shore, and
+immediately went to a public-house in the town of Harwich, where we
+were to consider seriously what was to be done, and whether we should go
+up to London or stay till the ship was refitted, which, they said, would
+be a fortnight, and then go for Holland, as we intended, and as business
+required.
+
+Reason directed that I should go to Holland, for there I had all my
+money to receive, and there I had persons of good reputation and
+character to apply to, having letters to them from the honest Dutch
+merchant at Paris, and they might perhaps give me a recommendation again
+to merchants in London, and so I should get acquaintance with some
+people of figure, which was what I loved; whereas now I knew not one
+creature in the whole city of London, or anywhere else, that I could go
+and make myself known to. Upon these considerations, I resolved to go to
+Holland, whatever came of it.
+
+But Amy cried and trembled, and was ready to fall into fits, when I did
+but mention going upon the sea again, and begged of me not to go, or if
+I would go, that I would leave her behind, though I was to send her
+a-begging. The people in the inn laughed at her, and jested with her,
+asked her if she had any sins to confess that she was ashamed should be
+heard of, and that she was troubled with an evil conscience; told her,
+if she came to sea, and to be in a storm, if she had lain with her
+master, she would certainly tell her mistress of it, and that it was a
+common thing for poor maids to confess all the young men they had lain
+with; that there was one poor girl that went over with her mistress,
+whose husband was a ......r, in ......, in the city of London, who
+confessed, in the terror of a storm, that she had lain with her master,
+and all the apprentices, so often, and in such-and-such places, and made
+the poor mistress, when she returned to London, fly at her husband, and
+make such a stir as was indeed the ruin of the whole family. Amy could
+bear all that well enough, for though she had indeed lain with her
+master, it was with her mistress's knowledge and consent, and, which was
+worse, was her mistress's own doing. I record it to the reproach of my
+own vice, and to expose the excesses of such wickedness as they deserve
+to be exposed.
+
+I thought Amy's fear would have been over by that time the ship would be
+gotten ready, but I found the girl was rather worse and worse; and when
+I came to the point that we must go on board or lose the passage, Amy
+was so terrified that she fell into fits; so the ship went away without
+us.
+
+But my going being absolutely necessary, as above, I was obliged to go
+in the packet-boat some time after, and leave Amy behind at Harwich, but
+with directions to go to London and stay there to receive letters and
+orders from me what to do. Now I was become, from a lady of pleasure, a
+woman of business, and of great business too, I assure you.
+
+I got me a servant at Harwich to go over with me, who had been at
+Rotterdam, knew the place, and spoke the language, which was a great
+help to me, and away I went. I had a very quick passage and pleasant
+weather, and, coming to Rotterdam, soon found out the merchant to whom I
+was recommended, who received me with extraordinary respect. And first
+he acknowledged the accepted bill for four thousand pistoles, which he
+afterwards paid punctually; other bills that I had also payable at
+Amsterdam he procured to be received for me; and whereas one of the
+bills for one thousand two hundred crowns was protested at Amsterdam, he
+paid it me himself, for the honour of the indorser, as he called it,
+which was my friend the merchant at Paris.
+
+There I entered into a negotiation by his means for my jewels, and he
+brought me several jewellers to look on them, and particularly one to
+value them, and to tell me what every particular was worth. This was a
+man who had great skill in jewels, but did not trade at that time, and
+he was desired by the gentleman that I was with to see that I might not
+be imposed upon.
+
+All this work took me up near half a year, and by managing my business
+thus myself, and having large sums to do with, I became as expert in it
+as any she-merchant of them all. I had credit in the bank for a large
+sum of money, and bills and notes for much more.
+
+After I had been here about three months, my maid Amy writes me word
+that she had received a letter from her friend, as she called him. That,
+by the way, was the prince's gentleman, that had been Amy's
+extraordinary friend indeed, for Amy owned to me he had lain with her a
+hundred times, that is to say, as often as he pleased, and perhaps in
+the eight years which that affair lasted it might be a great deal
+oftener. This was what she called her friend, who she corresponded with
+upon this particular subject, and, among other things, sent her this
+particular news, that my extraordinary friend, my real husband, who rode
+in the _gens d'armes_, was dead, that he was killed in a rencounter, as
+they call it, or accidental scuffle among the troopers; and so the jade
+congratulated me upon my being now a real free woman. "And now, madam,"
+says she at the end of her letter, "you have nothing to do but to come
+hither and set up a coach and a good equipage, and if beauty and a good
+fortune won't make you a duchess, nothing will." But I had not fixed my
+measures yet. I had no inclination to be a wife again. I had had such
+bad luck with my first husband, I hated the thoughts of it. I found
+that a wife is treated with indifference, a mistress with a strong
+passion; a wife is looked upon as but an upper servant, a mistress is a
+sovereign; a wife must give up all she has, have every reserve she makes
+for herself be thought hard of, and be upbraided with her very
+pin-money, whereas a mistress makes the saying true, that what the man
+has is hers, and what she has is her own; the wife bears a thousand
+insults, and is forced to sit still and bear it, or part, and be undone;
+a mistress insulted helps herself immediately, and takes another.
+
+These were my wicked arguments for whoring, for I never set against them
+the difference another way--I may say, every other way; how that, first,
+a wife appears boldly and honourably with her husband, lives at home,
+and possesses his house, his servants, his equipages, and has a right to
+them all, and to call them her own; entertains his friends, owns his
+children, and has the return of duty and affection from them, as they
+are here her own, and claims upon his estate, by the custom of England,
+if he dies and leaves her a widow.
+
+The whore skulks about in lodgings, is visited in the dark, disowned
+upon all occasions before God and man; is maintained, indeed, for a
+time, but is certainly condemned to be abandoned at last, and left to
+the miseries of fate and her own just disaster. If she has any
+children, her endeavour is to get rid of them, and not maintain them;
+and if she lives, she is certain to see them all hate her, and be
+ashamed of her. While the vice rages, and the man is in the devil's
+hand, she has him; and while she has him, she makes a prey of him; but
+if he happens to fall sick, if any disaster befalls him, the cause of
+all lies upon her. He is sure to lay all his misfortunes at her door;
+and if once he comes to repentance, or makes but one step towards a
+reformation, he begins with her--leaves her, uses her as she deserves,
+hates her, abhors her, and sees her no more; and that with this
+never-failing addition, namely, that the more sincere and unfeigned his
+repentance is, the more earnestly he looks up, and the more effectually
+he looks in, the more his aversion to her increases, and he curses her
+from the bottom of his soul; nay, it must be a kind of excess of charity
+if he so much as wishes God may forgive her.
+
+The opposite circumstances of a wife and whore are such and so many, and
+I have since seen the difference with such eyes, as I could dwell upon
+the subject a great while; but my business is history. I had a long
+scene of folly yet to run over. Perhaps the moral of all my story may
+bring me back again to this part, and if it does I shall speak of it
+fully.
+
+While I continued in Holland I received several letters from my friend
+(so I had good reason to call him) the merchant in Paris, in which he
+gave me a farther account of the conduct of that rogue the Jew, and how
+he acted after I was gone; how impatient he was while the said merchant
+kept him in suspense, expecting me to come again; and how he raged when
+he found I came no more.
+
+It seems, after he found I did not come, he found out by his unwearied
+inquiry where I had lived, and that I had been kept as a mistress by
+some great person; but he could never learn by who, except that he
+learnt the colour of his livery. In pursuit of this inquiry he guessed
+at the right person, but could not make it out, or offer any positive
+proof of it; but he found out the prince's gentleman, and talked so
+saucily to him of it that the gentleman treated him, as the French call
+it, _a coup de baton_--that is to say, caned him very severely, as he
+deserved; and that not satisfying him, or curing his insolence, he was
+met one night late upon the Pont Neuf, in Paris, by two men, who,
+muffling him up in a great cloak, carried him into a more private place
+and cut off both his ears, telling him it was for talking impudently of
+his superiors; adding that he should take care to govern his tongue
+better and behave with more manners, or the next time they would cut his
+tongue out of his head.
+
+This put a check to his sauciness that way; but he comes back to the
+merchant and threatened to begin a process against him for corresponding
+with me, and being accessory to the murder of the jeweller, &c.
+
+The merchant found by his discourse that he supposed I was protected by
+the said Prince de ----; nay, the rogue said he was sure I was in his
+lodgings at Versailles, for he never had so much as the least intimation
+of the way I was really gone; but that I was there he was certain, and
+certain that the merchant was privy to it. The merchant bade him
+defiance. However, he gave him a great deal of trouble and put him to a
+great charge, and had like to have brought him in for a party to my
+escape; in which case he would have been obliged to have produced me,
+and that in the penalty of some capital sum of money.
+
+But the merchant was too many for him another way, for he brought an
+information against him for a cheat; wherein laying down the whole fact,
+how he intended falsely to accuse the widow of the jeweller for the
+supposed murder of her husband; that he did it purely to get the jewels
+from her; and that he offered to bring him (the merchant) in, to be
+confederate with him, and to share the jewels between them; proving also
+his design to get the jewels into his hands, and then to have dropped
+the prosecution upon condition of my quitting the jewels to him. Upon
+this charge he got him laid by the heels; so he was sent to the
+Conciergerie--that is to say, to Bridewell--and the merchant cleared. He
+got out of jail in a little while, though not without the help of money,
+and continued teasing the merchant a long while, and at last threatening
+to assassinate and murder him. So the merchant, who, having buried his
+wife about two months before, was now a single man, and not knowing what
+such a villain might do, thought fit to quit Paris, and came away to
+Holland also.
+
+It is most certain that, speaking of originals, I was the source and
+spring of all that trouble and vexation to this honest gentleman; and as
+it was afterwards in my power to have made him full satisfaction, and
+did not, I cannot say but I added ingratitude to all the rest of my
+follies; but of that I shall give a fuller account presently.
+
+I was surprised one morning, when, being at the merchant's house who he
+had recommended me to in Rotterdam, and being busy in his
+counting-house, managing my bills, and preparing to write a letter to
+him to Paris, I heard a noise of horses at the door, which is not very
+common in a city where everybody passes by water; but he had, it seems,
+ferried over the Maas from Willemstadt, and so came to the very door,
+and I, looking towards the door upon hearing the horses, saw a gentleman
+alight and come in at the gate. I knew nothing, and expected nothing,
+to be sure, of the person; but, as I say, was surprised, and indeed more
+than ordinarily surprised, when, coming nearer to me, I saw it was my
+merchant of Paris, my benefactor, and indeed my deliverer.
+
+I confess it was an agreeable surprise to me, and I was exceeding glad
+to see him, who was so honourable and so kind to me, and who indeed had
+saved my life. As soon as he saw me he ran to me, took me in his arms,
+and kissed me with a freedom that he never offered to take with me
+before. "Dear Madam ----," says he, "I am glad to see you safe in this
+country; if you had stayed two days longer in Paris you had been
+undone." I was so glad to see him that I could not speak a good while,
+and I burst out into tears without speaking a word for a minute; but I
+recovered that disorder, and said, "The more, sir, is my obligation to
+you that saved my life;" and added, "I am glad to see you here, that I
+may consider how to balance an account in which I am so much your
+debtor." "You and I will adjust that matter easily," says he, "now we
+are so near together. Pray where do you lodge?" says he.
+
+"In a very honest, good house," said I, "where that gentleman, your
+friend, recommended me," pointing to the merchant in whose house we then
+were.
+
+"And where you may lodge too, sir," says the gentleman, "if it suits
+with your business and your other conveniency."
+
+"With all my heart," says he. "Then, madam," adds he, turning to me, "I
+shall be near you, and have time to tell you a story which will be very
+long, and yet many ways very pleasant to you; how troublesome that
+devilish fellow, the Jew, has been to me on your account, and what a
+hellish snare he had laid for you, if he could have found you."
+
+"I shall have leisure too, sir," said I, "to tell you all my adventures
+since that, which have not been a few, I assure you."
+
+In short, he took up his lodgings in the same house where I lodged, and
+the room he lay in opened, as he was wishing it would, just opposite to
+my lodging-room, so we could almost call out of bed to one another; and
+I was not at all shy of him on that score, for I believed him perfectly
+honest, and so indeed he was; and if he had not, that article was at
+present no part of my concern.
+
+It was not till two or three days, and after his first hurries of
+business were over, that we began to enter into the history of our
+affairs on every side, but when we began, it took up all our
+conversation for almost a fortnight. First, I gave him a particular
+account of everything that happened material upon my voyage, and how we
+were driven into Harwich by a very terrible storm; how I had left my
+woman behind me, so frighted with the danger she had been in that she
+durst not venture to set her foot into a ship again any more, and that I
+had not come myself if the bills I had of him had not been payable in
+Holland; but that money, he might see, would make a woman go anywhere.
+
+He seemed to laugh at all our womanish fears upon the occasion of the
+storm, telling me it was nothing but what was very ordinary in those
+seas, but that they had harbours on every coast so near that they were
+seldom in danger of being lost indeed. "For," says he, "if they cannot
+fetch one coast, they can always stand away for another, and run afore
+it," as he called it, "for one side or other." But when I came to tell
+him what a crazy ship it was, and how, even when they got into Harwich,
+and into smooth water, they were fain to run the ship on shore, or she
+would have sunk in the very harbour; and when I told him that when I
+looked out at the cabin-door I saw the Dutchmen, one upon his knees
+here, and another there, at their prayers, then indeed he acknowledged I
+had reason to be alarmed; but, smiling, he added, "But you, madam," says
+he, "are so good a lady, and so pious, you would but have gone to heaven
+a little the sooner; the difference had not been much to you."
+
+I confess when he said this it made all the blood turn in my veins, and
+I thought I should have fainted. "Poor gentleman," thought I, "you know
+little of me. What would I give to be really what you really think me to
+be!" He perceived the disorder, but said nothing till I spoke; when,
+shaking my head, "Oh, sir!" said I, "death in any shape has some terror
+in it, but in the frightful figure of a storm at sea and a sinking ship,
+it comes with a double, a treble, and indeed an inexpressible horror;
+and if I were that saint you think me to be (which God knows I am not),
+it is still very dismal. I desire to die in a calm, if I can." He said a
+great many good things, and very prettily ordered his discourse between
+serious reflection and compliment, but I had too much guilt to relish it
+as it was meant, so I turned it off to something else, and talked of the
+necessity I had on me to come to Holland, but I wished myself safe on
+shore in England again.
+
+He told me he was glad I had such an obligation upon me to come over
+into Holland, however, but hinted that he was so interested in my
+welfare, and, besides, had such further designs upon me, that if I had
+not so happily been found in Holland he was resolved to have gone to
+England to see me, and that it was one of the principal reasons of his
+leaving Paris.
+
+I told him I was extremely obliged to him for so far interesting himself
+in my affairs, but that I had been so far his debtor before that I knew
+not how anything could increase the debt; for I owed my life to him
+already, and I could not be in debt for anything more valuable than
+that. He answered in the most obliging manner possible, that he would
+put it in my power to pay that debt, and all the obligations besides
+that ever he had, or should be able to lay upon me.
+
+I began to understand him now, and to see plainly that he resolved to
+make love to me, but I would by no means seem to take the hint; and,
+besides, I knew that he had a wife with him in Paris; and I had, just
+then at least, no gust to any more intriguing. However, he surprised me
+into a sudden notice of the thing a little while after by saying
+something in his discourse that he did, as he said, in his wife's days.
+I started at that word, "What mean you by that, sir?" said I. "Have you
+not a wife at Paris?" "No, madam, indeed," said he; "my wife died the
+beginning of September last," which, it seems, was but a little after I
+came away.
+
+We lived in the same house all this while, and as we lodged not far off
+of one another, opportunities were not wanting of as near an
+acquaintance as we might desire; nor have such opportunities the least
+agency in vicious minds to bring to pass even what they might not intend
+at first.
+
+However, though he courted so much at a distance, yet his pretensions
+were very honourable; and as I had before found him a most
+disinterested friend, and perfectly honest in his dealings, even when I
+trusted him with all I had, so now I found him strictly virtuous, till I
+made him otherwise myself, even almost whether he would or no, as you
+shall hear.
+
+It was not long after our former discourse, when he repeated what he had
+insinuated before, namely, that he had yet a design to lay before me,
+which, if I would agree to his proposals, would more than balance all
+accounts between us. I told him I could not reasonably deny him
+anything; and except one thing, which I hoped and believed he would not
+think of, I should think myself very ungrateful if I did not do
+everything for him that lay in my power.
+
+He told me what he should desire of me would be fully in my power to
+grant, or else he should be very unfriendly to offer it; and still all
+this while he declined making the proposal, as he called it, and so for
+that time we ended our discourse, turning it off to other things. So
+that, in short, I began to think he might have met with some disaster in
+his business, and might have come away from Paris in some discredit, or
+had had some blow on his affairs in general; and as really I had
+kindness enough to have parted with a good sum to have helped him, and
+was in gratitude bound to have done so, he having so effectually saved
+to me all I had, so I resolved to make him the offer the first time I
+had an opportunity, which two or three days after offered itself, very
+much to my satisfaction.
+
+He had told me at large, though on several occasions, the treatment he
+had met with from the Jew, and what expense he had put him to; how at
+length he had cast him, as above, and had recovered good damage of him,
+but that the rogue was unable to make him any considerable reparation.
+He had told me also how the Prince de ----'s gentleman had resented his
+treatment of his master, and how he had caused him to be used upon the
+Pont Neuf, &c., as I have mentioned above, which I laughed at most
+heartily.
+
+"It is a pity," said I, "that I should sit here and make that gentleman
+no amends; if you would direct me, sir," said I, "how to do it, I would
+make him a handsome present, and acknowledge the justice he had done to
+me, as well as to the prince, his master." He said he would do what I
+directed in it; so I told him I would send him five hundred crowns.
+"That's too much," said he, "for you are but half interested in the
+usage of the Jew; it was on his master's account he corrected him, not
+on yours." Well, however, we were obliged to do nothing in it, for
+neither of us knew how to direct a letter to him, or to direct anybody
+to him; so I told him I would leave it till I came to England, for that
+my woman, Amy, corresponded with him, and that he had made love to her.
+
+"Well, but, sir," said I, "as, in requital for his generous concern for
+me, I am careful to think of him, it is but just that what expense you
+have been obliged to be at, which was all on my account, should be
+repaid you; and therefore," said I, "let me see--." And there I paused,
+and began to reckon up what I had observed, from his own discourse, it
+had cost him in the several disputes and hearings which he had with that
+dog of a Jew, and I cast them up at something above 2130 crowns; so I
+pulled out some bills which I had upon a merchant in Amsterdam, and a
+particular account in bank, and was looking on them in order to give
+them to him; when he, seeing evidently what I was going about,
+interrupted me with some warmth, and told me he would have nothing of me
+on that account, and desired I would not pull out my bills and papers on
+that score; that he had not told me the story on that account, or with
+any such view; that it had been his misfortune first to bring that ugly
+rogue to me, which, though it was with a good design, yet he would
+punish himself with the expense he had been at for his being so unlucky
+to me; that I could not think so hard of him as to suppose he would take
+money of me, a widow, for serving me, and doing acts of kindness to me
+in a strange country, and in distress too; but he said he would repeat
+what he had said before, that he kept me for a deeper reckoning, and
+that, as he had told me, he would put me into a posture to even all that
+favour, as I called it, at once, so we should talk it over another time,
+and balance all together.
+
+Now I expected it would come out, but still he put it off, as before,
+from whence I concluded it could not be matter of love, for that those
+things are not usually delayed in such a manner, and therefore it must
+be matter of money. Upon which thought I broke the silence, and told
+him, that as he knew I had, by obligation, more kindness for him than to
+deny any favour to him that I could grant, and that he seemed backward
+to mention his case, I begged leave of him to give me leave to ask him
+whether anything lay upon his mind with respect to his business and
+effects in the world; that if it did, he knew what I had in the world as
+well as I did, and that, if he wanted money, I would let him have any
+sum for his occasion, as far as five or six thousand pistoles, and he
+should pay me as his own affairs would permit; and that, if he never
+paid me, I would assure him that I would never give him any trouble for
+it.
+
+He rose up with ceremony, and gave me thanks in terms that sufficiently
+told me he had been bred among people more polite and more courteous
+than is esteemed the ordinary usage of the Dutch; and after his
+compliment was over he came nearer to me, and told me he was obliged to
+assure me, though with repeated acknowledgments of my kind offer, that
+he was not in any want of money; that he had met with no uneasiness in
+any of his affairs--no, not of any kind whatever, except that of the
+loss of his wife and one of his children, which indeed had troubled him
+much; but that this was no part of what he had to offer me, and by
+granting which I should balance all obligations; but that, in short, it
+was that, seeing Providence had (as it were for that purpose) taken his
+wife from him, I would make up the loss to him; and with that he held me
+fast in his arms, and, kissing me, would not give me leave to say no,
+and hardly to breathe.
+
+At length, having got room to speak, I told him that, as I had said
+before, I could deny him but one thing in the world; I was very sorry he
+should propose that thing only that I could not grant.
+
+I could not but smile, however, to myself that he should make so many
+circles and roundabout motions to come at a discourse which had no such
+rarity at the bottom of it, if he had known all. But there was another
+reason why I resolved not to have him, when, at the same time, if he had
+courted me in a manner less honest or virtuous, I believe I should not
+have denied him; but I shall come to that part presently.
+
+He was, as I have said, long a-bringing it out, but when he had brought
+it out he pursued it with such importunities as would admit of no
+denial; at least he intended they should not; but I resisted them
+obstinately, and yet with expressions of the utmost kindness and respect
+for him that could be imagined, often telling him there was nothing else
+in the world that I could deny him, and showing him all the respect, and
+upon all occasions treating him with intimacy and freedom, as if he had
+been my brother.
+
+He tried all the ways imaginable to bring his design to pass, but I was
+inflexible. At last he thought of a way which, he flattered himself,
+would not fail; nor would he have been mistaken, perhaps, in any other
+woman in the world but me. This was, to try if he could take me at an
+advantage and get to bed to me, and then, as was most rational to think,
+I should willingly enough marry him afterwards.
+
+We were so intimate together that nothing but man and wife could, or at
+least ought, to be more; but still our freedoms kept within the bounds
+of modesty and decency. But one evening, above all the rest, we were
+very merry, and I fancied he pushed the mirth to watch for his
+advantage, and I resolved that I would at least feign to be as merry as
+he; and that, in short, if he offered anything he should have his will
+easily enough.
+
+About one o'clock in the morning--for so long we sat up together--I
+said, "Come, 'tis one o'clock; I must go to bed." "Well," says he, "I'll
+go with you." "No, no;" says I; "go to your own chamber." He said he
+would go to bed with me. "Nay," says I, "if you will, I don't know what
+to say; if I can't help it, you must." However, I got from him, left
+him, and went into my chamber, but did not shut the door, and as he
+could easily see that I was undressing myself, he steps to his own room,
+which was but on the same floor, and in a few minutes undresses himself
+also, and returns to my door in his gown and slippers.
+
+I thought he had been gone indeed, and so that he had been in jest; and,
+by the way, thought either he had no mind to the thing, or that he never
+intended it; so I shut my door--that is, latched it, for I seldom locked
+or bolted it--and went to bed. I had not been in bed a minute but he
+comes in his gown to the door and opens it a little way, but not enough
+to come in or look in, and says softly, "What! are you really gone to
+bed?" "Yes, yes," says I; "get you gone." "No, indeed," says he, "I
+shall not be gone; you gave me leave before to come to bed, and you
+shan't say 'Get you gone' now." So he comes into my room, and then
+turns about and fastens the door, and immediately comes to the bedside
+to me. I pretended to scold and struggle, and bid him begone with more
+warmth than before; but it was all one; he had not a rag of clothes on
+but his gown and slippers and shirt, so he throws off his gown, and
+throws open the bed, and came in at once.
+
+I made a seeming resistance, but it was no more indeed; for, as above, I
+resolved from the beginning he should lie with me if he would, and, for
+the rest, I left it to come after.
+
+Well, he lay with me that night, and the two next, and very merry we
+were all the three days between; but the third night he began to be a
+little more grave. "Now, my dear," says he, "though I have pushed this
+matter farther than ever I intended, or than I believe you expected from
+me, who never made any pretences to you but what were very honest, yet
+to heal it all up, and let you see how sincerely I meant at first, and
+how honest I will ever be to you, I am ready to marry you still, and
+desire you to let it be done to-morrow morning; and I will give you the
+same fair conditions of marriage as I would have done before."
+
+This, it must be owned, was a testimony that he was very honest, and
+that he loved me sincerely; but I construed it quite another way,
+namely, that he aimed at the money. But how surprised did he look, and
+how was he confounded, when he found me receive his proposal with
+coldness and indifference, and still tell him that it was the only thing
+I could not grant!
+
+He was astonished. "What! not take me now," says he, "when I have been
+abed with you!" I answered coldly, though respectfully still, "It is
+true, to my shame be it spoken," says I, "that you have taken me by
+surprise, and have had your will of me; but I hope you will not take it
+ill that I cannot consent to marry for all that. If I am with child,"
+said I, "care must be taken to manage that as you shall direct; I hope
+you won't expose me for my having exposed myself to you, but I cannot go
+any farther." And at that point I stood, and would hear of no matrimony
+by any means.
+
+Now, because this may seem a little odd, I shall state the matter
+clearly, as I understood it myself. I knew that, while I was a mistress,
+it is customary for the person kept to receive from them that keep; but
+if I should be a wife, all I had then was given up to the husband, and I
+was henceforth to be under his authority only; and as I had money
+enough, and needed not fear being what they call a cast-off mistress, so
+I had no need to give him twenty thousand pounds to marry me, which had
+been buying my lodging too dear a great deal.
+
+Thus his project of coming to bed to me was a bite upon himself, while
+he intended it for a bite upon me; and he was no nearer his aim of
+marrying me than he was before. All his arguments he could urge upon the
+subject of matrimony were at an end, for I positively declined marrying
+him; and as he had refused the thousand pistoles which I had offered him
+in compensation for his expenses and loss at Paris with the Jew, and had
+done it upon the hopes he had of marrying me, so when he found his way
+difficult still, he was amazed, and, I had some reason to believe,
+repented that he had refused the money.
+
+But thus it is when men run into wicked measures to bring their designs
+about. I, that was infinitely obliged to him before, began to talk to
+him as if I had balanced accounts with him now, and that the favour of
+lying with a whore was equal, not to the thousand pistoles only, but to
+all the debt I owed him for saving my life and all my effects.
+
+But he drew himself into it, and though it was a dear bargain, yet it
+was a bargain of his own making; he could not say I had tricked him into
+it. But as he projected and drew me in to lie with him, depending that
+was a sure game in order to a marriage, so I granted him the favour, as
+he called it, to balance the account of favours received from him, and
+keep the thousand pistoles with a good grace.
+
+He was extremely disappointed in this article, and knew not how to
+manage for a great while; and as I dare say, if he had not expected to
+have made it an earnest for marrying me, he would not have attempted me
+the other way, so, I believed, if it had not been for the money which he
+knew I had, he would never have desired to marry me after he had lain
+with me. For where is the man that cares to marry a whore, though of his
+own making? And as I knew him to be no fool, so I did him no wrong when
+I supposed that, but for the money, he would not have had any thoughts
+of me that way, especially after my yielding as I had done; in which it
+is to be remembered that I made no capitulation for marrying him when I
+yielded to him, but let him do just what he pleased, without any
+previous bargain.
+
+Well, hitherto we went upon guesses at one another's designs; but as he
+continued to importune me to marry, though he had lain with me, and
+still did lie with me as often as he pleased, and I continued to refuse
+to marry him, though I let him lie with me whenever he desired it; I
+say, as these two circumstances made up our conversation, it could not
+continue long thus, but we must come to an explanation.
+
+One morning, in the middle of our unlawful freedoms--that is to say,
+when we were in bed together--he sighed, and told me he desired my
+leave to ask me one question, and that I would give him an answer to it
+with the same ingenious freedom and honesty that I had used to treat him
+with. I told him I would. Why, then, his question was, why I would not
+marry him, seeing I allowed him all the freedom of a husband. "Or," says
+he, "my dear, since you have been so kind as to take me to your bed, why
+will you not make me your own, and take me for good and all, that we may
+enjoy ourselves without any reproach to one another?"
+
+I told him, that as I confessed it was the only thing I could not comply
+with him in, so it was the only thing in all my actions that I could not
+give him a reason for; that it was true I had let him come to bed to me,
+which was supposed to be the greatest favour a woman could grant; but it
+was evident, and he might see it, that, as I was sensible of the
+obligation I was under to him for saving me from the worst circumstance
+it was possible for me to be brought to, I could deny him nothing; and
+if I had had any greater favour to yield him, I should have done it,
+that of matrimony only excepted, and he could not but see that I loved
+him to an extraordinary degree, in every part of my behaviour to him;
+but that as to marrying, which was giving up my liberty, it was what
+once he knew I had done, and he had seen how it had hurried me up and
+down in the world, and what it had exposed me to; that I had an aversion
+to it, and desired he would not insist upon it. He might easily see I
+had no aversion to him; and that, if I was with child by him, he should
+see a testimony of my kindness to the father, for that I would settle
+all I had in the world upon the child.
+
+He was mute a good while. At last says he, "Come, my dear, you are the
+first woman in the world that ever lay with a man and then refused to
+marry him, and therefore there must be some other reason for your
+refusal; and I have therefore one other request, and that is, if I guess
+at the true reason, and remove the objection, will you then yield to
+me?" I told him if he removed the objection I must needs comply, for I
+should certainly do everything that I had no objection against.
+
+"Why then, my dear, it must be that either you are already engaged or
+married to some other man, or you are not willing to dispose of your
+money to me, and expect to advance yourself higher with your fortune.
+Now, if it be the first of these, my mouth will be stopped, and I have
+no more to say; but if it be the last, I am prepared effectually to
+remove the objection, and answer all you can say on that subject."
+
+I took him up short at the first of these, telling him he must have base
+thoughts of me indeed, to think that I could yield to him in such a
+manner as I had done, and continue it with so much freedom as he found I
+did, if I had a husband or were engaged to any other man; and that he
+might depend upon it that was not my case, nor any part of my case.
+
+"Why then," said he, "as to the other, I have an offer to make to you
+that shall take off all the objection, viz., that I will not touch one
+pistole of your estate more than shall be with your own voluntary
+consent, neither now or at any other time, but you shall settle it as
+you please for your life, and upon who you please after your death;"
+that I should see he was able to maintain me without it, and that it was
+not for that that he followed me from Paris.
+
+I was indeed surprised at that part of his offer, and he might easily
+perceive it; it was not only what I did not expect, but it was what I
+knew not what answer to make to. He had, indeed, removed my principal
+objection--nay, all my objections, and it was not possible for me to
+give any answer; for, if upon so generous an offer I should agree with
+him, I then did as good as confess that it was upon the account of my
+money that I refused him; and that though I could give up my virtue and
+expose myself, yet I would not give up my money, which, though it was
+true, yet was really too gross for me to acknowledge, and I could not
+pretend to marry him upon that principle neither. Then as to having
+him, and make over all my estate out of his hands, so as not to give him
+the management of what I had, I thought it would be not only a little
+Gothic and inhuman, but would be always a foundation of unkindness
+between us, and render us suspected one to another; so that, upon the
+whole, I was obliged to give a new turn to it, and talk upon a kind of
+an elevated strain, which really was not in my thoughts, at first, at
+all; for I own, as above, the divesting myself of my estate and putting
+my money out of my hand was the sum of the matter that made me refuse to
+marry; but, I say, I gave it a new turn upon this occasion, as
+follows:--
+
+I told him I had, perhaps, different notions of matrimony from what the
+received custom had given us of it; that I thought a woman was a free
+agent as well as a man, and was born free, and, could she manage herself
+suitably, might enjoy that liberty to as much purpose as the men do;
+that the laws of matrimony were indeed otherwise, and mankind at this
+time acted quite upon other principles, and those such that a woman gave
+herself entirely away from herself, in marriage, and capitulated, only
+to be, at best, but an upper servant, and from the time she took the man
+she was no better or worse than the servant among the Israelites, who
+had his ears bored--that is, nailed to the door-post--who by that act
+gave himself up to be a servant during life; that the very nature of the
+marriage contract was, in short, nothing but giving up liberty, estate,
+authority, and everything to the man, and the woman was indeed a mere
+woman ever after--that is to say, a slave.
+
+He replied, that though in some respects it was as I had said, yet I
+ought to consider that, as an equivalent to this, the man had all the
+care of things devolved upon him; that the weight of business lay upon
+his shoulders, and as he had the trust, so he had the toil of life upon
+him; his was the labour, his the anxiety of living; that the woman had
+nothing to do but to eat the fat and drink the sweet; to sit still and
+look around her, be waited on and made much of, be served and loved and
+made easy, especially if the husband acted as became him; and that, in
+general, the labour of the man was appointed to make the woman live
+quiet and unconcerned in the world; that they had the name of subjection
+without the thing; and if in inferior families they had the drudgery of
+the house and care of the provisions upon them, yet they had indeed much
+the easier part; for, in general, the women had only the care of
+managing--that is, spending what their husbands get; and that a woman
+had the name of subjection, indeed, but that they generally commanded,
+not the men only, but all they had; managed all for themselves; and
+where the man did his duty, the woman's life was all ease and
+tranquillity, and that she had nothing to do but to be easy, and to make
+all that were about her both easy and merry.
+
+I returned, that while a woman was single, she was a masculine in her
+politic capacity; that she had then the full command of what she had,
+and the full direction of what she did; that she was a man in her
+separate capacity, to all intents and purposes that a man could be so to
+himself; that she was controlled by none, because accountable to none,
+and was in subjection to none. So I sung these two lines of Mr. ----'s:--
+
+    "Oh! 'tis pleasant to be free,
+    The sweetest Miss is Liberty."
+
+I added, that whoever the woman was that had an estate, and would give
+it up to be the slave of a great man, that woman was a fool, and must be
+fit for nothing but a beggar; that it was my opinion a woman was as fit
+to govern and enjoy her own estate without a man as a man was without a
+woman; and that, if she had a mind to gratify herself as to sexes, she
+might entertain a man as a man does a mistress; that while she was thus
+single she was her own, and if she gave away that power she merited to
+be as miserable as it was possible that any creature could be.
+
+All he could say could not answer the force of this as to argument;
+only this, that the other way was the ordinary method that the world was
+guided by; that he had reason to expect I should be content with that
+which all the world was contented with; that he was of the opinion that
+a sincere affection between a man and his wife answered all the
+objections that I had made about the being a slave, a servant, and the
+like; and where there was a mutual love there could be no bondage, but
+that there was but one interest, one aim, one design, and all conspired
+to make both very happy.
+
+"Ay," said I, "that is the thing I complain of. The pretence of
+affection takes from a woman everything that can be called herself; she
+is to have no interest, no aim, no view; but all is the interest, aim,
+and view of the husband; she is to be the passive creature you spoke
+of," said I. "She is to lead a life of perfect indolence, and living by
+faith, not in God, but in her husband, she sinks or swims, as he is
+either fool or wise man, unhappy or prosperous; and in the middle of
+what she thinks is her happiness and prosperity, she is engulfed in
+misery and beggary, which she had not the least notice, knowledge, or
+suspicion of. How often have I seen a woman living in all the splendour
+that a plentiful fortune ought to allow her, with her coaches and
+equipages, her family and rich furniture, her attendants and friends,
+her visitors and good company, all about her to-day; to-morrow
+surprised with a disaster, turned out of all by a commission of
+bankrupt, stripped to the clothes on her back; her jointure, suppose she
+had it, is sacrificed to the creditors so long as her husband lived, and
+she turned into the street, and left to live on the charity of her
+friends, if she has any, or follow the monarch, her husband, into the
+Mint, and live there on the wreck of his fortunes, till he is forced to
+run away from her even there; and then she sees her children starve,
+herself miserable, breaks her heart, and cries herself to death! This,"
+says I, "is the state of many a lady that has had L10,000 to her
+portion."
+
+He did not know how feelingly I spoke this, and what extremities I had
+gone through of this kind; how near I was to the very last article
+above, viz., crying myself to death; and how I really starved for almost
+two years together.
+
+But he shook his head, and said, where had I lived? and what dreadful
+families had I lived among, that had frighted me into such terrible
+apprehensions of things? that these things indeed might happen where men
+run into hazardous things in trade, and, without prudence or due
+consideration, launched their fortunes in a degree beyond their
+strength, grasping at adventures beyond their stocks, and the like; but
+that, as he was stated in the world, if I would embark with him, he had
+a fortune equal with mine; that together we should have no occasion of
+engaging in business any more, but that in any part of the world where I
+had a mind to live, whether England, France, Holland, or where I would,
+we might settle, and live as happily as the world could make any one
+live; that if I desired the management of our estate, when put together,
+if I would not trust him with mine, he would trust me with his; that we
+would be upon one bottom, and I should steer. "Ay," says I, "you'll
+allow me to steer--that is, hold the helm--but you'll con the ship, as
+they call it; that is, as at sea, a boy serves to stand at the helm, but
+he that gives him the orders is pilot."
+
+He laughed at my simile. "No," says he; "you shall be pilot then; you
+shall con the ship." "Ay," says I, "as long as you please; but you can
+take the helm out of my hand when you please, and bid me go spin. It is
+not you," says I, "that I suspect, but the laws of matrimony puts the
+power into your hands, bids you do it, commands you to command, and
+binds me, forsooth, to obey. You, that are now upon even terms with me,
+and I with you," says I, "are the next hour set up upon the throne, and
+the humble wife placed at your footstool; all the rest, all that you
+call oneness of interest, mutual affection, and the like, is courtesy
+and kindness then, and a woman is indeed infinitely obliged where she
+meets with it, but can't help herself where it fails."
+
+Well, he did not give it over yet, but came to the serious part, and
+there he thought he should be too many for me. He first hinted that
+marriage was decreed by Heaven; that it was the fixed state of life,
+which God had appointed for man's felicity, and for establishing a legal
+posterity; that there could be no legal claim of estates by inheritance
+but by children born in wedlock; that all the rest was sunk under
+scandal and illegitimacy; and very well he talked upon that subject
+indeed.
+
+But it would not do; I took him short there. "Look you, sir," said I,
+"you have an advantage of me there indeed, in my particular case, but it
+would not be generous to make use of it. I readily grant that it were
+better for me to have married you than to admit you to the liberty I
+have given you, but as I could not reconcile my judgment to marriage,
+for the reasons above, and had kindness enough for you, and obligation
+too much on me to resist you, I suffered your rudeness and gave up my
+virtue. But I have two things before me to heal up that breach of honour
+without that desperate one of marriage, and those are, repentance for
+what is past, and putting an end to it for time to come."
+
+He seemed to be concerned to think that I should take him in that
+manner. He assured me that I misunderstood him; that he had more manners
+as well as more kindness for me, and more justice than to reproach me
+with what he had been the aggressor in, and had surprised me into; that
+what he spoke referred to my words above, that the woman, if she thought
+fit, might entertain a man, as a man did a mistress; and that I seemed
+to mention that way of living as justifiable, and setting it as a lawful
+thing, and in the place of matrimony.
+
+Well, we strained some compliments upon those points, not worth
+repeating; and I added, I supposed when he got to bed to me he thought
+himself sure of me; and, indeed, in the ordinary course of things, after
+he had lain with me he ought to think so, but that, upon the same foot
+of argument which I had discoursed with him upon, it was just the
+contrary; and when a woman had been weak enough to yield up the last
+point before wedlock, it would be adding one weakness to another to take
+the man afterwards, to pin down the shame of it upon herself all the
+days of her life, and bind herself to live all her time with the only
+man that could upbraid her with it; that in yielding at first, she must
+be a fool, but to take the man is to be sure to be called fool; that to
+resist a man is to act with courage and vigour, and to cast off the
+reproach, which, in the course of things, drops out of knowledge and
+dies. The man goes one way and the woman another, as fate and the
+circumstances of living direct; and if they keep one another's counsel,
+the folly is heard no more of. "But to take the man," says I, "is the
+most preposterous thing in nature, and (saving your presence) is to
+befoul one's self, and live always in the smell of it. No, no," added I;
+"after a man has lain with me as a mistress, he ought never to lie with
+me as a wife. That's not only preserving the crime in memory, but it is
+recording it in the family. If the woman marries the man afterwards, she
+bears the reproach of it to the last hour. If her husband is not a man
+of a hundred thousand, he some time or other upbraids her with it. If he
+has children, they fail not one way or other to hear of it. If the
+children are virtuous, they do their mother the justice to hate her for
+it; if they are wicked, they give her the mortification of doing the
+like, and giving her for the example. On the other hand, if the man and
+the woman part, there is an end of the crime and an end of the clamour;
+time wears out the memory of it, or a woman may remove but a few
+streets, and she soon outlives it, and hears no more of it."
+
+He was confounded at this discourse, and told me he could not say but I
+was right in the main. That as to that part relating to managing
+estates, it was arguing _a la cavalier_; it was in some sense right, if
+the women were able to carry it on so, but that in general the sex were
+not capable of it; their heads were not turned for it, and they had
+better choose a person capable and honest, that knew how to do them
+justice as women, as well as to love them; and that then the trouble was
+all taken off of their hands.
+
+I told him it was a dear way of purchasing their ease, for very often
+when the trouble was taken off of their hands, so was their money too;
+and that I thought it was far safer for the sex not to be afraid of the
+trouble, but to be really afraid of their money; that if nobody was
+trusted, nobody would be deceived, and the staff in their own hands was
+the best security in the world.
+
+He replied, that I had started a new thing in the world; that however I
+might support it by subtle reasoning, yet it was a way of arguing that
+was contrary to the general practice, and that he confessed he was much
+disappointed in it; that, had he known I would have made such a use of
+it, he would never have attempted what he did, which he had no wicked
+design in, resolving to make me reparation, and that he was very sorry
+he had been so unhappy; that he was very sure he should never upbraid me
+with it hereafter, and had so good an opinion of me as to believe I did
+not suspect him; but seeing I was positive in refusing him,
+notwithstanding what had passed, he had nothing to do but secure me from
+reproach by going back again to Paris, that so, according to my own way
+of arguing, it might die out of memory, and I might never meet with it
+again to my disadvantage.
+
+I was not pleased with this part at all, for I had no mind to let him go
+neither, and yet I had no mind to give him such hold of me as he would
+have had; and thus I was in a kind of suspense, irresolute, and doubtful
+what course to take.
+
+I was in the house with him, as I have observed, and I saw evidently
+that he was preparing to go back to Paris; and particularly I found he
+was remitting money to Paris, which was, as I understood afterwards, to
+pay for some wines which he had given order to have bought for him at
+Troyes, in Champagne, and I knew not what course to take; and, besides
+that, I was very loth to part with him. I found also that I was with
+child by him, which was what I had not yet told him of, and sometimes I
+thought not to tell him of it at all; but I was in a strange place, and
+had no acquaintance, though I had a great deal of substance, which
+indeed, having no friends there, was the more dangerous to me.
+
+This obliged me to take him one morning when I saw him, as I thought, a
+little anxious about his going, and irresolute. Says I to him, "I fancy
+you can hardly find in your heart to leave me now." "The more unkind is
+it in you," said he, "severely unkind, to refuse a man that knows not
+how to part with you."
+
+"I am so far from being unkind to you," said I, "that I will go over all
+the world with you if you desire me to, except to Paris, where you know
+I can't go."
+
+"It is a pity so much love," said he, "on both sides should ever
+separate."
+
+"Why, then," said I, "do you go away from me?"
+
+"Because," said he, "you won't take me."
+
+"But if I won't take you," said I, "you may take me anywhere but to
+Paris."
+
+He was very loth to go anywhere, he said, without me, but he must go to
+Paris or the East Indies.
+
+I told him I did not use to court, but I durst venture myself to the
+East Indies with him, if there was a necessity of his going.
+
+He told me, God be thanked he was in no necessity of going anywhere, but
+that he had a tempting invitation to go to the Indies.
+
+I answered, I would say nothing to that, but that I desired he would go
+anywhere but to Paris, because there he knew I must not go.
+
+He said he had no remedy but to go where I could not go, for he could
+not bear to see me if he must not have me.
+
+I told him that was the unkindest thing he could say of me, and that I
+ought to take it very ill, seeing I knew how very well to oblige him to
+stay, without yielding to what he knew I could not yield to.
+
+This amazed him, and he told me I was pleased to be mysterious, but that
+he was sure it was in nobody's power to hinder him going, if he
+resolved upon it, except me, who had influence enough upon him to make
+him do anything.
+
+Yes, I told him, I could hinder him, because I knew he could no more do
+an unkind thing by me than he could do an unjust one; and to put him out
+of his pain, I told him I was with child.
+
+He came to me, and taking me in his arms and kissing me a thousand times
+almost, said, why would I be so unkind not to tell him that before?
+
+I told him 'twas hard, that to have him stay, I should be forced to do
+as criminals do to avoid the gallows, plead my belly; and that I thought
+I had given him testimonies enough of an affection equal to that of a
+wife, if I had not only lain with him, been with child by him, shown
+myself unwilling to part with him, but offered to go to the East Indies
+with him; and except one thing that I could not grant, what could he ask
+more?
+
+He stood mute a good while, but afterwards told me he had a great deal
+more to say if I could assure him that I would not take ill whatever
+freedom he might use with me in his discourse.
+
+I told him he might use any freedom in words with me; for a woman who
+had given leave to such other freedoms as I had done had left herself no
+room to take anything ill, let it be what it would.
+
+"Why, then," he said, "I hope you believe, madam, I was born a
+Christian, and that I have some sense of sacred things upon my mind.
+When I first broke in upon my own virtue and assaulted yours; when I
+surprised and, as it were, forced you to that which neither you intended
+or I designed but a few hours before, it was upon a presumption that you
+would certainly marry me, if once I could go that length with you, and
+it was with an honest resolution to make you my wife.
+
+"But I have been surprised with such a denial that no woman in such
+circumstances ever gave to a man; for certainly it was never known that
+any woman refused to marry a man that had first lain with her, much less
+a man that had gotten her with child. But you go upon different notions
+from all the world, and though you reason upon it so strongly that a man
+knows hardly what to answer, yet I must own there is something in it
+shocking to nature, and something very unkind to yourself. But, above
+all, it is unkind to the child that is yet unborn, who, if we marry,
+will come into the world with advantage enough, but if not, is ruined
+before it is born; must bear the eternal reproach of what it is not
+guilty of; must be branded from its cradle with a mark of infamy, be
+loaded with the crimes and follies of its parents, and suffer for sins
+that it never committed. This I take to be very hard, and, indeed, cruel
+to the poor infant not yet born, who you cannot think of with any
+patience, if you have the common affection of a mother, and not do that
+for it which should at once place it on a level with the rest of the
+world, and not leave it to curse its parents for what also we ought to
+be ashamed of. I cannot, therefore," says he, "but beg and entreat you,
+as you are a Christian and a mother, not to let the innocent lamb you go
+with be ruined before it is born, and leave it to curse and reproach us
+hereafter for what may be so easily avoided.
+
+"Then, dear madam," said he, with a world of tenderness (and I thought I
+saw tears in his eyes), "allow me to repeat it, that I am a Christian,
+and consequently I do not allow what I have rashly, and without due
+consideration, done; I say, I do not approve of it as lawful, and
+therefore, though I did, with the view I have mentioned, one
+unjustifiable action, I cannot say that I could satisfy myself to live
+in a continual practice of what in judgment we must both condemn; and
+though I love you above all the women in the world, and have done enough
+to convince you of it by resolving to marry you after what has passed
+between us, and by offering to quit all pretensions to any part of your
+estate, so that I should, as it were, take a wife after I had lain with
+her, and without a farthing portion, which, as my circumstances are, I
+need not do; I say, notwithstanding my affection to you, which is
+inexpressible, yet I cannot give up soul as well as body, the interest
+of this world and the hopes of another; and you cannot call this my
+disrespect to you."
+
+If ever any man in the world was truly valuable for the strictest
+honesty of intention, this was the man; and if ever woman in her senses
+rejected a man of merit on so trivial and frivolous a pretence, I was
+the woman; but surely it was the most preposterous thing that ever woman
+did.
+
+He would have taken me as a wife, but would not entertain me as a whore.
+Was ever woman angry with any gentleman on that head? And was ever woman
+so stupid to choose to be a whore, where she might have been an honest
+wife? But infatuations are next to being possessed of the devil. I was
+inflexible, and pretended to argue upon the point of a woman's liberty
+as before, but he took me short, and with more warmth than he had yet
+used with me, though with the utmost respect, replied, "Dear madam, you
+argue for liberty, at the same time that you restrain yourself from that
+liberty which God and nature has directed you to take, and, to supply
+the deficiency, propose a vicious liberty, which is neither honourable
+or religious. Will you propose liberty at the expense of modesty?"
+
+I returned, that he mistook me; I did not propose it; I only said that
+those that could not be content without concerning the sexes in that
+affair might do so indeed; might entertain a man as men do a mistress,
+if they thought fit, but he did not hear me say I would do so; and
+though, by what had passed, he might well censure me in that part, yet
+he should find, for the future, that I should freely converse with him
+without any inclination that way.
+
+He told me he could not promise that for himself, and thought he ought
+not to trust himself with the opportunity, for that, as he had failed
+already, he was loth to lead himself into the temptation of offending
+again, and that this was the true reason of his resolving to go back to
+Paris; not that he could willingly leave me, and would be very far from
+wanting my invitation; but if he could not stay upon terms that became
+him, either as an honest man or a Christian, what could he do? And he
+hoped, he said, I could not blame him that he was unwilling anything
+that was to call him father should upbraid him with leaving him in the
+world to be called bastard; adding that he was astonished to think how I
+could satisfy myself to be so cruel to an innocent infant not yet born;
+professed he could neither bear the thoughts of it, much less bear to
+see it, and hoped I would not take it ill that he could not stay to see
+me delivered, for that very reason.
+
+I saw he spoke this with a disturbed mind, and that it was with some
+difficulty that he restrained his passion, so I declined any farther
+discourse upon it; only said I hoped he would consider of it. "Oh,
+madam!" says he, "do not bid me consider; 'tis for you to consider;" and
+with that he went out of the room, in a strange kind of confusion, as
+was easy to be seen in his countenance.
+
+If I had not been one of the foolishest as well as wickedest creatures
+upon earth, I could never have acted thus. I had one of the honestest,
+completest gentlemen upon earth at my hand. He had in one sense saved my
+life, but he had saved that life from ruin in a most remarkable manner.
+He loved me even to distraction, and had come from Paris to Rotterdam on
+purpose to seek me. He had offered me marriage even after I was with
+child by him, and had offered to quit all his pretensions to my estate,
+and give it up to my own management, having a plentiful estate of his
+own. Here I might have settled myself out of the reach even of disaster
+itself; his estate and mine would have purchased even then above two
+thousand pounds a year, and I might have lived like a queen--nay, far
+more happy than a queen; and, which was above all, I had now an
+opportunity to have quitted a life of crime and debauchery, which I had
+been given up to for several years, and to have sat down quiet in plenty
+and honour, and to have set myself apart to the great work which I have
+since seen so much necessity of and occasion for--I mean that of
+repentance.
+
+But my measure of wickedness was not yet full. I continued obstinate
+against matrimony, and yet I could not bear the thoughts of his going
+away neither. As to the child, I was not very anxious about it. I told
+him I would promise him it should never come to him to upbraid him with
+its being illegitimate; that if it was a boy, I would breed it up like
+the son of a gentleman, and use it well for his sake; and after a little
+more such talk as this, and seeing him resolved to go, I retired, but
+could not help letting him see the tears run down my cheeks. He came to
+me and kissed me, entreated me, conjured me by the kindness he had shown
+me in my distress, by the justice he had done me in my bills and money
+affairs, by the respect which made him refuse a thousand pistoles from
+me for his expenses with that traitor the Jew, by the pledge of our
+misfortunes--so he called it--which I carried with me, and by all that
+the sincerest affection could propose to do, that I would not drive him
+away.
+
+But it would not do. I was stupid and senseless, deaf to all his
+importunities, and continued so to the last. So we parted, only desiring
+me to promise that I would write him word when I was delivered, and how
+he might give me an answer; and this I engaged my word I would do. And
+upon his desiring to be informed which way I intended to dispose of
+myself, I told him I resolved to go directly to England, and to London,
+where I proposed to lie in; but since he resolved to leave me, I told
+him I supposed it would be of no consequence to him what became of me.
+
+He lay in his lodgings that night, but went away early in the morning,
+leaving me a letter in which he repeated all he had said, recommended
+the care of the child, and desired of me that as he had remitted to me
+the offer of a thousand pistoles which I would have given him for the
+recompense of his charges and trouble with the Jew, and had given it me
+back, so he desired I would allow him to oblige me to set apart that
+thousand pistoles, with its improvement, for the child, and for its
+education; earnestly pressing me to secure that little portion for the
+abandoned orphan when I should think fit, as he was sure I would, to
+throw away the rest upon something as worthless as my sincere friend at
+Paris. He concluded with moving me to reflect, with the same regret as
+he did, on our follies we had committed together; asked me forgiveness
+for being the aggressor in the fact, and forgave me everything, he said,
+but the cruelty of refusing him, which he owned he could not forgive me
+so heartily as he should do, because he was satisfied it was an injury
+to myself, would be an introduction to my ruin, and that I would
+seriously repent of it. He foretold some fatal things which, he said, he
+was well assured I should fall into, and that at last I would be ruined
+by a bad husband; bid me be the more wary, that I might render him a
+false prophet; but to remember that, if ever I came into distress, I had
+a fast friend at Paris, who would not upbraid me with the unkind things
+past, but would be always ready to return me good for evil.
+
+This letter stunned me. I could not think it possible for any one that
+had not dealt with the devil to write such a letter, for he spoke of
+some particular things which afterwards were to befall me with such an
+assurance that it frighted me beforehand; and when those things did come
+to pass, I was persuaded he had some more than human knowledge. In a
+word, his advices to me to repent were very affectionate, his warnings
+of evil to happen to me were very kind, and his promises of assistance,
+if I wanted him, were so generous that I have seldom seen the like; and
+though I did not at first set much by that part because I looked upon
+them as what might not happen, and as what was improbable to happen at
+that time, yet all the rest of his letter was so moving that it left me
+very melancholy, and I cried four-and-twenty hours after, almost without
+ceasing, about it; and yet even all this while, whatever it was that
+bewitched me, I had not one serious wish that I had taken him. I wished
+heartily, indeed, that I could have kept him with me, but I had a mortal
+aversion to marrying him, or indeed anybody else, but formed a thousand
+wild notions in my head that I was yet gay enough, and young and
+handsome enough, to please a man of quality, and that I would try my
+fortune at London, come of it what would.
+
+Thus blinded by my own vanity, I threw away the only opportunity I then
+had to have effectually settled my fortunes, and secured them for this
+world; and I am a memorial to all that shall read my story, a standing
+monument of the madness and distraction which pride and infatuations
+from hell run us into, how ill our passions guide us, and how
+dangerously we act when we follow the dictates of an ambitious mind.
+
+I was rich, beautiful, and agreeable, and not yet old. I had known
+something of the influence I had had upon the fancies of men even of the
+highest rank. I never forgot that the Prince de ---- had said, with an
+ecstasy, that I was the finest woman in France. I knew I could make a
+figure at London, and how well I could grace that figure. I was not at a
+loss how to behave, and having already been adored by princes, I thought
+of nothing less than of being mistress to the king himself. But I go
+back to my immediate circumstances at that time.
+
+I got over the absence of my honest merchant but slowly at first. It was
+with infinite regret that I let him go at all; and when I read the
+letter he left I was quite confounded. As soon as he was out of call
+and irrecoverable I would have given half I had in the world for him
+back again; my notion of things changed in an instant, and I called
+myself a thousand fools for casting myself upon a life of scandal and
+hazard, when, after the shipwreck of virtue, honour, and principle, and
+sailing at the utmost risk in the stormy seas of crime and abominable
+levity, I had a safe harbour presented, and no heart to cast anchor in
+it.
+
+His predictions terrified me; his promises of kindness if I came to
+distress melted me into tears, but frighted me with the apprehensions of
+ever coming into such distress, and filled my head with a thousand
+anxieties and thoughts how it should be possible for me, who had now
+such a fortune, to sink again into misery.
+
+Then the dreadful scene of my life, when I was left with my five
+children, &c., as I have related, represented itself again to me, and I
+sat considering what measures I might take to bring myself to such a
+state of desolation again, and how I should act to avoid it.
+
+But these things wore off gradually. As to my friend the merchant, he
+was gone, and gone irrecoverably, for I durst not follow him to Paris,
+for the reasons mentioned above. Again, I was afraid to write to him to
+return, lest he should have refused, as I verily believed he would; so
+I sat and cried intolerably for some days--nay, I may say for some
+weeks; but, I say, it wore off gradually, and as I had a pretty deal of
+business for managing my effects, the hurry of that particular part
+served to divert my thoughts, and in part to wear out the impressions
+which had been made upon my mind.
+
+I had sold my jewels, all but the diamond ring which my gentleman the
+jeweller used to wear, and this, at proper times, I wore myself; as also
+the diamond necklace which the prince had given me, and a pair of
+extraordinary earrings worth about 600 pistoles; the other, which was a
+fine casket, he left with me at his going to Versailles, and a small
+case with some rubies and emeralds, &c. I say I sold them at the Hague
+for 7600 pistoles. I had received all the bills which the merchant had
+helped me to at Paris, and with the money I brought with me, they made
+up 13,900 pistoles more; so that I had in ready money, and in account in
+the bank at Amsterdam, above one-and-twenty thousand pistoles, besides
+jewels; and how to get this treasure to England was my next care.
+
+The business I had had now with a great many people for receiving such
+large sums and selling jewels of such considerable value gave me
+opportunity to know and converse with several of the best merchants of
+the place, so that I wanted no direction now how to get my money
+remitted to England. Applying, therefore, to several merchants, that I
+might neither risk it all on the credit of one merchant, nor suffer any
+single man to know the quantity of money I had; I say, applying myself
+to several merchants, I got bills of exchange payable in London for all
+my money. The first bills I took with me; the second bills I left in
+trust (in case of any disaster at sea) in the hands of the first
+merchant, him to whom I was recommended by my friend from Paris.
+
+Having thus spent nine months in Holland, refused the best offer ever
+woman in my circumstances had, parted unkindly, and indeed barbarously,
+with the best friend and honestest man in the world, got all my money in
+my pocket, and a bastard in my belly, I took shipping at the Brill in
+the packet-boat, and arrived safe at Harwich, where my woman Amy was
+come by my direction to meet me.
+
+I would willingly have given ten thousand pounds of my money to have
+been rid of the burthen I had in my belly, as above; but it could not
+be, so I was obliged to bear with that part, and get rid of it by the
+ordinary method of patience and a hard travail.
+
+I was above the contemptible usage that women in my circumstances
+oftentimes meet with. I had considered all that beforehand; and having
+sent Amy beforehand, and remitted her money to do it, she had taken me
+a very handsome house in ---- Street, near Charing Cross; had hired me
+two maids and a footman, who she had put in a good livery; and having
+hired a glass coach and four horses, she came with them and the
+man-servant to Harwich to meet me, and had been there near a week before
+I came, so I had nothing to do but to go away to London to my own house,
+where I arrived in very good health, and where I passed for a French
+lady, by the title of ----.
+
+My first business was to get all my bills accepted, which, to cut the
+story short, was all both accepted and currently paid; and I then
+resolved to take me a country lodging somewhere near the town, to be
+incognito, till I was brought to bed; which, appearing in such a figure
+and having such an equipage, I easily managed without anybody's offering
+the usual insults of parish inquiries. I did not appear in my new house
+for some time, and afterwards I thought fit, for particular reasons, to
+quit that house, and not to come to it at all, but take handsome large
+apartments in the Pall Mall, in a house out of which was a private door
+into the king's garden, by the permission of the chief gardener, who had
+lived in the house.
+
+I had now all my effects secured; but my money being my great concern at
+that time, I found it a difficulty how to dispose of it so as to bring
+me in an annual interest. However, in some time I got a substantial
+safe mortgage for L14,000 by the assistance of the famous Sir Robert
+Clayton, for which I had an estate of L1800 a year bound to me, and had
+L700 per annum interest for it.
+
+This, with some other securities, made me a very handsome estate of
+above a thousand pounds a year; enough, one would think, to keep any
+woman in England from being a whore.
+
+I lay in at ----, about four miles from London, and brought a fine boy
+into the world, and, according to my promise, sent an account of it to
+my friend at Paris, the father of it; and in the letter told him how
+sorry I was for his going away, and did as good as intimate that, if he
+would come once more to see me, I should use him better than I had done.
+He gave me a very kind and obliging answer, but took not the least
+notice of what I had said of his coming over, so I found my interest
+lost there for ever. He gave me joy of the child, and hinted that he
+hoped I would make good what he had begged for the poor infant as I had
+promised, and I sent him word again that I would fulfil his order to a
+tittle; and such a fool and so weak I was in this last letter,
+notwithstanding what I have said of his not taking notice of my
+invitation, as to ask his pardon almost for the usage I gave him at
+Rotterdam, and stooped so low as to expostulate with him for not taking
+notice of my inviting him to come to me again, as I had done; and,
+which was still more, went so far as to make a second sort of an offer
+to him, telling him, almost in plain words, that if he would come over
+now I would have him; but he never gave me the least reply to it at all,
+which was as absolute a denial to me as he was ever able to give; so I
+sat down, I cannot say contented, but vexed heartily that I had made the
+offer at all, for he had, as I may say, his full revenge of me in
+scorning to answer, and to let me twice ask that of him which he with so
+much importunity begged of me before.
+
+I was now up again, and soon came to my City lodging in the Pall Mall,
+and here I began to make a figure suitable to my estate, which was very
+great; and I shall give you an account of my equipage in a few words,
+and of myself too.
+
+I paid L60 a year for my new apartments, for I took them by the year;
+but then they were handsome lodgings indeed, and very richly furnished.
+I kept my own servants to clean and look after them, found my own
+kitchen ware and firing. My equipage was handsome, but not very great; I
+had a coach, a coachman, a footman, my woman Amy, who I now dressed like
+a gentlewoman and made her my companion, and three maids; and thus I
+lived for a time. I dressed to the height of every mode, went extremely
+rich in clothes, and as for jewels, I wanted none. I gave a very good
+livery, laced with silver, and as rich as anybody below the nobility
+could be seen with; and thus I appeared, leaving the world to guess who
+or what I was, without offering to put myself forward.
+
+I walked sometimes in the Mall with my woman Amy, but I kept no company
+and made no acquaintances, only made as gay a show as I was able to do,
+and that upon all occasions. I found, however, the world was not
+altogether so unconcerned about me as I seemed to be about them; and
+first I understood that the neighbours began to be mighty inquisitive
+about me, as who I was, and what my circumstances were.
+
+Amy was the only person that could answer their curiosity or give any
+account of me; and she, a tattling woman and a true gossip, took care to
+do that with all the art that she was mistress of. She let them know
+that I was the widow of a person of quality in France, that I was very
+rich, that I came over hither to look after an estate that fell to me by
+some of my relations who died here, that I was worth L40,000 all in my
+own hands, and the like.
+
+This was all wrong in Amy, and in me too, though we did not see it at
+first, for this recommended me indeed to those sort of gentlemen they
+call fortune-hunters, and who always besieged ladies, as they called
+it--on purpose to take them prisoners, as I called it--that is to say,
+to marry the women and have the spending of their money. But if I was
+wrong in refusing the honourable proposals of the Dutch merchant, who
+offered me the disposal of my whole estate, and had as much of his own
+to maintain me with, I was right now in refusing those offers which came
+generally from gentlemen of good families and good estates, but who,
+living to the extent of them, were always needy and necessitous, and
+wanted a sum of money to make themselves easy, as they call it--that is
+to say, to pay off encumbrances, sisters' portions, and the like; and
+then the woman is prisoner for life, and may live as they give her
+leave. This life I had seen into clearly enough, and therefore I was not
+to be catched that way. However, as I said, the reputation of my money
+brought several of those sort of gentry about me, and they found means,
+by one stratagem or other, to get access to my ladyship; but, in short,
+I answered them well enough, that I lived single and was happy; that as
+I had no occasion to change my condition for an estate, so I did not see
+that by the best offer that any of them could make me I could mend my
+fortune; that I might be honoured with titles indeed, and in time rank
+on public occasions with the peeresses (I mention that because one that
+offered at me was the eldest son of a peer), but that I was as well
+without the title as long as I had the estate, and while I had L2000 a
+year of my own I was happier than I could be in being prisoner of state
+to a nobleman, for I took the ladies of that rank to be little better.
+
+As I have mentioned Sir Robert Clayton, with whom I had the good fortune
+to become acquainted, on account of the mortgage which he helped me to,
+it is necessary to take notice that I had much advantage in my ordinary
+affairs by his advice, and therefore I called it my good fortune; for as
+he paid me so considerable an annual income as L700 a year, so I am to
+acknowledge myself much a debtor, not only to the justice of his
+dealings with me, but to the prudence and conduct which he guided me to,
+by his advice, for the management of my estate. And as he found I was
+not inclined to marry, he frequently took occasion to hint how soon I
+might raise my fortune to a prodigious height if I would but order my
+family economy so far within my revenue as to lay up every year
+something to add to the capital.
+
+I was convinced of the truth of what he said, and agreed to the
+advantages of it. You are to take it as you go that Sir Robert supposed
+by my own discourse, and especially by my woman Amy, that I had L2000 a
+year income. He judged, as he said, by my way of living that I could not
+spend above one thousand, and so, he added, I might prudently lay by
+L1000 every year to add to the capital; and by adding every year the
+additional interest or income of the money to the capital, he proved to
+me that in ten years I should double the L1000 per annum that I laid by.
+And he drew me out a table, as he called it, of the increase, for me to
+judge by; and by which, he said, if the gentlemen of England would but
+act so, every family of them would increase their fortunes to a great
+degree, just as merchants do by trade; whereas now, says Sir Robert, by
+the humour of living up to the extent of their fortunes, and rather
+beyond, the gentlemen, says he, ay, and the nobility too, are almost all
+of them borrowers, and all in necessitous circumstances.
+
+As Sir Robert frequently visited me, and was (if I may say so from his
+own mouth) very well pleased with my way of conversing with him, for he
+knew nothing, not so much as guessed at what I had been; I say, as he
+came often to see me, so he always entertained me with this scheme of
+frugality; and one time he brought another paper, wherein he showed me,
+much to the same purpose as the former, to what degree I should increase
+my estate if I would come into his method of contracting my expenses;
+and by this scheme of his, it appeared that, laying up a thousand pounds
+a year, and every year adding the interest to it, I should in twelve
+years' time have in bank one-and-twenty thousand and fifty-eight
+pounds, after which I might lay up two thousand pounds a year.
+
+I objected that I was a young woman, that I had been used to live
+plentifully, and with a good appearance, and that I knew not how to be a
+miser.
+
+He told me that if I thought I had enough it was well, but that if I
+desired to have more, this was the way; that in another twelve years I
+should be too rich, so that I should not know what to do with it.
+
+"Ay, sir," says I, "you are contriving how to make me a rich old woman,
+but that won't answer my end; I had rather have L20,000 now than L60,000
+when I am fifty years old."
+
+"Then, madam," says he, "I suppose your honour has no children?"
+
+"None, Sir Robert," said I, "but what are provided for." So I left him
+in the dark as much as I found him. However, I considered his scheme
+very well, though I said no more to him at that time, and I resolved,
+though I would make a very good figure, I say I resolved to abate a
+little of my expense, and draw in, live closer, and save something, if
+not so much as he proposed to me. It was near the end of the year that
+Sir Robert made this proposal to me, and when the year was up I went to
+his house in the City, and there I told him I came to thank him for his
+scheme of frugality; that I had been studying much upon it, and though I
+had not been able to mortify myself so much as to lay up a thousand
+pounds a year, yet, as I had not come to him for my interest
+half-yearly, as was usual, I was now come to let him know that I had
+resolved to lay up that seven hundred pounds a year, and never use a
+penny of it, desiring him to help me to put it out to advantage.
+
+Sir Robert, a man thoroughly versed in arts of improving money, but
+thoroughly honest, said to me, "Madam, I am glad you approve of the
+method that I proposed to you; but you have begun wrong; you should have
+come for your interest at the half-year, and then you had had the money
+to put out. Now you have lost half a year's interest of L350, which is
+L9; for I had but 5 per cent, on the mortgage."
+
+"Well, well, sir," says I, "can you put this out for me now?"
+
+"Let it lie, madam," says he, "till the next year, and then I'll put out
+your L1400 together, and in the meantime I'll pay you interest for the
+L700." So he gave me his bill for the money, which he told me should be
+no less than L6 per cent. Sir Robert Clayton's bill was what nobody
+would refuse, so I thanked him and let it lie; and next year I did the
+same, and the third year Sir Robert got me a good mortgage for L2200 at
+L6 per cent interest. So I had L132 a year added to my income, which was
+a very satisfying article.
+
+But I return to my history. As I have said, I found that my measures
+were all wrong; the posture I set up in exposed me to innumerable
+visitors of the kind I have mentioned above. I was cried up for a vast
+fortune, and one that Sir Robert Clayton managed for; and Sir Robert
+Clayton was courted for me as much as I was for myself. But I had given
+Sir Robert his cue. I had told him my opinion of matrimony, in just the
+same terms as I had done my merchant, and he came into it presently. He
+owned that my observation was just, and that if I valued my liberty, as
+I knew my fortune, and that it was in my own hands, I was to blame if I
+gave it away to any one.
+
+But Sir Robert knew nothing of my design, that I aimed at being a kept
+mistress, and to have a handsome maintenance; and that I was still for
+getting money, and laying it up too, as much as he could desire me, only
+by a worse way.
+
+However, Sir Robert came seriously to me one day, and told me he had an
+offer of matrimony to make to me that was beyond all that he had heard
+had offered themselves, and this was a merchant. Sir Robert and I agreed
+exactly in our notions of a merchant. Sir Robert said, and I found it to
+be true, that a true-bred merchant is the best gentleman in the nation;
+that in knowledge, in manners, in judgment of things, the merchant
+outdid many of the nobility; that having once mastered the world, and
+being above the demand of business, though no real estate, they were
+then superior to most gentlemen, even in estate; that a merchant in
+flush business and a capital stock is able to spend more money than a
+gentleman of L5000 a year estate; that while a merchant spent, he only
+spent what he got, and not that, and that he laid up great sums every
+year; that an estate is a pond, but that a trade was a spring; that if
+the first is once mortgaged, it seldom gets clear, but embarrassed the
+person for ever; but the merchant had his estate continually flowing;
+and upon this he named me merchants who lived in more real splendour and
+spent more money than most of the noblemen in England could singly
+expend, and that they still grew immensely rich.
+
+He went on to tell me that even the tradesmen in London, speaking of the
+better sort of trades, could spend more money in their families, and yet
+give better fortunes to their children, than, generally speaking, the
+gentry of England from L1000 a year downward could do, and yet grow rich
+too.
+
+The upshot of all this was to recommend to me rather the bestowing my
+fortune upon some eminent merchant, who lived already in the first
+figure of a merchant, and who, not being in want or scarcity of money,
+but having a flourishing business and a flowing cash, would at the first
+word settle all my fortune on myself and children, and maintain me like
+a queen.
+
+This was certainly right, and had I taken his advice, I had been really
+happy; but my heart was bent upon an independency of fortune, and I told
+him I knew no state of matrimony but what was at best a state of
+inferiority, if not of bondage; that I had no notion of it; that I lived
+a life of absolute liberty now, was free as I was born, and having a
+plentiful fortune, I did not understand what coherence the words "honour
+and obey" had with the liberty of a free woman; that I knew no reason
+the men had to engross the whole liberty of the race, and make the
+woman, notwithstanding any disparity of fortune, be subject to the laws
+of marriage, of their own making; that it was my misfortune to be a
+woman, but I was resolved it should not be made worse by the sex; and,
+seeing liberty seemed to be the men's property, I would be a man-woman,
+for, as I was born free, I would die so.
+
+Sir Robert smiled, and told me I talked a kind of Amazonian language;
+that he found few women of my mind, or that, if they were, they wanted
+resolution to go on with it; that, notwithstanding all my notions, which
+he could not but say had once some weight in them, yet he understood I
+had broke in upon them, and had been married. I answered, I had so; but
+he did not hear me say that I had any encouragement from what was past
+to make a second venture; that I was got well out of the toil, and if I
+came in again I should have nobody to blame but myself.
+
+Sir Robert laughed heartily at me, but gave over offering any more
+arguments, only told me he had pointed me out for some of the best
+merchants in London, but since I forbade him he would give me no
+disturbance of that kind. He applauded my way of managing my money, and
+told me I should soon be monstrous rich; but he neither knew or
+mistrusted that, with all this wealth, I was yet a whore, and was not
+averse to adding to my estate at the farther expense of my virtue.
+
+But to go on with my story as to my way of living. I found, as above,
+that my living as I did would not answer; that it only brought the
+fortune-hunters and bites about me, as I have said before, to make a
+prey of me and my money; and, in short, I was harassed with lovers,
+beaux, and fops of quality, in abundance, but it would not do. I aimed
+at other things, and was possessed with so vain an opinion of my own
+beauty, that nothing less than the king himself was in my eye. And this
+vanity was raised by some words let fall by a person I conversed with,
+who was, perhaps, likely enough to have brought such a thing to pass,
+had it been sooner; but that game began to be pretty well over at
+court. However, the having mentioned such a thing, it seems a little
+too publicly, it brought abundance of people about me, upon a wicked
+account too.
+
+And now I began to act in a new sphere. The court was exceedingly gay
+and fine, though fuller of men than of women, the queen not affecting to
+be very much in public. On the other hand, it is no slander upon the
+courtiers to say, they were as wicked as anybody in reason could desire
+them. The king had several mistresses, who were prodigious fine, and
+there was a glorious show on that side indeed. If the sovereign gave
+himself a loose, it could not be expected the rest of the court should
+be all saints; so far was it from that, though I would not make it worse
+than it was, that a woman that had anything agreeable in her appearance
+could never want followers.
+
+I soon found myself thronged with admirers, and I received visits from
+some persons of very great figure, who always introduced themselves by
+the help of an old lady or two who were now become my intimates; and one
+of them, I understood afterwards, was set to work on purpose to get into
+my favour, in order to introduce what followed.
+
+The conversation we had was generally courtly, but civil. At length some
+gentlemen proposed to play, and made what they called a party. This, it
+seems, was a contrivance of one of my female hangers-on, for, as I
+said, I had two of them, who thought this was the way to introduce
+people as often as she pleased; and so indeed it was. They played high
+and stayed late, but begged my pardon, only asked leave to make an
+appointment for the next night. I was as gay and as well pleased as any
+of them, and one night told one of the gentlemen, my Lord ----, that
+seeing they were doing me the honour of diverting themselves at my
+apartment, and desired to be there sometimes, I did not keep a
+gaming-table, but I would give them a little ball the next day if they
+pleased, which they accepted very willingly.
+
+Accordingly, in the evening the gentlemen began to come, where I let
+them see that I understood very well what such things meant. I had a
+large dining-room in my apartments, with five other rooms on the same
+floor, all which I made drawing-rooms for the occasion, having all the
+beds taken down for the day. In three of these I had tables placed,
+covered with wine and sweetmeats, the fourth had a green table for play,
+and the fifth was my own room, where I sat, and where I received all the
+company that came to pay their compliments to me. I was dressed, you may
+be sure, to all the advantage possible, and had all the jewels on that I
+was mistress of. My Lord ----, to whom I had made the invitation, sent me
+a set of fine music from the playhouse, and the ladies danced, and we
+began to be very merry, when about eleven o'clock I had notice given me
+that there were some gentlemen coming in masquerade. I seemed a little
+surprised, and began to apprehend some disturbance, when my Lord ----
+perceiving it, spoke to me to be easy, for that there was a party of the
+guards at the door which should be ready to prevent any rudeness; and
+another gentleman gave me a hint as if the king was among the masks. I
+coloured as red as blood itself could make a face look, and expressed a
+great surprise; however, there was no going back, so I kept my station
+in my drawing-room, but with the folding-doors wide open.
+
+A while after the masks came in, and began with a dance _a la comique_,
+performing wonderfully indeed. While they were dancing I withdrew, and
+left a lady to answer for me that I would return immediately. In less
+than half-an-hour I returned, dressed in the habit of a Turkish
+princess; the habit I got at Leghorn, when my foreign prince bought me a
+Turkish slave, as I have said. The Maltese man-of-war had, it seems,
+taken a Turkish vessel going from Constantinople to Alexandria, in which
+were some ladies bound for Grand Cairo in Egypt; and as the ladies were
+made slaves, so their fine clothes were thus exposed; and with this
+Turkish slave I bought the rich clothes too. The dress was
+extraordinary fine indeed; I had bought it as a curiosity, having never
+seen the like. The robe was a fine Persian or India damask, the ground
+white, and the flowers blue and gold, and the train held five yards. The
+dress under it was a vest of the same, embroidered with gold, and set
+with some pearl in the work and some turquoise stones. To the vest was a
+girdle five or six inches wide, after the Turkish mode; and on both ends
+where it joined, or hooked, was set with diamonds for eight inches
+either way, only they were not true diamonds, but nobody knew that but
+myself.
+
+The turban, or head-dress, had a pinnacle on the top, but not above five
+inches, with a piece of loose sarcenet hanging from it; and on the
+front, just over the forehead, was a good jewel which I had added to it.
+
+This habit, as above, cost me about sixty pistoles in Italy, but cost
+much more in the country from whence it came; and little did I think
+when I bought it that I should put it to such a use as this, though I
+had dressed myself in it many times by the help of my little Turk, and
+afterwards between Amy and I, only to see how I looked in it. I had sent
+her up before to get it ready, and when I came up I had nothing to do
+but slip it on, and was down in my drawing-room in a little more than a
+quarter of an hour. When I came there the room was full of company; but
+I ordered the folding-doors to be shut for a minute or two till I had
+received the compliments of the ladies that were in the room, and had
+given them a full view of my dress.
+
+But my Lord ----, who happened to be in the room, slipped out at another
+door, and brought back with him one of the masks, a tall, well-shaped
+person, but who had no name, being all masked; nor would it have been
+allowed to ask any person's name on such an occasion. The person spoke
+in French to me, that it was the finest dress he had ever seen, and
+asked me if he should have the honour to dance with me. I bowed, as
+giving my consent, but said, as I had been a Mahometan, I could not
+dance after the manner of this country; I supposed their music would not
+play _a la Moresque_. He answered merrily. I had a Christian's face, and
+he'd venture it that I could dance like a Christian; adding that so much
+beauty could not be Mahometan. Immediately the folding-doors were flung
+open, and he led me into the room. The company were under the greatest
+surprise imaginable; the very music stopped awhile to gaze, for the
+dress was indeed exceedingly surprising, perfectly new, very agreeable,
+and wonderful rich.
+
+The gentleman, whoever he was, for I never knew, led me only _a
+courant_, and then asked me if I had a mind to dance an antic--that is
+to say, whether I would dance the antic as they had danced in
+masquerade, or anything by myself. I told him anything else rather, if
+he pleased; so we danced only two French dances, and he led me to the
+drawing-room door, when he retired to the rest of the masks. When he
+left me at the drawing-room door I did not go in, as he thought I would
+have done, but turned about and showed myself to the whole room, and
+calling my woman to me, gave her some directions to the music, by which
+the company presently understood that I would give them a dance by
+myself. Immediately all the house rose up and paid me a kind of a
+compliment by removing back every way to make me room, for the place was
+exceedingly full. The music did not at first hit the tune that I
+directed, which was a French tune, so I was forced to send my woman to
+them again, standing all this while at my drawing-room door; but as soon
+as my woman spoke to them again, they played it right, and I, to let
+them see it was so, stepped forward to the middle of the room. Then they
+began it again, and I danced by myself a figure which I learnt in
+France, when the Prince de ---- desired I would dance for his diversion.
+It was, indeed, a very fine figure, invented by a famous master at
+Paris, for a lady or a gentleman to dance single; but being perfectly
+new, it pleased the company exceedingly, and they all thought it had
+been Turkish; nay, one gentleman had the folly to expose himself so
+much as to say, and I think swore too, that he had seen it danced at
+Constantinople, which was ridiculous enough.
+
+At the finishing the dance the company clapped, and almost shouted; and
+one of the gentlemen cried out "Roxana! Roxana! by ----," with an oath;
+upon which foolish accident I had the name of Roxana presently fixed
+upon me all over the court end of town as effectually as if I had been
+christened Roxana. I had, it seems, the felicity of pleasing everybody
+that night to an extreme; and my ball, but especially my dress, was the
+chat of the town for that week; and so the name of Roxana was the toast
+at and about the court; no other health was to be named with it.
+
+Now things began to work as I would have them, and I began to be very
+popular, as much as I could desire. The ball held till (as well as I was
+pleased with the show) I was sick of the night; the gentlemen masked
+went off about three o'clock in the morning, the other gentlemen sat
+down to play; the music held it out, and some of the ladies were dancing
+at six in the morning.
+
+But I was mighty eager to know who it was danced with me. Some of the
+lords went so far as to tell me I was very much honoured in my company;
+one of them spoke so broad as almost to say it was the king, but I was
+convinced afterwards it was not; and another replied if he had been his
+Majesty he should have thought it no dishonour to lead up a Roxana; but
+to this hour I never knew positively who it was; and by his behaviour I
+thought he was too young, his Majesty being at that time in an age that
+might be discovered from a young person, even in his dancing.
+
+Be that as it would, I had five hundred guineas sent me the next
+morning, and the messenger was ordered to tell me that the persons who
+sent it desired a ball again at my lodgings on the next Tuesday, but
+that they would have my leave to give the entertainment themselves. I
+was mighty well pleased with this, to be sure, but very inquisitive to
+know who the money came from; but the messenger was silent as death as
+to that point, and bowing always at my inquiries, begged me to ask no
+questions which he could not give an obliging answer to.
+
+I forgot to mention, that the gentlemen that played gave a hundred
+guineas to the box, as they called it, and at the end of their play they
+asked for my gentlewoman of the bedchamber, as they called her (Mrs.
+Amy, forsooth), and gave it her, and gave twenty guineas more among the
+servants.
+
+These magnificent doings equally both pleased and surprised me, and I
+hardly knew where I was; but especially that notion of the king being
+the person that danced with me, puffed me up to that degree, that I not
+only did not know anybody else, but indeed was very far from knowing
+myself.
+
+I had now, the next Tuesday, to provide for the like company. But, alas!
+it was all taken out of my hand. Three gentlemen, who yet were, it
+seems, but servants, came on the Saturday, and bringing sufficient
+testimonies that they were right, for one was the same who brought the
+five hundred guineas; I say, three of them came, and brought bottles of
+all sorts of wines, and hampers of sweetmeats to such a quantity, it
+appeared they designed to hold the trade on more than once, and that
+they would furnish everything to a profusion.
+
+However, as I found a deficiency in two things, I made provision of
+about twelve dozen of fine damask napkins, with tablecloths of the same,
+sufficient to cover all the tables, with three tablecloths upon every
+table, and sideboards in proportion. Also I bought a handsome quantity
+of plate, necessary to have served all the sideboards; but the gentlemen
+would not suffer any of it to be used, telling me they had bought fine
+china dishes and plates for the whole service, and that in such public
+places they could not be answerable for the plate. So it was set all up
+in a large glass cupboard in the room I sat in, where it made a very
+good show indeed.
+
+On Tuesday there came such an appearance of gentlemen and ladies, that
+my apartments were by no means able to receive them, and those who in
+particular appeared as principals gave order below to let no more
+company come up. The street was full of coaches with coronets, and fine
+glass chairs, and, in short, it was impossible to receive the company. I
+kept my little room as before, and the dancers filled the great room;
+all the drawing-rooms also were filled, and three rooms below stairs,
+which were not mine.
+
+It was very well that there was a strong party of the guards brought to
+keep the door, for without that there had been such a promiscuous crowd,
+and some of them scandalous too, that we should have been all disorder
+and confusion; but the three head servants managed all that, and had a
+word to admit all the company by.
+
+It was uncertain to me, and is to this day, who it was that danced with
+me the Wednesday before, when the ball was my own; but that the king was
+at this assembly was out of question with me, by circumstances that, I
+suppose, I could not be deceived in, and particularly that there were
+five persons who were not masked; three of them had blue garters, and
+they appeared not to me till I came out to dance.
+
+This meeting was managed just as the first, though with much more
+magnificence, because of the company. I placed myself (exceedingly rich
+in clothes and jewels) in the middle of my little room, as before, and
+made my compliment to all the company as they passed me, as I did
+before. But my Lord ----, who had spoken openly to me the first night,
+came to me, and, unmasking, told me the company had ordered him to tell
+me they hoped they should see me in the dress I had appeared in the
+first day, which had been so acceptable that it had been the occasion of
+this new meeting. "And, madam," says he, "there are some in this
+assembly who it is worth your while to oblige."
+
+I bowed to my Lord ----, and immediately withdrew. While I was above,
+a-dressing in my new habit, two ladies, perfectly unknown to me, were
+conveyed into my apartment below, by the order of a noble person, who,
+with his family, had been in Persia; and here, indeed, I thought I
+should have been outdone, or perhaps balked.
+
+One of these ladies was dressed most exquisitely fine indeed, in the
+habit of a virgin lady of quality of Georgia, and the other in the same
+habit of Armenia, with each of them a woman slave to attend them.
+
+The ladies had their petticoats short to their ankles, but plaited all
+round, and before them short aprons, but of the finest point that could
+be seen. Their gowns were made with long antique sleeves hanging down
+behind, and a train let down. They had no jewels, but their heads and
+breasts were dressed up with flowers, and they both came in veiled.
+
+Their slaves were bareheaded, but their long, black hair was braided in
+locks hanging down behind to their waists, and tied up with ribands.
+They were dressed exceeding rich, and were as beautiful as their
+mistresses; for none of them had any masks on. They waited in my room
+till I came down, and all paid their respects to me after the Persian
+manner, and sat down on a safra--that is to say, almost crosslegged, on
+a couch made up of cushions laid on the ground.
+
+This was admirably fine, and I was indeed startled at it. They made
+their compliment to me in French, and I replied in the same language.
+When the doors were opened, they walked into the dancing-room, and
+danced such a dance as indeed nobody there had ever seen, and to an
+instrument like a guitar, with a small low-sounding trumpet, which
+indeed was very fine, and which my Lord ---- had provided.
+
+They danced three times all alone, for nobody indeed could dance with
+them. The novelty pleased, truly, but yet there was something wild and
+_bizarre_ in it, because they really acted to the life the barbarous
+country whence they came; but as mine had the French behaviour under the
+Mahometan dress, it was every way as new, and pleased much better
+indeed.
+
+As soon as they had shown their Georgian and Armenian shapes, and
+danced, as I have said, three times, they withdrew, paid their
+compliment to me (for I was queen of the day), and went off to undress.
+
+Some gentlemen then danced with ladies all in masks; and when they
+stopped, nobody rose up to dance, but all called out "Roxana, Roxana."
+In the interval, my Lord ---- had brought another masked person into my
+room, who I knew not, only that I could discern it was not the same
+person that led me out before. This noble person (for I afterwards
+understood it was the Duke of ----), after a short compliment, led me
+out into the middle of the room.
+
+I was dressed in the same vest and girdle as before, but the robe had a
+mantle over it, which is usual in the Turkish habit, and it was of
+crimson and green, the green brocaded with gold; and my tyhiaai, or
+head-dress, varied a little from that I had before, as it stood higher,
+and had some jewels about the rising part, which made it look like a
+turban crowned.
+
+I had no mask, neither did I paint, and yet I had the day of all the
+ladies that appeared at the ball, I mean of those that appeared with
+faces on. As for those masked, nothing could be said of them, no doubt
+there might be many finer than I was; it must be confessed that the
+habit was infinitely advantageous to me, and everybody looked at me with
+a kind of pleasure, which gave me great advantage too.
+
+After I had danced with that noble person, I did not offer to dance by
+myself, as I had before; but they all called out "Roxana" again; and two
+of the gentlemen came into the drawing-room to entreat me to give them
+the Turkish dance, which I yielded to readily, so I came out and danced
+just as at first.
+
+While I was dancing, I perceived five persons standing all together, and
+among them only one with his hat on. It was an immediate hint to me who
+it was, and had at first almost put me into some disorder; but I went
+on, received the applause of the house, as before, and retired into my
+own room. When I was there, the five gentlemen came across the room to
+my side, and, coming in, followed by a throng of great persons, the
+person with his hat on said, "Madam Roxana, you perform to admiration."
+I was prepared, and offered to kneel to kiss his hand, but he declined
+it, and saluted me, and so, passing back again through the great room,
+went away.
+
+I do not say here who this was, but I say I came afterwards to know
+something more plainly. I would have withdrawn, and disrobed, being
+somewhat too thin in that dress, unlaced and open-breasted, as if I had
+been in my shift; but it could not be, and I was obliged to dance
+afterwards with six or eight gentlemen most, if not all of them, of the
+first rank; and I was told afterwards that one of them was the Duke of
+M[onmou]th.
+
+About two or three o'clock in the morning the company began to decrease;
+the number of women especially dropped away home, some and some at a
+time; and the gentlemen retired downstairs, where they unmasked and went
+to play.
+
+Amy waited at the room where they played, sat up all night to attend
+them, and in the morning when they broke up they swept the box into her
+lap, when she counted out to me sixty-two guineas and a half; and the
+other servants got very well too. Amy came to me when they were all
+gone; "Law, madam," says Amy, with a long gaping cry, "what shall I do
+with all this money?" And indeed the poor creature was half mad with
+joy.
+
+I was now in my element. I was as much talked of as anybody could
+desire, and I did not doubt but something or other would come of it; but
+the report of my being so rich rather was a balk to my view than
+anything else; for the gentlemen that would perhaps have been
+troublesome enough otherwise, seemed to be kept off, for Roxana was too
+high for them.
+
+There is a scene which came in here which I must cover from human eyes
+or ears. For three years and about a month Roxana lived retired, having
+been obliged to make an excursion in a manner, and with a person which
+duty and private vows obliges her not to reveal, at least not yet.
+
+At the end of this time I appeared again; but, I must add, that as I had
+in this time of retreat made hay, &c., so I did not come abroad again
+with the same lustre, or shine with so much advantage as before. For as
+some people had got at least a suspicion of where I had been, and who
+had had me all the while, it began to be public that Roxana was, in
+short, a mere Roxana, neither better nor worse, and not that woman of
+honour and virtue that was at first supposed.
+
+You are now to suppose me about seven years come to town, and that I had
+not only suffered the old revenue, which I hinted was managed by Sir
+Robert Clayton, to grow, as was mentioned before, but I had laid up an
+incredible wealth, the time considered; and had I yet had the least
+thought of reforming, I had all the opportunity to do it with advantage
+that ever woman had. For the common vice of all whores, I mean money,
+was out of the question, nay, even avarice itself seemed to be glutted;
+for, including what I had saved in reserving the interest of L14,000,
+which, as above, I had left to grow, and including some very good
+presents I had made to me in mere compliment upon these shining
+masquerading meetings, which I held up for about two years, and what I
+made of three years of the most glorious retreat, as I call it, that
+ever woman had, I had fully doubled my first substance, and had near
+L5000 in money which I kept at home, besides abundance of plate and
+jewels, which I had either given me or had bought to set myself out for
+public days.
+
+In a word, I had now five-and-thirty thousand pounds estate; and as I
+found ways to live without wasting either principal or interest, I laid
+up L2000 every year at least out of the mere interest, adding it to the
+principal, and thus I went on.
+
+After the end of what I call my retreat, and out of which I brought a
+great deal of money, I appeared again, but I seemed like an old piece of
+plate that had been hoarded up some years, and comes out tarnished and
+discoloured; so I came out blown, and looked like a cast-off mistress;
+nor, indeed, was I any better, though I was not at all impaired in
+beauty except that I was a little fatter than I was formerly, and always
+granting that I was four years older.
+
+However, I preserved the youth of my temper, was always bright, pleasant
+in company, and agreeable to everybody, or else everybody flattered me;
+and in this condition I came abroad to the world again. And though I was
+not so popular as before, and indeed did not seek it, because I knew it
+could not be, yet I was far from being without company, and that of the
+greatest quality (of subjects I mean), who frequently visited me, and
+sometimes we had meetings for mirth and play at my apartments, where I
+failed not to divert them in the most agreeable manner possible.
+
+Nor could any of them make the least particular application to me, from
+the notion they had of my excessive wealth, which, as they thought,
+placed me above the meanness of a maintenance, and so left no room to
+come easily about me.
+
+But at last I was very handsomely attacked by a person of honour, and
+(which recommended him particularly to me) a person of a very great
+estate. He made a long introduction to me upon the subject of my wealth.
+"Ignorant creature!" said I to myself, considering him as a lord, "was
+there ever woman in the world that could stoop to the baseness of being
+a whore, and was above taking the reward of her vice! No, no, depend
+upon it, if your lordship obtains anything of me, you must pay for it;
+and the notion of my being so rich serves only to make it cost you the
+dearer, seeing you cannot offer a small matter to a woman of L2000 a
+year estate."
+
+After he had harangued upon that subject a good while, and had assured
+me he had no design upon me, that he did not come to make a prize of me,
+or to pick my pocket, which, by the way, I was in no fear of, for I took
+too much care of my money to part with any of it that way, he then
+turned his discourse to the subject of love, a point so ridiculous to me
+without the main thing, I mean the money, that I had no patience to hear
+him make so long a story of it.
+
+I received him civilly, and let him see I could bear to hear a wicked
+proposal without being affronted, and yet I was not to be brought into
+it too easily. He visited me a long while, and, in short, courted me as
+closely and assiduously as if he had been wooing me to matrimony. He
+made me several valuable presents, which I suffered myself to be
+prevailed with to accept, but not without great difficulty.
+
+Gradually I suffered also his other importunities; and when he made a
+proposal of a compliment or appointment to me for a settlement, he said
+that though I was rich, yet there was not the less due from him to
+acknowledge the favours he received; and that if I was to be his I
+should not live at my own expense, cost what it would. I told him I was
+far from being extravagant, and yet I did not live at the expense of
+less than L500 a year out of my own pocket; that, however, I was not
+covetous of settled allowances, for I looked upon that as a kind of
+golden chain, something like matrimony; that though I knew how to be
+true to a man of honour, as I knew his lordship to be, yet I had a kind
+of aversion to the bonds; and though I was not so rich as the world
+talked me up to be, yet I was not so poor as to bind myself to hardships
+for a pension.
+
+He told me he expected to make my life perfectly easy, and intended it
+so; that he knew of no bondage there could be in a private engagement
+between us; that the bonds of honour he knew I would be tied by, and
+think them no burthen; and for other obligations, he scorned to expect
+anything from me but what he knew as a woman of honour I could grant.
+Then as to maintenance, he told me he would soon show me that he valued
+me infinitely above L500 a year, and upon this foot we began.
+
+I seemed kinder to him after this discourse, and as time and private
+conversation made us very intimate, we began to come nearer to the main
+article, namely, the L500 a year. He offered that at first word, and to
+acknowledge it as an infinite favour to have it be accepted of; and I,
+that thought it was too much by all the money, suffered myself to be
+mastered, or prevailed with to yield, even on but a bare engagement upon
+parole.
+
+When he had obtained his end that way, I told him my mind. "Now you
+see, my lord," said I, "how weakly I have acted, namely, to yield to you
+without any capitulation, or anything secured to me but that which you
+may cease to allow when you please. If I am the less valued for such a
+confidence, I shall be injured in a manner that I will endeavour not to
+deserve."
+
+He told me that he would make it evident to me that he did not seek me
+by way of bargain, as such things were often done; that as I had treated
+him with a generous confidence, so I should find I was in the hands of a
+man of honour, and one that knew how to value the obligation; and upon
+this he pulled out a goldsmith's bill for L300, which (putting it into
+my hand), he said, he gave me as a pledge that I should not be a loser
+by my not having made a bargain with him.
+
+This was engaging indeed, and gave me a good idea of our future
+correspondence; and, in short, as I could not refrain treating him with
+more kindness than I had done before, so one thing begetting another, I
+gave him several testimonies that I was entirely his own by inclination
+as well as by the common obligation of a mistress, and this pleased him
+exceedingly.
+
+Soon after this private engagement I began to consider whether it were
+not more suitable to the manner of life I now led to be a little less
+public; and, as I told my lord, it would rid me of the importunities of
+others, and of continual visits from a sort of people who he knew of,
+and who, by the way, having now got the notion of me which I really
+deserved, began to talk of the old game, love and gallantry, and to
+offer at what was rude enough--things as nauseous to me now as if I had
+been married and as virtuous as other people. The visits of these people
+began indeed to be uneasy to me, and particularly as they were always
+very tedious and impertinent; nor could my Lord ---- be pleased with
+them at all if they had gone on. It would be diverting to set down here
+in what manner I repulsed these sort of people; how in some I resented
+it as an affront, and told them that I was sorry they should oblige me
+to vindicate myself from the scandal of such suggestions by telling them
+that I could see them no more, and by desiring them not to give
+themselves the trouble of visiting me, who, though I was not willing to
+be uncivil, yet thought myself obliged never to receive any visit from
+any gentleman after he had made such proposals as those to me. But these
+things would be too tedious to bring in here. It was on this account I
+proposed to his lordship my taking new lodgings for privacy; besides, I
+considered that as I might live very handsomely, and yet not so
+publicly, so I needed not spend so much money by a great deal; and if I
+made L500 a year of this generous person, it was more than I had any
+occasion to spend by a great deal.
+
+My lord came readily into this proposal, and went further than I
+expected, for he found out a lodging for me in a very handsome house,
+where yet he was not known--I suppose he had employed somebody to find
+it out for him--and where he had a convenient way to come into the
+garden by a door that opened into the park, a thing very rarely allowed
+in those times.
+
+By this key he could come in at what time of night or day he pleased;
+and as we had also a little door in the lower part of the house which
+was always left upon a lock, and his was the master-key, so if it was
+twelve, one, or two o'clock at night, he could come directly into my
+bedchamber. _N.B._--I was not afraid I should be found abed with anybody
+else, for, in a word, I conversed with nobody at all.
+
+It happened pleasantly enough one night, his lordship had stayed late,
+and I, not expecting him that night, had taken Amy to bed with me, and
+when my lord came into the chamber we were both fast asleep. I think it
+was near three o'clock when he came in, and a little merry, but not at
+all fuddled or what they call in drink; and he came at once into the
+room.
+
+Amy was frighted out of her wits, and cried out. I said calmly, "Indeed,
+my lord, I did not expect you to-night, and we have been a little
+frighted to-night with fire." "Oh!" says he, "I see you have got a
+bedfellow with you." I began to make an apology. "No, no," says my lord,
+"you need no excuse, 'tis not a man bedfellow, I see;" but then, talking
+merrily enough, he catched his words back: "But, hark ye," says he, "now
+I think on 't, how shall I be satisfied it is not a man bedfellow?"
+"Oh," says I, "I dare say your lordship is satisfied 'tis poor Amy."
+"Yes," says he, "'tis Mrs. Amy; but how do I know what Amy is? it may be
+Mr. Amy for aught I know; I hope you'll give me leave to be satisfied."
+I told him, yes, by all means, I would have his lordship satisfied; but
+I supposed he knew who she was.
+
+Well, he fell foul of poor Amy, and indeed I thought once he would have
+carried the jest on before my face, as was once done in a like case; but
+his lordship was not so hot neither, but he would know whether Amy was
+Mr. Amy or Mrs. Amy, and so, I suppose, he did; and then being satisfied
+in that doubtful case, he walked to the farther end of the room, and
+went into a little closet and sat down.
+
+In the meantime Amy and I got up, and I bid her run and make the bed in
+another chamber for my lord, and I gave her sheets to put into it; which
+she did immediately, and I put my lord to bed there, and when I had
+done, at his desire went to bed to him. I was backward at first to come
+to bed to him, and made my excuse because I had been in bed with Amy,
+and had not shifted me; but he was past those niceties at that time; and
+as long as he was sure it was Mrs. Amy, and not Mr. Amy, he was very
+well satisfied, and so the jest passed over. But Amy appeared no more
+all that night, or the next day, and when she did, my lord was so merry
+with her upon his eclaircissement, as he called it, that Amy did not
+know what to do with herself.
+
+Not that Amy was such a nice lady in the main, if she had been fairly
+dealt with, as has appeared in the former part of this work; but now she
+was surprised, and a little hurried, that she scarce knew where she was;
+and besides, she was, as to his lordship, as nice a lady as any in the
+world, and for anything he knew of her she appeared as such. The rest
+was to us only that knew of it.
+
+I held this wicked scene of life out eight years, reckoning from my
+first coming to England; and though my lord found no fault, yet I found,
+without much examining, that any one who looked in my face might see I
+was above twenty years old; and yet, without flattering myself, I
+carried my age, which was above fifty, very well too.
+
+I may venture to say that no woman ever lived a life like me, of
+six-and-twenty years of wickedness, without the least signals of
+remorse, without any signs of repentance, or without so much as a wish
+to put an end to it; I had so long habituated myself to a life of vice,
+that really it appeared to be no vice to me. I went on smooth and
+pleasant, I wallowed in wealth, and it flowed in upon me at such a rate,
+having taken the frugal measures that the good knight directed, so that
+I had at the end of the eight years two thousand eight hundred pounds
+coming yearly in, of which I did not spend one penny, being maintained
+by my allowance from my Lord ----, and more than maintained by above
+L200 per annum; for though he did not contract for L500 a year, as I
+made dumb signs to have it be, yet he gave me money so often, and that
+in such large parcels, that I had seldom so little as seven to eight
+hundred pounds a year of him, one year with another.
+
+[Illustration: THE DUTCH MERCHANT CALLS ON ROXANA
+
+_"There," says she (ushering him in), "is the person who, I suppose,
+thou inquirest for"_
+
+PAGE 338]
+
+I must go back here, after telling openly the wicked things I did, to
+mention something which, however, had the face of doing good. I
+remembered that when I went from England, which was fifteen years
+before, I had left five little children, turned out as it were to the
+wide world, and to the charity of their father's relations; the eldest
+was not six years old, for we had not been married full seven years when
+their father went away.
+
+After my coming to England I was greatly desirous to hear how things
+stood with them, and whether they were all alive or not, and in what
+manner they had been maintained; and yet I resolved not to discover
+myself to them in the least, or to let any of the people that had the
+breeding of them up know that there was such a body left in the world as
+their mother.
+
+Amy was the only body I could trust with such a commission, and I sent
+her into Spitalfields, to the old aunt and to the poor woman that were
+so instrumental in disposing the relations to take some care of the
+children, but they were both gone, dead and buried some years. The next
+inquiry she made was at the house where she carried the poor children,
+and turned them in at the door. When she came there she found the house
+inhabited by other people, so that she could make little or nothing of
+her inquiries, and came back with an answer that indeed was no answer to
+me, for it gave me no satisfaction at all. I sent her back to inquire in
+the neighbourhood what was become of the family that lived in that
+house; and if they were removed, where they lived, and what
+circumstances they were in; and, withal, if she could, what became of
+the poor children, and how they lived, and where; how they had been
+treated; and the like.
+
+She brought me back word upon this second going, that she heard, as to
+the family, that the husband, who, though but uncle-in-law to the
+children, had yet been kindest to them, was dead; and that the widow was
+left but in mean circumstances--that is to say, she did not want, but
+that she was not so well in the world as she was thought to be when her
+husband was alive; that, as to the poor children, two of them, it seems,
+had been kept by her, that is to say, by her husband, while he lived,
+for that it was against her will, that we all knew; but the honest
+neighbours pitied the poor children, they said, heartily; for that their
+aunt used them barbarously, and made them little better than servants in
+the house to wait upon her and her children, and scarce allowed them
+clothes fit to wear.
+
+These were, it seems, my eldest and third, which were daughters; the
+second was a son, the fourth a daughter, and the youngest a son.
+
+To finish the melancholy part of this history of my two unhappy girls,
+she brought me word that as soon as they were able to go out and get any
+work they went from her, and some said she had turned them out of doors;
+but it seems she had not done so, but she used them so cruelly that they
+left her, and one of them went to service to a neighbour's, a little way
+off, who knew her, an honest, substantial weaver's wife, to whom she was
+chambermaid, and in a little time she took her sister out of the
+Bridewell of her aunt's house, and got her a place too.
+
+This was all melancholy and dull. I sent her then to the weaver's house,
+where the eldest had lived, but found that, her mistress being dead, she
+was gone, and nobody knew there whither she went, only that they heard
+she had lived with a great lady at the other end of the town; but they
+did not know who that lady was.
+
+These inquiries took us up three or four weeks, and I was not one jot
+the better for it, for I could hear nothing to my satisfaction. I sent
+her next to find out the honest man who, as in the beginning of my story
+I observed, made them be entertained, and caused the youngest to be
+fetched from the town where we lived, and where the parish officers had
+taken care of him. This gentleman was still alive; and there she heard
+that my youngest daughter and eldest son was dead also; but that my
+youngest son was alive, and was at that time about seventeen years old,
+and that he was put out apprentice by the kindness and charity of his
+uncle, but to a mean trade, and at which he was obliged to work very
+hard.
+
+Amy was so curious in this part that she went immediately to see him,
+and found him all dirty and hard at work. She had no remembrance at all
+of the youth, for she had not seen him since he was about two years old;
+and it was evident he could have no knowledge of her.
+
+However, she talked with him, and found him a good, sensible, mannerly
+youth; that he knew little of the story of his father or mother, and had
+no view of anything but to work hard for his living; and she did not
+think fit to put any great things into his head, lest it should take him
+off of his business, and perhaps make him turn giddy-headed and be good
+for nothing; but she went and found out that kind man, his benefactor,
+who had put him out, and finding him a plain, well-meaning, honest, and
+kind-hearted man, she opened her tale to him the easier. She made a long
+story, how she had a prodigious kindness for the child, because she had
+the same for his father and mother; told him that she was the
+servant-maid that brought all of them to their aunt's door, and run away
+and left them; that their poor mother wanted bread, and what came of her
+after she would have been glad to know. She added that her circumstances
+had happened to mend in the world, and that, as she was in condition,
+so she was disposed to show some kindness to the children if she could
+find them out.
+
+He received her with all the civility that so kind a proposal demanded,
+gave her an account of what he had done for the child, how he had
+maintained him, fed and clothed him, put him to school, and at last put
+him out to a trade. She said he had indeed been a father to the child.
+"But, sir," says she, "'tis a very laborious, hard-working trade, and he
+is but a thin, weak boy." "That's true," says he; "but the boy chose the
+trade, and I assure you I gave L20 with him, and am to find him clothes
+all his apprenticeship; and as to its being a hard trade," says he,
+"that's the fate of his circumstances, poor boy. I could not well do
+better for him."
+
+"Well, sir, as you did all for him in charity," says she, "it was
+exceeding well; but, as my resolution is to do something for him, I
+desire you will, if possible, take him away again from that place, where
+he works so hard, for I cannot bear to see the child work so very hard
+for his bread, and I will do something for him that shall make him live
+without such hard labour."
+
+He smiled at that. "I can, indeed," says he, "take him away, but then I
+must lose my L20 that I gave with him."
+
+"Well, sir," said Amy, "I'll enable you to lose that L20 immediately;"
+and so she put her hand in her pocket and pulls out her purse.
+
+He begun to be a little amazed at her, and looked her hard in the face,
+and that so very much that she took notice of it, and said, "Sir, I
+fancy by your looking at me you think you know me, but I am assured you
+do not, for I never saw your face before. I think you have done enough
+for the child, and that you ought to be acknowledged as a father to him;
+but you ought not to lose by your kindness to him, more than the
+kindness of bringing him up obliges you to; and therefore there's the
+L20," added she, "and pray let him be fetched away."
+
+"Well, madam," says he, "I will thank you for the boy, as well as for
+myself; but will you please to tell me what I must do with him?"
+
+"Sir," says Amy, "as you have been so kind to keep him so many years, I
+beg you will take him home again one year more, and I'll bring you a
+hundred pounds more, which I will desire you to lay out in schooling and
+clothes for him, and to pay you for his board. Perhaps I may put him in
+a condition to return your kindness."
+
+He looked pleased, but surprised very much, and inquired of Amy, but
+with very great respect, what he should go to school to learn, and what
+trade she would please to put him out to.
+
+Amy said he should put him to learn a little Latin, and then merchants'
+accounts, and to write a good hand, for she would have him be put to a
+Turkey merchant.
+
+"Madam," says he, "I am glad for his sake to hear you talk so; but do
+you know that a Turkey merchant will not take him under L400 or L500?"
+
+"Yes, sir," says Amy, "I know it very well."
+
+"And," says he, "that it will require as many thousands to set him up?"
+
+"Yes, sir," says Amy, "I know that very well too;" and, resolving to
+talk very big, she added, "I have no children of my own, and I resolve
+to make him my heir, and if L10,000 be required to set him up, he shall
+not want it. I was but his mother's servant when he was born, and I
+mourned heartily for the disaster of the family, and I always said, if
+ever I was worth anything in the world, I would take the child for my
+own, and I'll be as good as my word now, though I did not then foresee
+that it would be with me as it has been since." And so Amy told him a
+long story how she was troubled for me, and what she would give to hear
+whether I was dead or alive, and what circumstances I was in; that if
+she could but find me, if I was ever so poor, she would take care of me,
+and make a gentlewoman of me again.
+
+He told her that, as to the child's mother, she had been reduced to the
+last extremity, and was obliged (as he supposed she knew) to send the
+children all among her husband's friends; and if it had not been for
+him, they had all been sent to the parish; but that he obliged the other
+relations to share the charge among them; that he had taken two, whereof
+he had lost the eldest, who died of the smallpox, but that he had been
+as careful of this as of his own, and had made very little difference in
+their breeding up, only that when he came to put him out he thought it
+was best for the boy to put him to a trade which he might set up in
+without a stock, for otherwise his time would be lost; and that as to
+his mother, he had never been able to hear one word of her, no, not
+though he had made the utmost inquiry after her; that there went a
+report that she had drowned herself, but that he could never meet with
+anybody that could give him a certain account of it.
+
+Amy counterfeited a cry for her poor mistress; told him she would give
+anything in the world to see her, if she was alive; and a great deal
+more such-like talk they had about that; then they returned to speak of
+the boy.
+
+He inquired of her why she did not seek after the child before, that he
+might have been brought up from a younger age, suitable to what she
+designed to do for him.
+
+She told him she had been out of England, and was but newly returned
+from the East Indies. That she had been out of England, and was but
+newly returned, was true, but the latter was false, and was put in to
+blind him, and provide against farther inquiries; for it was not a
+strange thing for young women to go away poor to the East Indies, and
+come home vastly rich. So she went on with directions about him, and
+both agreed in this, that the boy should by no means be told what was
+intended for him, but only that he should be taken home again to his
+uncle's, that his uncle thought the trade too hard for him, and the
+like.
+
+About three days after this Amy goes again, and carried him the hundred
+pounds she promised him, but then Amy made quite another figure than she
+did before; for she went in my coach, with two footmen after her, and
+dressed very fine also, with jewels and a gold watch; and there was
+indeed no great difficulty to make Amy look like a lady, for she was a
+very handsome, well-shaped woman, and genteel enough. The coachman and
+servants were particularly ordered to show her the same respect as they
+would to me, and to call her Madam Collins, if they were asked any
+questions about her.
+
+When the gentleman saw what a figure she made it added to the former
+surprise, and he entertained her in the most respectful manner possible,
+congratulated her advancement in fortune, and particularly rejoiced that
+it should fall to the poor child's lot to be so provided for, contrary
+to all expectation.
+
+Well, Amy talked big, but very free and familiar, told them she had no
+pride in her good fortune (and that was true enough, for, to give Amy
+her due, she was far from it, and was as good-humoured a creature as
+ever lived); that she was the same as ever; and that she always loved
+this boy, and was resolved to do something extraordinary for him.
+
+Then she pulled out her money, and paid him down a hundred and twenty
+pounds, which, she said, she paid him that he might be sure he should
+be no loser by taking him home again, and that she would come and see
+him again, and talk farther about things with him, so that all might be
+settled for him, in such a manner as accidents, such as mortality, or
+anything else, should make no alteration to the child's prejudice.
+
+At this meeting the uncle brought his wife out, a good, motherly,
+comely, grave woman, who spoke very tenderly of the youth, and, as it
+appeared, had been very good to him, though she had several children of
+her own. After a long discourse, she put in a word of her own. "Madam,"
+says she, "I am heartily glad of the good intentions you have for this
+poor orphan, and I rejoice sincerely in it for his sake; but, madam, you
+know, I suppose, that there are two sisters alive too; may we not speak
+a word for them? Poor girls," says she, "they have not been so kindly
+used as he has, and are turned out to the wide world."
+
+"Where are they, madam?" says Amy.
+
+"Poor creatures," says the gentlewoman, "they are out at service, nobody
+knows where but themselves; their case is very hard."
+
+"Well, madam," says Amy, "though if I could find them I would assist
+them, yet my concern is for my boy, as I call him, and I will put him
+into a condition to take care of his sisters."
+
+"But, madam," says the good, compassionate creature, "he may not be so
+charitable perhaps by his own inclination, for brothers are not
+fathers, and they have been cruelly used already, poor girls; we have
+often relieved them, both with victuals and clothes too, even while they
+were pretended to be kept by their barbarous aunt."
+
+"Well, madam," says Amy, "what can I do for them? They are gone, it
+seems, and cannot be heard of. When I see them 'tis time enough."
+
+She pressed Amy then to oblige their brother, out of the plentiful
+fortune he was like to have, to do something for his sisters when he
+should be able.
+
+Amy spoke coldly of that still, but said she would consider of it; and
+so they parted for that time. They had several meetings after this, for
+Amy went to see her adopted son, and ordered his schooling, clothes, and
+other things, but enjoined them not to tell the young man anything, but
+that they thought the trade he was at too hard for him, and they would
+keep him at home a little longer, and give him some schooling to fit him
+for other business; and Amy appeared to him as she did before, only as
+one that had known his mother and had some kindness for him.
+
+Thus this matter passed on for near a twelvemonth, when it happened that
+one of my maid-servants having asked Amy leave (for Amy was mistress of
+the servants, and took and put out such as she pleased)--I say, having
+asked leave to go into the city to see her friends, came home crying
+bitterly, and in a most grievous agony she was, and continued so
+several days till Amy, perceiving the excess, and that the maid would
+certainly cry herself sick, she took an opportunity with her and
+examined her about it.
+
+The maid told her a long story, that she had been to see her brother,
+the only brother she had in the world, and that she knew he was put out
+apprentice to a ----; but there had come a lady in a coach to his uncle
+----, who had brought him up, and made him take him home again; and so
+the wench run on with the whole story just as 'tis told above, till she
+came to that part that belonged to herself. "And there," says she, "I
+had not let them know where I lived, and the lady would have taken me,
+and, they say, would have provided for me too, as she has done for my
+brother; but nobody could tell where to find me, and so I have lost it
+all, and all the hopes of being anything but a poor servant all my
+days;" and then the girl fell a-crying again.
+
+Amy said, "What's all this story? Who could this lady be? It must be
+some trick, sure." "No," she said, "it was not a trick, for she had made
+them take her brother home from apprentice, and bought him new clothes,
+and put him to have more learning; and the gentlewoman said she would
+make him her heir."
+
+"Her heir!" says Amy. "What does that amount to? It may be she had
+nothing to leave him; she might make anybody her heir."
+
+"No, no,"' says the girl; "she came in a fine coach and horses, and I
+don't know how many footmen to attend her, and brought a great bag of
+gold and gave it to my uncle ----, he that brought up my brother, to buy
+him clothes and to pay for his schooling and board."
+
+"He that brought up your brother?" says Amy. "Why, did not he bring you
+up too as well as your brother? Pray who brought you up, then?"
+
+Here the poor girl told a melancholy story, how an aunt had brought up
+her and her sister, and how barbarously she had used them, as we have
+heard.
+
+By this time Amy had her head full enough, and her heart too, and did
+not know how to hold it, or what to do, for she was satisfied that this
+was no other than my own daughter, for she told her all the history of
+her father and mother, and how she was carried by their maid to her
+aunt's door, just as is related in the beginning of my story.
+
+Amy did not tell me this story for a great while, nor did she well know
+what course to take in it; but as she had authority to manage everything
+in the family, she took occasion some time after, without letting me
+know anything of it, to find some fault with the maid and turn her away.
+
+Her reasons were good, though at first I was not pleased when I heard of
+it, but I was convinced afterwards that she was in the right, for if she
+had told me of it I should have been in great perplexity between the
+difficulty of concealing myself from my own child and the inconvenience
+of having my way of living be known among my first husband's relations,
+and even to my husband himself; for as to his being dead at Paris, Amy,
+seeing me resolved against marrying any more, had told me that she had
+formed that story only to make me easy when I was in Holland if anything
+should offer to my liking.
+
+However, I was too tender a mother still, notwithstanding what I had
+done, to let this poor girl go about the world drudging, as it were, for
+bread, and slaving at the fire and in the kitchen as a cook-maid;
+besides, it came into my head that she might perhaps marry some poor
+devil of a footman, or a coachman, or some such thing, and be undone
+that way, or, which was worse, be drawn in to lie with some of that
+coarse, cursed kind, and be with child, and be utterly ruined that way;
+and in the midst of all my prosperity this gave me great uneasiness.
+
+As to sending Amy to her, there was no doing that now, for, as she had
+been servant in the house, she knew Amy as well as Amy knew me; and no
+doubt, though I was much out of her sight, yet she might have had the
+curiosity to have peeped at me, and seen me enough to know me again if I
+had discovered myself to her; so that, in short, there was nothing to be
+done that way.
+
+However, Amy, a diligent indefatigable creature, found out another
+woman, and gave her her errand, and sent her to the honest man's house
+in Spitalfields, whither she supposed the girl would go after she was
+out of her place; and bade her talk with her, and tell her at a distance
+that as something had been done for her brother, so something would be
+done for her too; and, that she should not be discouraged, she carried
+her L20 to buy her clothes, and bid her not go to service any more, but
+think of other things; that she should take a lodging in some good
+family, and that she should soon hear farther.
+
+The girl was overjoyed with this news, you may be sure, and at first a
+little too much elevated with it, and dressed herself very handsomely
+indeed, and as soon as she had done so came and paid a visit to Madam
+Amy, to let her see how fine she was. Amy congratulated her, and wished
+it might be all as she expected, but admonished her not to be elevated
+with it too much; told her humility was the best ornament of a
+gentlewoman, and a great deal of good advice she gave her, but
+discovered nothing.
+
+All this was acted in the first years of my setting up my new figure
+here in town, and while the masks and balls were in agitation; and Amy
+carried on the affair of setting out my son into the world, which we
+were assisted in by the sage advice of my faithful counsellor, Sir
+Robert Clayton, who procured us a master for him, by whom he was
+afterwards sent abroad to Italy, as you shall hear in its place; and Amy
+managed my daughter too very well, though by a third hand.
+
+My amour with my Lord ---- began now to draw to an end, and indeed,
+notwithstanding his money, it had lasted so long that I was much more
+sick of his lordship than he could be of me. He grew old and fretful,
+and captious, and I must add, which made the vice itself begin to grow
+surfeiting and nauseous to me, he grew worse and wickeder the older he
+grew, and that to such degree as is not fit to write of, and made me so
+weary of him that upon one of his capricious humours, which he often
+took occasion to trouble me with, I took occasion to be much less
+complaisant to him than I used to be; and as I knew him to be hasty, I
+first took care to put him into a little passion, and then to resent it,
+and this brought us to words, in which I told him I thought he grew sick
+of me; and he answered in a heat that truly so he was. I answered that I
+found his lordship was endeavouring to make me sick too; that I had met
+with several such rubs from him of late, and that he did not use me as
+he used to do, and I begged his lordship he would make himself easy.
+This I spoke with an air of coldness and indifference such as I knew he
+could not bear; but I did not downright quarrel with him and tell him I
+was sick of him too, and desire him to quit me, for I knew that would
+come of itself; besides, I had received a great deal of handsome usage
+from him, and I was loth to have the breach be on my side, that he might
+not be able to say I was ungrateful.
+
+[Illustration: THE AMOUR DRAWS TO AN END
+
+_I told him I thought he grew sick of me; and he answered in a heat that
+truly so he was_]
+
+But he put the occasion into my hands, for he came no more to me for two
+months; indeed I expected a fit of absence, for such I had had several
+times before, but not for above a fortnight or three weeks at most;
+but after I had stayed a month, which was longer than ever he kept away
+yet, I took a new method with him, for I was resolved now it should be
+in my power to continue or not, as I thought fit. At the end of a month,
+therefore, I removed, and took lodgings at Kensington Gravel Pits, at
+that part next to the road to Acton, and left nobody in my lodgings but
+Amy and a footman, with proper instructions how to behave when his
+lordship, being come to himself, should think fit to come again, which I
+knew he would.
+
+About the end of two months, he came in the dusk of the evening as
+usual. The footman answered him, and told him his lady was not at home,
+but there was Mrs. Amy above; so he did not order her to be called down,
+but went upstairs into the dining-room, and Mrs. Amy came to him. He
+asked where I was. "My lord," said she, "my mistress has been removed a
+good while from hence, and lives at Kensington." "Ah, Mrs. Amy! how came
+you to be here, then?" "My lord," said she, "we are here till the
+quarter-day, because the goods are not removed, and to give answers if
+any comes to ask for my lady." "Well, and what answer are you to give to
+me?" "Indeed, my lord," says Amy, "I have no particular answer to your
+lordship, but to tell you and everybody else where my lady lives, that
+they may not think she's run away." "No, Mrs. Amy," says he, "I don't
+think she's run away; but, indeed, I can't go after her so far as
+that." Amy said nothing to that, but made a courtesy, and said she
+believed I would be there again for a week or two in a little time. "How
+little time, Mrs Amy?" says my lord. "She comes next Tuesday," says Amy.
+"Very well," says my lord; "I'll call and see her then;" and so he went
+away.
+
+Accordingly I came on the Tuesday, and stayed a fortnight, but he came
+not; so I went back to Kensington, and after that I had very few of his
+lordship's visits, which I was very glad of, and in a little time after
+was more glad of it than I was at first, and upon a far better account
+too.
+
+For now I began not to be sick of his lordship only, but really I began
+to be sick of the vice; and as I had good leisure now to divert and
+enjoy myself in the world as much as it was possible for any woman to do
+that ever lived in it, so I found that my judgment began to prevail upon
+me to fix my delight upon nobler objects than I had formerly done, and
+the very beginning of this brought some just reflections upon me
+relating to things past, and to the former manner of my living; and
+though there was not the least hint in all this from what may be called
+religion or conscience, and far from anything of repentance, or anything
+that was akin to it, especially at first, yet the sense of things, and
+the knowledge I had of the world, and the vast variety of scenes that I
+had acted my part in, began to work upon my senses, and it came so very
+strong upon my mind one morning when I had been lying awake some time
+in my bed, as if somebody had asked me the question, What was I a whore
+for now? It occurred naturally upon this inquiry, that at first I
+yielded to the importunity of my circumstances, the misery of which the
+devil dismally aggravated, to draw me to comply; for I confess I had
+strong natural aversions to the crime at first, partly owing to a
+virtuous education, and partly to a sense of religion; but the devil,
+and that greater devil of poverty, prevailed; and the person who laid
+siege to me did it in such an obliging, and I may almost say
+irresistible, manner, all still managed by the evil spirit; for I must
+be allowed to believe that he has a share in all such things, if not the
+whole management of them. But, I say, it was carried on by that person
+in such an irresistible manner that, as I said when I related the fact,
+there was no withstanding it; these circumstances, I say, the devil
+managed not only to bring me to comply, but he continued them as
+arguments to fortify my mind against all reflection, and to keep me in
+that horrid course I had engaged in, as if it were honest and lawful.
+
+But not to dwell upon that now; this was a pretence, and here was
+something to be said, though I acknowledge it ought not to have been
+sufficient to me at all; but, I say, to leave that, all this was out of
+doors; the devil himself could not form one argument, or put one reason
+into my head now, that could serve for an answer--no, not so much as a
+pretended answer to this question, why I should be a whore now.
+
+It had for a while been a little kind of excuse to me that I was engaged
+with this wicked old lord, and that I could not in honour forsake him;
+but how foolish and absurd did it look to repeat the word "honour" on so
+vile an occasion! as if a woman should prostitute her honour in point of
+honour--horrid inconsistency! Honour called upon me to detest the crime
+and the man too, and to have resisted all the attacks which, from the
+beginning, had been made upon my virtue; and honour, had it been
+consulted, would have preserved me honest from the beginning:
+
+     "For 'honesty' and 'honour' are the same."
+
+This, however, shows us with what faint excuses and with what trifles we
+pretend to satisfy ourselves, and suppress the attempts of conscience,
+in the pursuit of agreeable crime, and in the possessing those pleasures
+which we are loth to part with.
+
+But this objection would now serve no longer, for my lord had in some
+sort broke his engagements (I won't call it honour again) with me, and
+had so far slighted me as fairly to justify my entire quitting of him
+now; and so, as the objection was fully answered, the question remained
+still unanswered, Why am I a whore now? Nor indeed had I anything to say
+for myself, even to myself; I could not without blushing, as wicked as I
+was, answer that I loved it for the sake of the vice, and that I
+delighted in being a whore, as such; I say, I could not say this, even
+to myself, and all alone, nor indeed would it have been true. I was
+never able, in justice and with truth, to say I was so wicked as that;
+but as necessity first debauched me, and poverty made me a whore at the
+beginning, so excess of avarice for getting money and excess of vanity
+continued me in the crime, not being able to resist the flatteries of
+great persons; being called the finest woman in France; being caressed
+by a prince; and afterwards, I had pride enough to expect and folly
+enough to believe, though indeed without ground, by a great monarch.
+These were my baits, these the chains by which the devil held me bound,
+and by which I was indeed too fast held for any reasoning that I was
+then mistress of to deliver me from.
+
+But this was all over now; avarice could have no pretence. I was out of
+the reach of all that fate could be supposed to do to reduce me; now I
+was so far from poor, or the danger of it, that I had L50,000 in my
+pocket at least; nay, I had the income of L50,000, for I had L2500 a
+year coming in upon very good land security, besides three or four
+thousand pounds in money, which I kept by me for ordinary occasions,
+and, besides, jewels, and plate, and goods which were worth near L5600
+more; these put together, when I ruminated on it all in my thoughts, as
+you may be sure I did often, added weight still to the question, as
+above, and it sounded continually in my head, "What next? What am I a
+whore for now?"
+
+It is true this was, as I say, seldom out of my thoughts, but yet it
+made no impressions upon me of that kind which might be expected from a
+reflection of so important a nature, and which had so much of substance
+and seriousness in it.
+
+But, however, it was not without some little consequences, even at that
+time, and which gave a little turn to my way of living at first, as you
+shall hear in its place.
+
+But one particular thing intervened besides this which gave me some
+uneasiness at this time, and made way for other things that followed. I
+have mentioned in several little digressions the concern I had upon me
+for my children, and in what manner I had directed that affair; I must
+go on a little with that part, in order to bring the subsequent parts of
+my story together.
+
+My boy, the only son I had left that I had a legal right to call "son,"
+was, as I have said, rescued from the unhappy circumstances of being
+apprentice to a mechanic, and was brought up upon a new foot; but though
+this was infinitely to his advantage, yet it put him back near three
+years in his coming into this world; for he had been near a year at the
+drudgery he was first put to, and it took up two years more to form him
+for what he had hopes given him he should hereafter be, so that he was
+full nineteen years old, or rather twenty years, before he came to be
+put out as I intended; at the end of which time I put him to a very
+flourishing Italian merchant, and he again sent him to Messina, in the
+island of Sicily; and a little before the juncture I am now speaking of
+I had letters from him--that is to say, Mrs. Amy had letters from him,
+intimating that he was out of his time, and that he had an opportunity
+to be taken into an English house there, on very good terms, if his
+support from hence might answer what he was bid to hope for; and so
+begged that what would be done for him might be so ordered that he might
+have it for his present advancement, referring for the particulars to
+his master, the merchant in London, who he had been put apprentice to
+here; who, to cut the story short, gave such a satisfactory account of
+it, and of my young man, to my steady and faithful counsellor, Sir
+Robert Clayton, that I made no scruple to pay L4000, which was L1000
+more than he demanded, or rather proposed, that he might have
+encouragement to enter into the world better than he expected.
+
+His master remitted the money very faithfully to him; and finding, by
+Sir Robert Clayton, that the young gentleman--for so he called him--was
+well supported, wrote such letters on his account as gave him a credit
+at Messina equal in value to the money itself.
+
+I could not digest it very well that I should all this while conceal
+myself thus from my own child, and make all this favour due, in his
+opinion, to a stranger; and yet I could not find in my heart to let my
+son know what a mother he had, and what a life she lived; when, at the
+same time that he must think himself infinitely obliged to me, he must
+be obliged, if he was a man of virtue, to hate his mother, and abhor the
+way of living by which all the bounty he enjoyed was raised.
+
+This is the reason of mentioning this part of my son's story, which is
+otherwise no ways concerned in my history, but as it put me upon
+thinking how to put an end to that wicked course I was in, that my own
+child, when he should afterwards come to England in a good figure, and
+with the appearance of a merchant, should not be ashamed to own me.
+
+But there was another difficulty, which lay heavier upon me a great
+deal, and that was my daughter, who, as before, I had relieved by the
+hands of another instrument, which Amy had procured. The girl, as I have
+mentioned, was directed to put herself into a good garb, take lodgings,
+and entertain a maid to wait upon her, and to give herself some
+breeding--that is to say, to learn to dance, and fit herself to appear
+as a gentlewoman; being made to hope that she should, some time or
+other, find that she should be put into a condition to support her
+character, and to make herself amends for all her former troubles. She
+was only charged not to be drawn into matrimony till she was secured of
+a fortune that might assist to dispose of herself suitable not to what
+she then was, but what she was to be.
+
+The girl was too sensible of her circumstances not to give all possible
+satisfaction of that kind, and indeed she was mistress of too much
+understanding not to see how much she should be obliged to that part for
+her own interest.
+
+It was not long after this, but being well equipped, and in everything
+well set out, as she was directed, she came, as I have related above,
+and paid a visit to Mrs. Amy, and to tell her of her good fortune. Amy
+pretended to be much surprised at the alteration, and overjoyed for her
+sake, and began to treat her very well, entertained her handsomely, and
+when she would have gone away, pretended to ask my leave, and sent my
+coach home with her; and, in short, learning from her where she lodged,
+which was in the city, Amy promised to return her visit, and did so;
+and, in a word, Amy and Susan (for she was my own name) began an
+intimate acquaintance together.
+
+There was an inexpressible difficulty in the poor girl's way, or else I
+should not have been able to have forborne discovering myself to her,
+and this was, her having been a servant in my particular family; and I
+could by no means think of ever letting the children know what a kind of
+creature they owed their being to, or giving them an occasion to upbraid
+their mother with her scandalous life, much less to justify the like
+practice from my example.
+
+Thus it was with me; and thus, no doubt, considering parents always find
+it that their own children are a restraint to them in their worst
+courses, when the sense of a superior power has not the same influence.
+But of that hereafter.
+
+There happened, however, one good circumstance in the case of this poor
+girl, which brought about a discovery sooner than otherwise it would
+have been, and it was thus. After she and Amy had been intimate for some
+time, and had exchanged several visits, the girl, now grown a woman,
+talking to Amy of the gay things that used to fall out when she was
+servant in my family, spoke of it with a kind of concern that she could
+not see (me) her lady; and at last she adds, "'Twas very strange,
+madam," says she to Amy, "but though I lived near two years in the
+house, I never saw my mistress in my life, except it was that public
+night when she danced in the fine Turkish habit, and then she was so
+disguised that I knew nothing of her afterwards."
+
+Amy was glad to hear this, but as she was a cunning girl from the
+beginning, she was not to be bit, and so she laid no stress upon that at
+first, but gave me an account of it; and I must confess it gave me a
+secret joy to think that I was not known to her, and that, by virtue of
+that only accident, I might, when other circumstances made room for it,
+discover myself to her, and let her know she had a mother in a condition
+fit to be owned.
+
+It was a dreadful restraint to me before, and this gave me some very sad
+reflections, and made way for the great question I have mentioned above;
+and by how much the circumstance was bitter to me, by so much the more
+agreeable it was to understand that the girl had never seen me, and
+consequently did not know me again if she was to be told who I was.
+
+However, the next time she came to visit Amy, I was resolved to put it
+to a trial, and to come into the room and let her see me, and to see by
+that whether she knew me or not; but Amy put me by, lest indeed, as
+there was reason enough to question, I should not be able to contain or
+forbear discovering myself to her; so it went off for that time.
+
+But both these circumstances, and that is the reason of mentioning them,
+brought me to consider of the life I lived, and to resolve to put myself
+into some figure of life in which I might not be scandalous to my own
+family, and be afraid to make myself known to my own children, who were
+my own flesh and blood.
+
+There was another daughter I had, which, with all our inquiries, we
+could not hear of, high nor low, for several years after the first. But
+I return to my own story.
+
+Being now in part removed from my old station, I seemed to be in a fair
+way of retiring from my old acquaintances, and consequently from the
+vile, abominable trade I had driven so long; so that the door seemed to
+be, as it were, particularly open to my reformation, if I had any mind
+to it in earnest; but, for all that, some of my old friends, as I had
+used to call them, inquired me out, and came to visit me at Kensington,
+and that more frequently than I wished they would do; but it being once
+known where I was, there was no avoiding it, unless I would have
+downright refused and affronted them; and I was not yet in earnest
+enough with my resolutions to go that length.
+
+The best of it was, my old lewd favourite, who I now heartily hated,
+entirely dropped me. He came once to visit me, but I caused Amy to deny
+me, and say I was gone out. She did it so oddly, too, that when his
+lordship went away, he said coldly to her, "Well, well, Mrs. Amy, I find
+your mistress does not desire to be seen; tell her I won't trouble her
+any more," repeating the words "any more" two or three times over, just
+at his going away.
+
+I reflected a little on it at first as unkind to him, having had so many
+considerable presents from him, but, as I have said, I was sick of him,
+and that on some accounts which, if I could suffer myself to publish
+them, would fully justify my conduct. But that part of the story will
+not bear telling, so I must leave it, and proceed.
+
+I had begun a little, as I have said above, to reflect upon my manner of
+living, and to think of putting a new face upon it, and nothing moved me
+to it more than the consideration of my having three children, who were
+now grown up; and yet that while I was in that station of life I could
+not converse with them or make myself known to them; and this gave me a
+great deal of uneasiness. At last I entered into talk on this part of it
+with my woman Amy.
+
+We lived at Kensington, as I have said, and though I had done with my
+old wicked l----, as above, yet I was frequently visited, as I said, by
+some others; so that, in a word, I began to be known in the town, not by
+name only, but by my character too, which was worse.
+
+It was one morning when Amy was in bed with me, and I had some of my
+dullest thoughts about me, that Amy, hearing me sigh pretty often, asked
+me if I was not well. "Yes, Amy, I am well enough," says I, "but my mind
+is oppressed with heavy thoughts, and has been so a good while;" and
+then I told her how it grieved me that I could not make myself known to
+my own children, or form any acquaintances in the world. "Why so?" says
+Amy. "Why, prithee, Amy," says I, "what will my children say to
+themselves, and to one another, when they find their mother, however
+rich she may be, is at best but a whore, a common whore? And as for
+acquaintance, prithee, Amy, what sober lady or what family of any
+character will visit or be acquainted with a whore?"
+
+"Why, all that's true, madam," says Amy; "but how can it be remedied
+now?" "'Tis true, Amy," said I, "the thing cannot be remedied now, but
+the scandal of it, I fancy, may be thrown off."
+
+"Truly," says Amy, "I do not see how, unless you will go abroad again,
+and live in some other nation where nobody has known us or seen us, so
+that they cannot say they ever saw us before."
+
+That very thought of Amy put what follows into my head, and I returned,
+"Why, Amy," says I, "is it not possible for me to shift my being from
+this part of the town and go and live in another part of the city, or
+another part of the country, and be as entirely concealed as if I had
+never been known?"
+
+"Yes," says Amy, "I believe it might; but then you must put off all your
+equipages and servants, coaches and horses, change your liveries--nay,
+your own clothes, and, if it was possible, your very face."
+
+"Well," says I, "and that's the way, Amy, and that I'll do, and that
+forthwith; for I am not able to live in this manner any longer." Amy
+came into this with a kind of pleasure particular to herself--that is to
+say, with an eagerness not to be resisted; for Amy was apt to be
+precipitant in her motions, and was for doing it immediately. "Well,"
+says I, "Amy, as soon as you will; but what course must we take to do
+it? We cannot put off servants, and coach and horses, and everything,
+leave off housekeeping, and transform ourselves into a new shape all in
+a moment; servants must have warning, and the goods must be sold off,
+and a thousand things;" and this began to perplex us, and in particular
+took us up two or three days' consideration.
+
+At last Amy, who was a clever manager in such cases, came to me with a
+scheme, as she called it. "I have found it out, madam," says she, "I
+have found a scheme how you shall, if you have a mind to it, begin and
+finish a perfect entire change of your figure and circumstances in one
+day, and shall be as much unknown, madam, in twenty-four hours, as you
+would be in so many years."
+
+"Come, Amy," says I, "let us hear of it, for you please me mightily with
+the thoughts of it." "Why, then," says Amy, "let me go into the city
+this afternoon, and I'll inquire out some honest, plain sober family,
+where I will take lodgings for you, as for a country gentlewoman that
+desires to be in London for about half a year, and to board yourself and
+a kinswoman--that is, half a servant, half a companion, meaning myself;
+and so agree with them by the month. To this lodging (if I hit upon one
+to your mind) you may go to-morrow morning in a hackney-coach, with
+nobody but me, and leave such clothes and linen as you think fit, but,
+to be sure, the plainest you have; and then you are removed at once; you
+never need set your foot in this house again" (meaning where we then
+were), "or see anybody belonging to it. In the meantime I'll let the
+servants know that you are going over to Holland upon extraordinary
+business, and will leave off your equipages, and so I'll give them
+warning, or, if they will accept of it, give them a month's wages. Then
+I'll sell off your furniture as well as I can. As to your coach, it is
+but having it new painted and the lining changed, and getting new
+harness and hammercloths, and you may keep it still or dispose of it as
+you think fit. And only take care to let this lodging be in some remote
+part of the town, and you may be as perfectly unknown as if you had
+never been in England in your life."
+
+This was Amy's scheme, and it pleased me so well that I resolved not
+only to let her go, but was resolved to go with her myself; but Amy put
+me off of that, because, she said, she should have occasion to hurry up
+and down so long that if I was with her it would rather hinder than
+further her, so I waived it.
+
+In a word, Amy went, and was gone five long hours; but when she came
+back I could see by her countenance that her success had been suitable
+to her pains, for she came laughing and gaping. "O madam!" says she, "I
+have pleased you to the life;" and with that she tells me how she had
+fixed upon a house in a court in the Minories; that she was directed to
+it merely by accident; that it was a female family, the master of the
+house being gone to New England, and that the woman had four children,
+kept two maids, and lived very handsomely, but wanted company to divert
+her; and that on that very account she had agreed to take boarders.
+
+Amy agreed for a good, handsome price, because she was resolved I should
+be used well; so she bargained to give her L35 for the half-year, and
+L50 if we took a maid, leaving that to my choice; and that we might be
+satisfied we should meet with nothing very gay, the people were Quakers,
+and I liked them the better.
+
+I was so pleased that I resolved to go with Amy the next day to see the
+lodgings, and to see the woman of the house, and see how I liked them;
+but if I was pleased with the general, I was much more pleased with the
+particulars, for the gentlewoman--I must call her so, though she was a
+Quaker--was a most courteous, obliging, mannerly person, perfectly
+well-bred and perfectly well-humoured, and, in short, the most agreeable
+conversation that ever I met with; and, which was worth all, so grave,
+and yet so pleasant and so merry, that 'tis scarcely possible for me to
+express how I was pleased and delighted with her company; and
+particularly, I was so pleased that I would go away no more; so I e'en
+took up my lodging there the very first night.
+
+In the meantime, though it took up Amy almost a month so entirely to put
+off all the appearances of housekeeping, as above, it need take me up no
+time to relate it; 'tis enough to say that Amy quitted all that part of
+the world and came pack and package to me, and here we took up our
+abode.
+
+I was now in a perfect retreat indeed, remote from the eyes of all that
+ever had seen me, and as much out of the way of being ever seen or heard
+of by any of the gang that used to follow me as if I had been among the
+mountains in Lancashire; for when did a blue garter or a coach-and-six
+come into a little narrow passage in the Minories or Goodman's Fields?
+And as there was no fear of them, so really I had no desire to see them,
+or so much as to hear from them any more as long as I lived.
+
+I seemed in a little hurry while Amy came and went so every day at
+first, but when that was over I lived here perfectly retired, and with a
+most pleasant and agreeable lady; I must call her so, for, though a
+Quaker, she had a full share of good breeding, sufficient to her if she
+had been a duchess; in a word, she was the most agreeable creature in
+her conversation, as I said before, that ever I met with.
+
+I pretended, after I had been there some time, to be extremely in love
+with the dress of the Quakers, and this pleased her so much that she
+would needs dress me up one day in a suit of her own clothes; but my
+real design was to see whether it would pass upon me for a disguise.
+
+Amy was struck with the novelty, though I had not mentioned my design to
+her, and when the Quaker was gone out of the room says Amy, "I guess
+your meaning; it is a perfect disguise to you. Why, you look quite
+another body; I should not have known you myself. Nay," says Amy, "more
+than that, it makes you look ten years younger than you did."
+
+Nothing could please me better than that, and when Amy repeated it, I
+was so fond of it that I asked my Quaker (I won't call her landlady;
+'tis indeed too coarse a word for her, and she deserved a much
+better)--I say, I asked her if she would sell it. I told her I was so
+fond of it that I would give her enough to buy her a better suit. She
+declined it at first, but I soon perceived that it was chiefly in good
+manners, because I should not dishonour myself, as she called it, to put
+on her old clothes; but if I pleased to accept of them, she would give
+me them for my dressing-clothes, and go with me, and buy a suit for me
+that might be better worth my wearing.
+
+But as I conversed in a very frank, open manner with her, I bid her do
+the like with me; that I made no scruples of such things, but that if
+she would let me have them I would satisfy her. So she let me know what
+they cost, and to make her amends I gave her three guineas more than
+they cost her.
+
+This good (though unhappy) Quaker had the misfortune to have had a bad
+husband, and he was gone beyond sea. She had a good house, and well
+furnished, and had some jointure of her own estate which supported her
+and her children, so that she did not want; but she was not at all above
+such a help as my being there was to her; so she was as glad of me as I
+was of her.
+
+However, as I knew there was no way to fix this new acquaintance like
+making myself a friend to her, I began with making her some handsome
+presents and the like to her children. And first, opening my bundles one
+day in my chamber, I heard her in another room, and called her in with a
+kind of familiar way. There I showed her some of my fine clothes, and
+having among the rest of my things a piece of very fine new holland,
+which I had bought a little before, worth about 9s. an ell, I pulled it
+out: "Here, my friend," says I, "I will make you a present, if you will
+accept of it;" and with that I laid the piece of Holland in her lap.
+
+I could see she was surprised, and that she could hardly speak. "What
+dost thou mean?" says she. "Indeed I cannot have the face to accept so
+fine a present as this;" adding, "'Tis fit for thy own use, but 'tis
+above my wear, indeed." I thought she had meant she must not wear it so
+fine because she was a Quaker. So I returned, "Why, do not you Quakers
+wear fine linen neither?" "Yes," says she, "we wear fine linen when we
+can afford it, but this is too good for me." However, I made her take
+it, and she was very thankful too. But my end was answered another way,
+for by this I engaged her so, that as I found her a woman of
+understanding, and of honesty too, I might, upon any occasion, have a
+confidence in her, which was, indeed, what I very much wanted.
+
+By accustoming myself to converse with her, I had not only learned to
+dress like a Quaker, but so used myself to "thee" and "thou" that I
+talked like a Quaker too, as readily and naturally as if I had been born
+among them; and, in a word, I passed for a Quaker among all people that
+did not know me. I went but little abroad, but I had been so used to a
+coach that I knew not how well to go without one; besides, I thought it
+would be a farther disguise to me, so I told my Quaker friend one day
+that I thought I lived too close, that I wanted air. She proposed
+taking a hackney-coach sometimes, or a boat; but I told her I had always
+had a coach of my own till now, and I could find in my heart to have one
+again.
+
+She seemed to think it strange at first, considering how close I lived,
+but had nothing to say when she found I did not value the expense; so,
+in short, I resolved I would have a coach. When we came to talk of
+equipages, she extolled the having all things plain. I said so too; so I
+left it to her direction, and a coachmaker was sent for, and he provided
+me a plain coach, no gilding or painting, lined with a light grey cloth,
+and my coachman had a coat of the same, and no lace on his hat.
+
+When all was ready I dressed myself in the dress I bought of her, and
+said, "Come, I'll be a Quaker to-day, and you and I'll go abroad;" which
+we did, and there was not a Quaker in the town looked less like a
+counterfeit than I did. But all this was my particular plot, to be the
+more completely concealed, and that I might depend upon being not known,
+and yet need not be confined like a prisoner and be always in fear; so
+that all the rest was grimace.
+
+We lived here very easy and quiet, and yet I cannot say I was so in my
+mind; I was like a fish out of water. I was as gay and as young in my
+disposition as I was at five-and-twenty; and as I had always been
+courted, flattered, and used to love it, so I missed it in my
+conversation; and this put me many times upon looking back upon things
+past.
+
+I had very few moments in my life which, in their reflection, afforded
+me anything but regret: but of all the foolish actions I had to look
+back upon in my life, none looked so preposterous and so like
+distraction, nor left so much melancholy on my mind, as my parting with
+my friend, the merchant of Paris, and the refusing him upon such
+honourable and just conditions as he had offered; and though on his just
+(which I called unkind) rejecting my invitation to come to him again, I
+had looked on him with some disgust, yet now my mind run upon him
+continually, and the ridiculous conduct of my refusing him, and I could
+never be satisfied about him. I flattered myself that if I could but see
+him I could yet master him, and that he would presently forget all that
+had passed that might be thought unkind; but as there was no room to
+imagine anything like that to be possible, I threw those thoughts off
+again as much as I could.
+
+However, they continually returned, and I had no rest night or day for
+thinking of him, who I had forgot above eleven years. I told Amy of it,
+and we talked it over sometimes in bed, almost whole nights together. At
+last Amy started a thing of her own head, which put it in a way of
+management, though a wild one too. "You are so uneasy, madam," says she,
+"about this Mr. ----, the merchant at Paris; come," says she, "if you'll
+give me leave, I'll go over and see what's become of him."
+
+"Not for ten thousand pounds," said I; "no, nor if you met him in the
+street, not to offer to speak to him on my account." "No," says Amy, "I
+would not speak to him at all; or if I did, I warrant you it shall not
+look to be upon your account. I'll only inquire after him, and if he is
+in being, you shall hear of him; if not, you shall hear of him still,
+and that may be enough."
+
+"Why," says I, "if you will promise me not to enter into anything
+relating to me with him, nor to begin any discourse at all unless he
+begins it with you, I could almost be persuaded to let you go and try."
+
+Amy promised me all that I desired; and, in a word, to cut the story
+short, I let her go, but tied her up to so many particulars that it was
+almost impossible her going could signify anything; and had she intended
+to observe them, she might as well have stayed at home as have gone, for
+I charged her, if she came to see him, she should not so much as take
+notice that she knew him again; and if he spoke to her, she should tell
+him she was come away from me a great many years ago, and knew nothing
+what was become of me; that she had been come over to France six years
+ago, and was married there, and lived at Calais; or to that purpose.
+
+Amy promised me nothing, indeed; for, as she said, it was impossible for
+her to resolve what would be fit to do, or not to do, till she was there
+upon the spot, and had found out the gentleman, or heard of him; but
+that then, if I would trust her, as I had always done, she would answer
+for it that she would do nothing but what should be for my interest,
+and what she would hope I should be very well pleased with.
+
+With this general commission, Amy, notwithstanding she had been so
+frighted at the sea, ventured her carcass once more by water, and away
+she goes to France. She had four articles of confidence in charge to
+inquire after for me, and, as I found by her, she had one for herself--I
+say, four for me, because, though her first and principal errand was to
+inform myself of my Dutch merchant, yet I gave her in charge to inquire,
+second, after my husband, who I left a trooper in the _gens d'armes_;
+third, after that rogue of a Jew, whose very name I hated, and of whose
+face I had such a frightful idea that Satan himself could not
+counterfeit a worse; and, lastly, after my foreign prince. And she
+discharged herself very well of them all, though not so successful as I
+wished.
+
+Amy had a very good passage over the sea, and I had a letter from her,
+from Calais, in three days after she went from London. When she came to
+Paris she wrote me an account, that as to her first and most important
+inquiry, which was after the Dutch merchant, her account was, that he
+had returned to Paris, lived three years there, and quitting that city,
+went to live at Rouen; so away goes Amy for Rouen.
+
+But as she was going to bespeak a place in the coach to Rouen, she meets
+very accidentally in the street with her gentleman, as I called
+him--that is to say, the Prince de ----'s gentleman, who had been her
+favourite, as above.
+
+You may be sure there were several other kind things happened between
+Amy and him, as you shall hear afterwards; but the two main things were,
+first, that Amy inquired about his lord, and had a full account of him,
+of which presently; and, in the next place, telling him whither she was
+going and for what, he bade her not go yet, for that he would have a
+particular account of it the next day from a merchant that knew him;
+and, accordingly, he brought her word the next day that he had been for
+six years before that gone for Holland, and that he lived there still.
+
+This, I say, was the first news from Amy for some time--I mean about my
+merchant. In the meantime Amy, as I have said, inquired about the other
+persons she had in her instructions. As for the prince, the gentleman
+told her he was gone into Germany, where his estate lay, and that he
+lived there; that he had made great inquiry after me; that he (his
+gentleman) had made all the search he had been able for me, but that he
+could not hear of me; that he believed, if his lord had known I had been
+in England, he would have gone over to me; but that, after long inquiry,
+he was obliged to give it over; but that he verily believed, if he could
+have found me, he would have married me; and that he was extremely
+concerned that he could hear nothing of me.
+
+I was not at all satisfied with Amy's account, but ordered her to go to
+Rouen herself, which she did, and there with much difficulty (the
+person she was directed to being dead)--I say, with much difficulty she
+came to be informed that my merchant had lived there two years, or
+something more, but that, having met with a very great misfortune, he
+had gone back to Holland, as the French merchant said, where he had
+stayed two years; but with this addition, viz., that he came back again
+to Rouen, and lived in good reputation there another year; and
+afterwards he was gone to England, and that he lived in London. But Amy
+could by no means learn how to write to him there, till, by great
+accident, an old Dutch skipper, who had formerly served him, coming to
+Rouen, Amy was told of it; and he told her that he lodged in St.
+Laurence Pountney's Lane, in London, but was to be seen every day upon
+the Exchange, in the French walk.
+
+This, Amy thought, it was time enough to tell me of when she came over;
+and, besides, she did not find this Dutch skipper till she had spent
+four or five months and been again in Paris, and then come back to Rouen
+for farther information. But in the meantime she wrote to me from Paris
+that he was not to be found by any means; that he had been gone from
+Paris seven or eight years; that she was told he had lived at Rouen, and
+she was agoing thither to inquire, but that she had heard afterwards
+that he was gone also from thence to Holland, so she did not go.
+
+This, I say, was Amy's first account; and I, not satisfied with it, had
+sent her an order to go to Rouen to inquire there also, as above.
+
+While this was negotiating, and I received these accounts from Amy at
+several times, a strange adventure happened to me which I must mention
+just here. I had been abroad to take the air as usual with my Quaker, as
+far as Epping Forest, and we were driving back towards London, when, on
+the road between Bow and Mile End, two gentlemen on horseback came
+riding by, having overtaken the coach and passed it, and went forwards
+towards London.
+
+They did not ride apace though they passed the coach, for we went very
+softly; nor did they look into the coach at all, but rode side by side,
+earnestly talking to one another and inclining their faces sideways a
+little towards one another, he that went nearest the coach with his face
+from it, and he that was farthest from the coach with his face towards
+it, and passing in the very next tract to the coach, I could hear them
+talk Dutch very distinctly. But it is impossible to describe the
+confusion I was in when I plainly saw that the farthest of the two, him
+whose face looked towards the coach, was my friend the Dutch merchant of
+Paris.
+
+If it had been possible to conceal my disorder from my friend the Quaker
+I would have done it, but I found she was too well acquainted with such
+things not to take the hint. "Dost thou understand Dutch?" said she.
+"Why?" said I. "Why," says she, "it is easy to suppose that thou art a
+little concerned at somewhat those men say; I suppose they are talking
+of thee." "Indeed, my good friend," said I, "thou art mistaken this
+time, for I know very well what they are talking of, but 'tis all about
+ships and trading affairs." "Well," says she, "then one of them is a man
+friend of thine, or somewhat is the case; for though thy tongue will not
+confess it, thy face does."
+
+I was going to have told a bold lie, and said I knew nothing of them;
+but I found it was impossible to conceal it, so I said, "Indeed, I think
+I know the farthest of them; but I have neither spoken to him or so much
+as seen him for about eleven years." "Well, then," says she, "thou hast
+seen him with more than common eyes when thou didst see him, or else
+seeing him now would not be such a surprise to thee." "Indeed," said I,
+"it is true I am a little surprised at seeing him just now, for I
+thought he had been in quite another part of the world; and I can assure
+you I never saw him in England in my life." "Well, then, it is the more
+likely he is come over now on purpose to seek thee." "No, no," said I,
+"knight-errantry is over; women are not so hard to come at that men
+should not be able to please themselves without running from one kingdom
+to another." "Well, well," says she, "I would have him see thee for all
+that, as plainly as thou hast seen him." "No, but he shan't," says I,
+"for I am sure he don't know me in this dress, and I'll take care he
+shan't see my face, if I can help it;" so I held up my fan before my
+face, and she saw me resolute in that, so she pressed me no farther.
+
+We had several discourses upon the subject, but still I let her know I
+was resolved he should not know me; but at last I confessed so much,
+that though I would not let him know who I was or where I lived, I did
+not care if I knew where he lived and how I might inquire about him. She
+took the hint immediately, and her servant being behind the coach, she
+called him to the coach-side and bade him keep his eye upon that
+gentleman, and as soon as the coach came to the end of Whitechapel he
+should get down and follow him closely, so as to see where he put up his
+horse, and then to go into the inn and inquire, if he could, who he was
+and where he lived.
+
+The fellow followed diligently to the gate of an inn in Bishopsgate
+Street, and seeing him go in, made no doubt but he had him fast; but was
+confounded when, upon inquiry, he found the inn was a thoroughfare into
+another street, and that the two gentlemen had only rode through the
+inn, as the way to the street where they were going; and so, in short,
+came back no wiser than he went.
+
+My kind Quaker was more vexed at the disappointment, at least apparently
+so, than I was; and asking the fellow if he was sure he knew the
+gentleman again if he saw him, the fellow said he had followed him so
+close and took so much notice of him, in order to do his errand as it
+ought to be done, that he was very sure he should know him again; and
+that, besides, he was sure he should know his horse.
+
+This part was, indeed, likely enough; and the kind Quaker, without
+telling me anything of the matter, caused her man to place himself just
+at the corner of Whitechapel Church wall every Saturday in the
+afternoon, that being the day when the citizens chiefly ride abroad to
+take the air, and there to watch all the afternoon and look for him.
+
+It was not till the fifth Saturday that her man came, with a great deal
+of joy, and gave her an account that he had found out the gentleman;
+that he was a Dutchman, but a French merchant; that he came from Rouen,
+and his name was ----, and that he lodged at Mr. ----'s, on Laurence
+Pountney's Hill. I was surprised, you may be sure, when she came and
+told me one evening all the particulars, except that of having set her
+man to watch. "I have found out thy Dutch friend," says she, "and can
+tell thee how to find him too." I coloured again as red as fire. "Then
+thou hast dealt with the evil one, friend," said I very gravely. "No,
+no," says she, "I have no familiar; but I tell thee I have found him for
+thee, and his name is So-and-so, and he lives as above recited."
+
+I was surprised again at this, not being able to imagine how she should
+come to know all this. However, to put me out of pain, she told me what
+she had done. "Well," said I, "thou art very kind, but this is not
+worth thy pains; for now I know it, 'tis only to satisfy my curiosity;
+for I shall not send to him upon any account." "Be that as thou wilt,"
+says she. "Besides," added she, "thou art in the right to say so to me,
+for why should I be trusted with it? Though, if I were, I assure thee I
+should not betray thee." "That's very kind," said I, "and I believe
+thee; and assure thyself, if I do send to him, thou shalt know it, and
+be trusted with it too."
+
+During this interval of five weeks I suffered a hundred thousand
+perplexities of mind. I was thoroughly convinced I was right as to the
+person, that it was the man. I knew him so well, and saw him so plain, I
+could not be deceived. I drove out again in the coach (on pretence of
+air) almost every day in hopes of seeing him again, but was never so
+lucky as to see him; and now I had made the discovery I was as far to
+seek what measures to take as I was before.
+
+To send to him, or speak to him first if I should see him, so as to be
+known to him, that I resolved not to do, if I died for it. To watch him
+about his lodging, that was as much below my spirit as the other. So
+that, in a word, I was at a perfect loss how to act or what to do.
+
+At length came Amy's letter, with the last account which she had at
+Rouen from the Dutch skipper, which, confirming the other, left me out
+of doubt that this was my man; but still no human invention could bring
+me to the speech of him in such a manner as would suit with my
+resolutions. For, after all, how did I know what his circumstances were?
+whether married or single? And if he had a wife, I knew he was so honest
+a man he would not so much as converse with me, or so much as know me if
+he met me in the street.
+
+In the next place, as he entirely neglected me, which, in short, is the
+worst way of slighting a woman, and had given no answer to my letters, I
+did not know but he might be the same man still; so I resolved that I
+could do nothing in it unless some fairer opportunity presented, which
+might make my way clearer to me; for I was determined he should have no
+room to put any more slights upon me.
+
+In these thoughts I passed away near three months; till at last, being
+impatient, I resolved to send for Amy to come over, and tell her how
+things stood, and that I would do nothing till she came. Amy, in answer,
+sent me word she would come away with all speed, but begged of me that I
+would enter into no engagement with him, or anybody, till she arrived;
+but still keeping me in the dark as to the thing itself which she had to
+say; at which I was heartily vexed, for many reasons.
+
+But while all these things were transacting, and letters and answers
+passed between Amy and I a little slower than usual, at which I was not
+so well pleased as I used to be with Amy's despatch--I say, in this time
+the following scene opened.
+
+It was one afternoon, about four o'clock, my friendly Quaker and I
+sitting in her chamber upstairs, and very cheerful, chatting together
+(for she was the best company in the world), when somebody ringing
+hastily at the door, and no servant just then in the way, she ran down
+herself to the door, when a gentleman appears, with a footman attending,
+and making some apologies, which she did not thoroughly understand, he
+speaking but broken English, he asked to speak with me, by the very same
+name that I went by in her house, which, by the way, was not the name
+that he had known me by.
+
+She, with very civil language, in her way, brought him into a very
+handsome parlour below stairs, and said she would go and see whether the
+person who lodged in her house owned that name, and he should hear
+farther.
+
+I was a little surprised, even before I knew anything of who it was, my
+mind foreboding the thing as it happened (whence that arises let the
+naturalists explain to us); but I was frighted and ready to die when my
+Quaker came up all gay and crowing. "There," says she, "is the Dutch
+French merchant come to see thee." I could not speak one word to her nor
+stir off of my chair, but sat as motionless as a statue. She talked a
+thousand pleasant things to me, but they made no impression on me. At
+last she pulled me and teased me. "Come, come," says she, "be thyself,
+and rouse up. I must go down again to him; what shall I say to him?"
+"Say," said I, "that you have no such body in the house." "That I
+cannot do," says she, "because it is not the truth. Besides, I have
+owned thou art above. Come, come, go down with me." "Not for a thousand
+guineas," said I. "Well," says she, "I'll go and tell him thou wilt come
+quickly." So, without giving me time to answer her, away she goes.
+
+A million of thoughts circulated in my head while she was gone, and what
+to do I could not tell; I saw no remedy but I must speak with him, but
+would have given L500 to have shunned it; yet had I shunned it, perhaps
+then I would have given L500 again that I had seen him. Thus fluctuating
+and unconcluding were my thoughts, what I so earnestly desired I
+declined when it offered itself; and what now I pretended to decline was
+nothing but what I had been at the expense of L40 or L50 to send Amy to
+France for, and even without any view, or, indeed, any rational
+expectation of bringing it to pass; and what for half a year before I
+was so uneasy about that I could not be quiet night or day till Amy
+proposed to go over to inquire after him. In short, my thoughts were all
+confused and in the utmost disorder. I had once refused and rejected
+him, and I repented it heartily; then I had taken ill his silence, and
+in my mind rejected him again, but had repented that too. Now I had
+stooped so low as to send after him into France, which if he had known,
+perhaps, he had never come after me; and should I reject him a third
+time! On the other hand, he had repented too, in his turn, perhaps, and
+not knowing how I had acted, either in stooping to send in search after
+him or in the wickeder part of my life, was come over hither to seek me
+again; and I might take him, perhaps, with the same advantages as I
+might have done before, and would I now be backward to see him! Well,
+while I was in this hurry my friend the Quaker comes up again, and
+perceiving the confusion I was in, she runs to her closet and fetched me
+a little pleasant cordial; but I would not taste it. "Oh," says she, "I
+understand thee. Be not uneasy; I'll give thee something shall take off
+all the smell of it; if he kisses thee a thousand times he shall be no
+wiser." I thought to myself, "Thou art perfectly acquainted with affairs
+of this nature; I think you must govern me now;" so I began to incline
+to go down with her. Upon that I took the cordial, and she gave me a
+kind of spicy preserve after it, whose flavour was so strong, and yet so
+deliciously pleasant, that it would cheat the nicest smelling, and it
+left not the least taint of the cordial on the breath.
+
+Well, after this, though with some hesitation still, I went down a pair
+of back-stairs with her, and into a dining-room, next to the parlour in
+which he was; but there I halted, and desired she would let me consider
+of it a little. "Well, do so," says she, and left me with more readiness
+than she did before. "Do consider, and I'll come to thee again."
+
+Though I hung back with an awkwardness that was really unfeigned, yet
+when she so readily left me I thought it was not so kind, and I began to
+think she should have pressed me still on to it; so foolishly backward
+are we to the thing which, of all the world, we most desire; mocking
+ourselves with a feigned reluctance, when the negative would be death to
+us. But she was too cunning for me; for while I, as it were, blamed her
+in my mind for not carrying me to him, though, at the same time, I
+appeared backward to see him, on a sudden she unlocks the folding-doors,
+which looked into the next parlour, and throwing them open. "There,"
+says she (ushering him in), "is the person who, I suppose, thou
+inquirest for;" and the same moment, with a kind decency, she retired,
+and that so swift that she would not give us leave hardly to know which
+way she went.
+
+I stood up, but was confounded with a sudden inquiry in my thoughts how
+I should receive him, and with a resolution as swift as lightning, in
+answer to it, said to myself, "It shall be coldly." So on a sudden I put
+on an air of stiffness and ceremony, and held it for about two minutes;
+but it was with great difficulty.
+
+He restrained himself too, on the other hand, came towards me gravely,
+and saluted me in form; but it was, it seems, upon his supposing the
+Quaker was behind him, whereas she, as I said, understood things too
+well, and had retired as if she had vanished, that we might have full
+freedom; for, as she said afterwards, she supposed we had seen one
+another before, though it might have been a great while ago.
+
+Whatever stiffness I had put on my behaviour to him, I was surprised in
+my mind, and angry at his, and began to wonder what kind of a
+ceremonious meeting it was to be. However, after he perceived the woman
+was gone he made a kind of a hesitation, looking a little round him.
+"Indeed," said he, "I thought the gentlewoman was not withdrawn;" and
+with that he took me in his arms and kissed me three or four times; but
+I, that was prejudiced to the last degree with the coldness of his first
+salutes, when I did not know the cause of it, could not be thoroughly
+cleared of the prejudice though I did know the cause, and thought that
+even his return, and taking me in his arms, did not seem to have the
+same ardour with which he used to receive me, and this made me behave to
+him awkwardly, and I know not how for a good while; but this by the way.
+
+He began with a kind of an ecstasy upon the subject of his finding me
+out; how it was possible that he should have been four years in England,
+and had used all the ways imaginable, and could never so much as have
+the least intimation of me, or of any one like me; and that it was now
+above two years that he had despaired of it, and had given over all
+inquiry; and that now he should chop upon me, as it were, unlooked and
+unsought for.
+
+I could easily have accounted for his not finding me if I had but set
+down the detail of my real retirement; but I gave it a new, and indeed a
+truly hypocritical turn. I told him that any one that knew the manner
+of life I led might account for his not finding me; that the retreat I
+had taken up would have rendered it a hundred thousand to one odds that
+he ever found me at all; that, as I had abandoned all conversation,
+taken up another name, lived remote from London, and had not preserved
+one acquaintance in it, it was no wonder he had not met with me; that
+even my dress would let him see that I did not desire to be known by
+anybody.
+
+Then he asked if I had not received some letters from him. I told him
+no, he had not thought fit to give me the civility of an answer to the
+last I wrote to him, and he could not suppose I should expect a return
+after a silence in a case where I had laid myself so low and exposed
+myself in a manner I had never been used to; that indeed I had never
+sent for any letters after that to the place where I had ordered his to
+be directed; and that, being so justly, as I thought, punished for my
+weakness, I had nothing to do but to repent of being a fool, after I had
+strictly adhered to a just principle before; that, however, as what I
+did was rather from motions of gratitude than from real weakness,
+however it might be construed by him, I had the satisfaction in myself
+of having fully discharged the debt. I added, that I had not wanted
+occasions of all the seeming advancements which the pretended felicity
+of a marriage life was usually set off with, and might have been what I
+desired not to name; but that, however low I had stooped to him, I had
+maintained the dignity of female liberty against all the attacks either
+of pride or avarice; and that I had been infinitely obliged to him for
+giving me an opportunity to discharge the only obligation that
+endangered me, without subjecting me to the consequence; and that I
+hoped he was satisfied I had paid the debt by offering myself to be
+chained, but was infinitely debtor to him another way for letting me
+remain free.
+
+He was so confounded at this discourse that he knew not what to say, and
+for a good while he stood mute indeed; but recovering himself a little,
+he said I run out into a discourse he hoped was over and forgotten, and
+he did not intend to revive it; that he knew I had not had his letters,
+for that, when he first came to England, he had been at the place to
+which they were directed, and found them all lying there but one, and
+that the people had not known how to deliver them; that he thought to
+have had a direction there how to find me, but had the mortification to
+be told that they did not so much as know who I was; that he was under a
+great disappointment; and that I ought to know, in answer to all my
+resentments, that he had done a long and, he hoped, a sufficient penance
+for the slight that I had supposed he had put upon me; that it was true
+(and I could not suppose any other) that upon the repulse I had given
+them in a case so circumstanced as his was, and after such earnest
+entreaties and such offers as he had made me, he went away with a mind
+heartily grieved and full of resentment; that he had looked back on the
+crime he had committed with some regret, but on the cruelty of my
+treatment of the poor infant I went with at that time with the utmost
+detestation, and that this made him unable to send an agreeable answer
+to me; for which reason he had sent none at all for some time; but that
+in about six or seven months, those resentments wearing off by the
+return of his affection to me and his concern in the poor child ----.
+There he stopped, and indeed tears stood in his eyes; while in a
+parenthesis he only added, and to this minute he did not know whether it
+was dead or alive. He then went on: Those resentments wearing off, he
+sent me several letters--I think he said seven or eight--but received no
+answer; that then his business obliging him to go to Holland, he came to
+England, as in his way, but found, as above, that his letters had not
+been called for, but that he left them at the house after paying the
+postage of them; and going then back to France, he was yet uneasy, and
+could not refrain the knight-errantry of coming to England again to seek
+me, though he knew neither where or of who to inquire for me, being
+disappointed in all his inquiries before; that he had yet taken up his
+residence here, firmly believing that one time or other he should meet
+me, or hear of me, and that some kind chance would at last throw him in
+my way; that he had lived thus above four years, and though his hopes
+were vanished, yet he had not any thoughts of removing any more in the
+world, unless it should be at last, as it is with other old men, he
+might have some inclination to go home to die in his own country, but
+that he had not thought of it yet; that if I would consider all these
+steps, I would find some reasons to forget his first resentments, and to
+think that penance, as he called it, which he had undergone in search of
+me an _amende honorable_, in reparation of the affront given to the
+kindness of my letter of invitation; and that we might at last make
+ourselves some satisfaction on both sides for the mortifications past.
+
+I confess I could not hear all this without being moved very much, and
+yet I continued a little stiff and formal too a good while. I told him
+that before I could give him any reply to the rest of his discourse I
+ought to give him the satisfaction of telling him that his son was
+alive, and that indeed, since I saw him so concerned about it, and
+mention it with such affection, I was sorry that I had not found out
+some way or other to let him know it sooner; but that I thought, after
+his slighting the mother, as above, he had summed up his affection to
+the child in the letter he had wrote to me about providing for it; and
+that he had, as other fathers often do, looked upon it as a birth which,
+being out of the way, was to be forgotten, as its beginning was to be
+repented of; that in providing sufficiently for it he had done more than
+all such fathers used to do, and might be well satisfied with it.
+
+He answered me that he should have been very glad if I had been so good
+but to have given him the satisfaction of knowing the poor unfortunate
+creature was yet alive, and he would have taken some care of it upon
+himself, and particularly by owning it for a legitimate child, which,
+where nobody had known to the contrary, would have taken off the infamy
+which would otherwise cleave to it, and so the child should not itself
+have known anything of its own disaster; but that he feared it was now
+too late.
+
+He added that I might see by all his conduct since that what unhappy
+mistake drew him into the thing at first, and that he would have been
+very far from doing the injury to me, or being instrumental to add _une
+miserable_ (that was his word) to the world, if he had not been drawn
+into it by the hopes he had of making me his own; but that, if it was
+possible to rescue the child from the consequences of its unhappy birth,
+he hoped I would give him leave to do it, and he would let me see that
+he had both means and affection still to do it; and that,
+notwithstanding all the misfortunes that had befallen him, nothing that
+belonged to him, especially by a mother he had such a concern for as he
+had for me, should ever want what he was in a condition to do for it.
+
+I could not hear this without being sensibly touched with it. I was
+ashamed that he should show that he had more real affection for the
+child, though he had never seen it in his life, than I that bore it, for
+indeed I did not love the child, nor love to see it; and though I had
+provided for it, yet I did it by Amy's hand, and had not seen it above
+twice in four years, being privately resolved that when it grew up it
+should not be able to call me mother.
+
+However, I told him the child was taken care of, and that he need not be
+anxious about it, unless he suspected that I had less affection for it
+than he that had never seen it in his life; that he knew what I had
+promised him to do for it, namely, to give it the thousand pistoles
+which I had offered him, and which he had declined; that I assured him I
+had made my will, and that I had left it L5000, and the interest of it
+till he should come of age, if I died before that time; that I would
+still be as good as that to it; but if he had a mind to take it from me
+into his government, I would not be against it; and to satisfy him that
+I would perform what I said, I would cause the child to be delivered to
+him, and the L5000 also for its support, depending upon it that he would
+show himself a father to it by what I saw of his affection to it now.
+
+I had observed that he had hinted two or three times in his discourse,
+his having had misfortunes in the world, and I was a little surprised at
+the expression, especially at the repeating it so often; but I took no
+notice of that part yet.
+
+He thanked me for my kindness to the child with a tenderness which
+showed the sincerity of all he had said before, and which increased the
+regret with which, as I said, I looked back on the little affection I
+had showed to the poor child. He told me he did not desire to take him
+from me, but so as to introduce him into the world as his own, which he
+could still do, having lived absent from his other children (for he had
+two sons and a daughter which were brought up at Nimeguen, in Holland,
+with a sister of his) so long that he might very well send another son
+of ten years old to be bred up with them, and suppose his mother to be
+dead or alive, as he found occasion; and that, as I had resolved to do
+so handsomely for the child, he would add to it something considerable,
+though, having had some great disappointments (repeating the words), he
+could not do for it as he would otherwise have done.
+
+I then thought myself obliged to take notice of his having so often
+mentioned his having met with disappointments. I told him I was very
+sorry to hear he had met with anything afflicting to him in the world;
+that I would not have anything belonging to me add to his loss, or
+weaken him in what he might do for his other children; and that I would
+not agree to his having the child away, though the proposal was
+infinitely to the child's advantage, unless he would promise me that the
+whole expense should be mine, and that, if he did not think L5000 enough
+for the child, I would give it more.
+
+We had so much discourse upon this and the old affairs that it took up
+all our time at his first visit. I was a little importunate with him to
+tell me how he came to find me out, but he put it off for that time,
+and only obtaining my leave to visit me again, he went away; and indeed
+my heart was so full with what he had said already that I was glad when
+he went away. Sometimes I was full of tenderness and affection for him,
+and especially when he expressed himself so earnestly and passionately
+about the child; other times I was crowded with doubts about his
+circumstances. Sometimes I was terrified with apprehensions lest, if I
+should come into a close correspondence with him, he should any way come
+to hear what kind of life I had led at Pall Mall and in other places,
+and it might make me miserable afterwards; from which last thought I
+concluded that I had better repulse him again than receive him. All
+these thoughts, and many more, crowded in so fast, I say, upon me that I
+wanted to give vent to them and get rid of him, and was very glad when
+he was gone away.
+
+We had several meetings after this, in which still we had so many
+preliminaries to go through that we scarce ever bordered upon the main
+subject. Once, indeed, he said something of it, and I put it off with a
+kind of a jest. "Alas!" says I, "those things are out of the question
+now; 'tis almost two ages since those things were talked between us,"
+says I. "You see I am grown an old woman since that." Another time he
+gave a little push at it again, and I laughed again. "Why, what dost
+thou talk of?" said I in a formal way. "Dost thou not see I am turned
+Quaker? I cannot speak of those things now." "Why," says he, "the
+Quakers marry as well as other people, and love one another as well.
+Besides," says he, "the Quakers' dress does not ill become you," and so
+jested with me again, and so it went off for a third time. However, I
+began to be kind to him in process of time, as they call it, and we grew
+very intimate; and if the following accident had not unluckily
+intervened, I had certainly married him, or consented to marry him, the
+very next time he had asked me.
+
+I had long waited for a letter from Amy, who, it seems, was just at that
+time gone to Rouen the second time, to make her inquiries about him; and
+I received a letter from her at this unhappy juncture, which gave me the
+following account of my business:--
+
+I. That for my gentleman, who I had now, as I may say, in my arms, she
+said he had been gone from Paris, as I have hinted, having met with some
+great losses and misfortunes; that he had been in Holland on that very
+account, whither he had also carried his children; that he was after
+that settled for some time at Rouen; that she had been at Rouen, and
+found there (by a mere accident), from a Dutch skipper, that he was at
+London, had been there above three years; that he was to be found upon
+the Exchange, on the French walk; and that he lodged at St. Laurence
+Pountney's Lane, and the like; so Amy said she supposed I might soon
+find him out, but that she doubted he was poor, and not worth looking
+after. This she did because of the next clause, which the jade had most
+mind to on many accounts.
+
+II. That as to the Prince ----; that, as above, he was gone into
+Germany, where his estate lay; that he had quitted the French service,
+and lived retired; that she had seen his gentleman, who remained at
+Paris to solicit his arrears, &c.; that he had given her an account how
+his lord had employed him to inquire for me and find me out, as above,
+and told her what pains he had taken to find me; that he had understood
+that I was gone to England; that he once had orders to go to England to
+find me; that his lord had resolved, if he could have found me, to have
+called me a countess, and so have married me, and have carried me into
+Germany with him; and that his commission was still to assure me that
+the prince would marry me if I would come to him, and that he would send
+him an account that he had found me, and did not doubt but he would have
+orders to come over to England to attend me in a figure suitable to my
+quality.
+
+Amy, an ambitious jade, who knew my weakest part--namely, that I loved
+great things, and that I loved to be flattered and courted--said
+abundance of kind things upon this occasion, which she knew were
+suitable to me and would prompt my vanity; and talked big of the
+prince's gentleman having orders to come over to me with a procuration
+to marry me by proxy (as princes usually do in like cases), and to
+furnish me with an equipage, and I know not how many fine things; but
+told me, withal, that she had not yet let him know that she belonged to
+me still, or that she knew where to find me, or to write to me; because
+she was willing to see the bottom of it, and whether it was a reality or
+a gasconade. She had indeed told him that, if he had any such
+commission, she would endeavour to find me out, but no more.
+
+III. For the Jew, she assured me that she had not been able to come at a
+certainty what was become of him, or in what part of the world he was;
+but that thus much she had learned from good hands, that he had
+committed a crime, in being concerned in a design to rob a rich banker
+at Paris; and that he was fled, and had not been heard of there for
+above six years.
+
+IV. For that of my husband, the brewer, she learned, that being
+commanded into the field upon an occasion of some action in Flanders, he
+was wounded at the battle of Mons, and died of his wounds in the
+Hospital of the Invalids; so there was an end of my four inquiries,
+which I sent her over to make.
+
+This account of the prince, and the return of his affection to me, with
+all the flattering great things which seemed to come along with it; and
+especially as they came gilded and set out by my maid Amy--I say this
+account of the prince came to me in a very unlucky hour, and in the very
+crisis of my affair.
+
+The merchant and I had entered into close conferences upon the grand
+affair. I had left off talking my platonics, and of my independency, and
+being a free woman, as before; and he having cleared up my doubts too,
+as to his circumstances and the misfortunes he had spoken of, I had gone
+so far that we had begun to consider where we should live, and in what
+figure, what equipage, what house, and the like.
+
+I had made some harangues upon the delightful retirement of a country
+life, and how we might enjoy ourselves so effectually without the
+encumbrances of business and the world; but all this was grimace, and
+purely because I was afraid to make any public appearance in the world,
+for fear some impertinent person of quality should chop upon me again
+and cry out, "Roxana, Roxana, by ----!" with an oath, as had been done
+before.
+
+My merchant, bred to business and used to converse among men of
+business, could hardly tell how to live without it; at least it appeared
+he should be like a fish out of water, uneasy and dying. But, however,
+he joined with me; only argued that we might live as near London as we
+could, that he might sometimes come to 'Change and hear how the world
+should go abroad, and how it fared with his friends and his children.
+
+I answered that if he chose still to embarrass himself with business, I
+supposed it would be more to his satisfaction to be in his own country,
+and where his family was so well known, and where his children also
+were.
+
+He smiled at the thoughts of that, and let me know that he should be
+very willing to embrace such an offer; but that he could not expect it
+of me, to whom England was, to be sure, so naturalised now as that it
+would be carrying me out of my native country, which he would not desire
+by any means, however agreeable it might be to him.
+
+I told him he was mistaken in me; that as I had told him so much of a
+married state being a captivity, and the family being a house of
+bondage, that when I married I expected to be but an upper servant; so,
+if I did notwithstanding submit to it, I hoped he should see I knew how
+to act the servant's part, and do everything to oblige my master; that
+if I did not resolve to go with him wherever he desired to go, he might
+depend I would never have him. "And did I not," said I, "offer myself to
+go with you to the East Indies?"
+
+All this while this was indeed but a copy of my countenance; for, as my
+circumstances would not admit of my stay in London, at least not so as
+to appear publicly, I resolved, if I took him, to live remote in the
+country, or go out of England with him.
+
+But in an evil hour, just now came Amy's letter, in the very middle of
+all these discourses; and the fine things she had said about the prince
+began to make strange work with me. The notion of being a princess, and
+going over to live where all that had happened here would have been
+quite sunk out of knowledge as well as out of memory (conscience
+excepted), was mighty taking. The thoughts of being surrounded with
+domestics, honoured with titles, be called her Highness, and live in all
+the splendour of a court, and, which was still more, in the arms of a
+man of such rank, and who, I knew, loved and valued me--all this, in a
+word, dazzled my eyes, turned my head, and I was as truly crazed and
+distracted for about a fortnight as most of the people in Bedlam, though
+perhaps not quite so far gone.
+
+When my gentleman came to me the next time I had no notion of him; I
+wished I had never received him at all. In short, I resolved to have no
+more to say to him, so I feigned myself indisposed; and though I did
+come down to him and speak to him a little, yet I let him see that I was
+so ill that I was (as we say) no company, and that it would be kind in
+him to give me leave to quit him for that time.
+
+The next morning he sent a footman to inquire how I did; and I let him
+know I had a violent cold, and was very ill with it. Two days after he
+came again, and I let him see me again, but feigned myself so hoarse
+that I could not speak to be heard, and that it was painful to me but to
+whisper; and, in a word, I held him in this suspense near three weeks.
+
+During this time I had a strange elevation upon my mind; and the prince,
+or the spirit of him, had such a possession of me that I spent most of
+this time in the realising all the great things of a life with the
+prince, to my mind pleasing my fancy with the grandeur I was supposing
+myself to enjoy, and with wickedly studying in what manner to put off
+this gentleman and be rid of him for ever.
+
+I cannot but say that sometimes the baseness of the action stuck hard
+with me; the honour and sincerity with which he had always treated me,
+and, above all, the fidelity he had showed me at Paris, and that I owed
+my life to him--I say, all these stared in my face, and I frequently
+argued with myself upon the obligation I was under to him, and how base
+would it be now too, after so many obligations and engagements, to cast
+him off.
+
+But the title of highness, and of a princess, and all those fine things,
+as they came in, weighed down all this; and the sense of gratitude
+vanished as if it had been a shadow.
+
+At other times I considered the wealth I was mistress of; that I was
+able to live like a princess, though not a princess; and that my
+merchant (for he had told me all the affair of his misfortunes) was far
+from being poor, or even mean; that together we were able to make up an
+estate of between three and four thousand pounds a year, which was in
+itself equal to some princes abroad. But though this was true, yet the
+name of princess, and the flutter of it--in a word, the pride--weighed
+them down; and all these arguings generally ended to the disadvantage of
+my merchant; so that, in short, I resolved to drop him, and give him a
+final answer at his next coming; namely, that something had happened in
+my affairs which had caused me to alter my measures unexpectedly, and,
+in a word, to desire him to trouble himself no farther.
+
+I think, verily, this rude treatment of him was for some time the effect
+of a violent fermentation in my blood; for the very motion which the
+steady contemplation of my fancied greatness had put my spirits into had
+thrown me into a kind of fever, and I scarce knew what I did.
+
+I have wondered since that it did not make me mad; nor do I now think it
+strange to hear of those who have been quite lunatic with their pride,
+that fancied themselves queens and empresses, and have made their
+attendants serve them upon the knee, given visitors their hand to kiss,
+and the like; for certainly, if pride will not turn the brain, nothing
+can.
+
+However, the next time my gentleman came, I had not courage enough, or
+not ill nature enough, to treat him in the rude manner I had resolved to
+do, and it was very well I did not; for soon after, I had another letter
+from Amy, in which was the mortifying news, and indeed surprising to me,
+that my prince (as I, with a secret pleasure, had called him) was very
+much hurt by a bruise he had received in hunting and engaging with a
+wild boar, a cruel and desperate sport which the noblemen of Germany, it
+seems, much delight in.
+
+This alarmed me indeed, and the more because Amy wrote me word that his
+gentleman was gone away express to him, not without apprehensions that
+he should find his master was dead before his coming home; but that he
+(the gentleman) had promised her that as soon as he arrived he would
+send back the same courier to her with an account of his master's
+health, and of the main affair; and that he had obliged Amy to stay at
+Paris fourteen days for his return; she having promised him before to
+make it her business to go to England and to find me out for his lord if
+he sent her such orders; and he was to send her a bill for fifty
+pistoles for her journey. So Amy told me she waited for the answer.
+
+This was a blow to me several ways; for, first, I was in a state of
+uncertainty as to his person, whether he was alive or dead; and I was
+not unconcerned in that part, I assure you; for I had an inexpressible
+affection remaining for his person, besides the degree to which it was
+revived by the view of a firmer interest in him. But this was not all,
+for in losing him I forever lost the prospect of all the gaiety and
+glory that had made such an impression upon my imagination.
+
+In this state of uncertainty, I say, by Amy's letter, I was like still
+to remain another fortnight; and had I now continued the resolution of
+using my merchant in the rude manner I once intended, I had made perhaps
+a sorry piece of work of it indeed, and it was very well my heart failed
+me as it did.
+
+However, I treated him with a great many shuffles, and feigned stories
+to keep him off from any closer conferences than we had already had,
+that I might act afterwards as occasion might offer, one way or other.
+But that which mortified me most was, that Amy did not write, though the
+fourteen days were expired. At last, to my great surprise, when I was,
+with the utmost impatience, looking out at the window, expecting the
+postman that usually brought the foreign letters--I say I was agreeably
+surprised to see a coach come to the yard-gate where we lived, and my
+woman Amy alight out of it and come towards the door, having the
+coachman bringing several bundles after her.
+
+I flew like lightning downstairs to speak to her, but was soon damped
+with her news. "Is the prince alive or dead, Amy?" says I. She spoke
+coldly and slightly. "He is alive, madam," said she. "But it is not much
+matter; I had as lieu he had been dead." So we went upstairs again to my
+chamber, and there we began a serious discourse of the whole matter.
+
+First, she told me a long story of his being hurt by a wild boar, and of
+the condition he was reduced to, so that every one expected he should
+die, the anguish of the wound having thrown him into a fever, with
+abundance of circumstances too long to relate here; how he recovered of
+that extreme danger, but continued very weak; how the gentleman had been
+_homme de parole_, and had sent back the courier as punctually as if it
+had been to the king; that he had given a long account of his lord, and
+of his illness and recovery; but the sum of the matter, as to me, was,
+that as to the lady, his lord was turned penitent, was under some vows
+for his recovery, and could not think any more on that affair; and
+especially, the lady being gone, and that it had not been offered to
+her, so there was no breach of honour; but that his lord was sensible of
+the good offices of Mrs. Amy, and had sent her the fifty pistoles for
+her trouble, as if she had really gone the journey.
+
+I was, I confess, hardly able to bear the first surprise of this
+disappointment. Amy saw it, and gapes out (as was her way), "Lawd,
+madam! never be concerned at it; you see he is gotten among the priests,
+and I suppose they have saucily imposed some penance upon him, and, it
+may be, sent him of an errand barefoot to some Madonna or Notredame, or
+other; and he is off of his amours for the present. I'll warrant you
+he'll be as wicked again as ever he was when he is got thorough well,
+and gets but out of their hands again. I hate this out-o'-season
+repentance. What occasion had he, in his repentance, to be off of taking
+a good wife? I should have been glad to see you have been a princess,
+and all that; but if it can't be, never afflict yourself; you are rich
+enough to be a princess to yourself; you don't want him, that's the best
+of it."
+
+Well, I cried for all that, and was heartily vexed, and that a great
+while; but as Amy was always at my elbow, and always jogging it out of
+my head with her mirth and her wit, it wore off again.
+
+Then I told Amy all the story of my merchant, and how he had found me
+out when I was in such a concern to find him; how it was true that he
+lodged in St. Laurence Pountney's Lane; and how I had had all the story
+of his misfortune, which she had heard of, in which he had lost above
+L8000 sterling; and that he had told me frankly of it before she had
+sent me any account of it, or at least before I had taken any notice
+that I had heard of it.
+
+Amy was very joyful at that part. "Well, madam, then," says Amy, "what
+need you value the story of the prince, and going I know not whither
+into Germany to lay your bones in another world, and learn the devil's
+language, called High Dutch? You are better here by half," says Amy.
+"Lawd, madam!" says she; "why, are you not as rich as Croesus?"
+
+Well, it was a great while still before I could bring myself off of this
+fancied sovereignty; and I, that was so willing once to be mistress to a
+king, was now ten thousand times more fond of being wife to a prince.
+
+So fast a hold has pride and ambition upon our minds, that when once it
+gets admission, nothing is so chimerical but, under this possession, we
+can form ideas of in our fancy and realise to our imagination. Nothing
+can be so ridiculous as the simple steps we take in such cases; a man or
+a woman becomes a mere _malade imaginaire_, and, I believe, may as
+easily die with grief or run mad with joy (as the affair in his fancy
+appears right or wrong) as if all was real, and actually under the
+management of the person.
+
+I had indeed two assistants to deliver me from this snare, and these
+were, first, Amy, who knew my disease, but was able to do nothing as to
+the remedy; the second, the merchant, who really brought the remedy, but
+knew nothing of the distemper.
+
+I remember, when all these disorders were upon my thoughts, in one of
+the visits my friend the merchant made me, he took notice that he
+perceived I was under some unusual disorder; he believed, he said, that
+my distemper, whatever it was, lay much in my head, and it being summer
+weather and very hot, proposed to me to go a little way into the air.
+
+I started at his expression. "What!" says I; "do you think, then, that I
+am crazed? You should, then, propose a madhouse for my cure." "No, no,"
+says he, "I do not mean anything like that; I hope the head may be
+distempered and not the brain." Well, I was too sensible that he was
+right, for I knew I had acted a strange, wild kind of part with him; but
+he insisted upon it, and pressed me to go into the country. I took him
+short again. "What need you," says I, "send me out of your way? It is in
+your power to be less troubled with me, and with less inconvenience to
+us both."
+
+He took that ill, and told me I used to have a better opinion of his
+sincerity, and desired to know what he had done to forfeit my charity.
+I mention this only to let you see how far I had gone in my measures of
+quitting him--that is to say, how near I was of showing him how base,
+ungrateful, and how vilely I could act; but I found I had carried the
+jest far enough, and that a little matter might have made him sick of me
+again, as he was before; so I began by little and little to change my
+way of talking to him, and to come to discourse to the purpose again as
+we had done before.
+
+A while after this, when we were very merry and talking familiarly
+together, he called me, with an air of particular satisfaction, his
+princess. I coloured at the word, for it indeed touched me to the quick;
+but he knew nothing of the reason of my being touched with it. "What
+d'ye mean by that?" said I. "Nay," says he, "I mean nothing but that you
+are a princess to me." "Well," says I, "as to that I am content, and yet
+I could tell you I might have been a princess if I would have quitted
+you, and believe I could be so still." "It is not in my power to make
+you a princess," says he, "but I can easily make you a lady here in
+England, and a countess too if you will go out of it."
+
+I heard both with a great deal of satisfaction, for my pride remained
+though it had been balked, and I thought with myself that this proposal
+would make me some amends for the loss of the title that had so tickled
+my imagination another way, and I was impatient to understand what he
+meant, but I would not ask him by any means; so it passed off for that
+time.
+
+When he was gone I told Amy what he had said, and Amy was as impatient
+to know the manner how it could be as I was; but the next time
+(perfectly unexpected to me) he told me that he had accidentally
+mentioned a thing to me last time he was with me, having not the least
+thought of the thing itself; but not knowing but such a thing might be
+of some weight to me, and that it might bring me respect among people
+where I might appear, he had thought since of it, and was resolved to
+ask me about it.
+
+I made light of it, and told him that, as he knew I had chosen a retired
+life, it was of no value to me to be called lady or countess either; but
+that if he intended to drag me, as I might call it, into the world
+again, perhaps it might be agreeable to him; but, besides that, I could
+not judge of the thing, because I did not understand how either of them
+was to be done.
+
+He told me that money purchased titles of honour in almost all parts of
+the world, though money could not give principles of honour, they must
+come by birth and blood; that, however, titles sometimes assist to
+elevate the soul and to infuse generous principles into the mind, and
+especially where there was a good foundation laid in the persons; that
+he hoped we should neither of us misbehave if we came to it; and that as
+we knew how to wear a title without undue elevations, so it might sit as
+well upon us as on another; that as to England, he had nothing to do
+but to get an act of naturalisation in his favour, and he knew where to
+purchase a patent for baronet--that is say, to have the honour and title
+transferred to him; but if I intended to go abroad with him, he had a
+nephew, the son of his eldest brother, who had the title of count, with
+the estate annexed, which was but small, and that he had frequently
+offered to make it over to him for a thousand pistoles, which was not a
+great deal of money, and considering it was in the family already, he
+would, upon my being willing, purchase it immediately.
+
+I told him I liked the last best, but then I would not let him buy it
+unless he would let me pay the thousand pistoles. "No, no," says he, "I
+refused a thousand pistoles that I had more right to have accepted than
+that, and you shall not be at so much expense now." "Yes," says I, "you
+did refuse it, and perhaps repented it afterwards." "I never
+complained," said he. "But I did," says I, "and often repented it for
+you." "I do not understand you," says he. "Why," said I, "I repented
+that I suffered you to refuse it." "Well, well," said he, "we may talk
+of that hereafter, when you shall resolve which part of the world you
+will make your settled residence in." Here he talked very handsomely to
+me, and for a good while together; how it had been his lot to live all
+his days out of his native country, and to be often shifting and
+changing the situation of his affairs; and that I myself had not always
+had a fixed abode, but that now, as neither of us was very young, he
+fancied I would be for taking up our abode where, if possible, we might
+remove no more; that as to his part, he was of that opinion entirely,
+only with this exception, that the choice of the place should be mine,
+for that all places in the world were alike to him, only with this
+single addition, namely, that I was with him.
+
+I heard him with a great deal of pleasure, as well for his being willing
+to give me the choice as for that I resolved to live abroad, for the
+reason I have mentioned already, namely, lest I should at any time be
+known in England, and all that story of Roxana and the balls should come
+out; as also I was not a little tickled with the satisfaction of being
+still a countess, though I could not be a princess.
+
+I told Amy all this story, for she was still my privy councillor; but
+when I asked her opinion, she made me laugh heartily. "Now, which of the
+two shall I take, Amy?" said I. "Shall I be a lady--that is, a baronet's
+lady in England, or a countess in Holland?" The ready-witted jade, that
+knew the pride of my temper too, almost as well as I did myself,
+answered (without the least hesitation), "Both, madam. Which of them?"
+says she (repeating the words). "Why not both of them? and then you will
+be really a princess; for, sure, to be a lady in English and a countess
+in Dutch may make a princess in High Dutch." Upon the whole, though Amy
+was in jest, she put the thought into my head, and I resolved that, in
+short, I would be both of them, which I managed as you shall hear.
+
+First, I seemed to resolve that I would live and settle in England, only
+with this condition, namely, that I would not live in London. I
+pretended that it would choke me up; that I wanted breath when I was in
+London, but that anywhere else I would be satisfied; and then I asked
+him whether any seaport town in England would not suit him; because I
+knew, though he seemed to leave off, he would always love to be among
+business, and conversing with men of business; and I named several
+places, either nearest for business with France or with Holland; as
+Dover or Southampton, for the first; and Ipswich, or Yarmouth, or Hull
+for the last; but I took care that we would resolve upon nothing; only
+by this it seemed to be certain that we should live in England.
+
+It was time now to bring things to a conclusion, and so in about six
+weeks' time more we settled all our preliminaries; and, among the rest,
+he let me know that he should have the bill for his naturalisation
+passed time enough, so that he would be (as he called it) an Englishman
+before we married. That was soon perfected, the Parliament being then
+sitting, and several other foreigners joining in the said bill to save
+the expense.
+
+It was not above three or four days after, but that, without giving me
+the least notice that he had so much as been about the patent for
+baronet, he brought it me in a fine embroidered bag, and saluting me by
+the name of my Lady ---- (joining his own surname to it), presented it
+to me with his picture set with diamonds, and at the same time gave me a
+breast-jewel worth a thousand pistoles, and the next morning we were
+married. Thus I put an end to all the intriguing part of my life--a life
+full of prosperous wickedness; the reflections upon which were so much
+the more afflicting as the time had been spent in the grossest crimes,
+which, the more I looked back upon, the more black and horrid they
+appeared, effectually drinking up all the comfort and satisfaction which
+I might otherwise have taken in that part of life which was still before
+me.
+
+The first satisfaction, however, that I took in the new condition I was
+in was in reflecting that at length the life of crime was over, and that
+I was like a passenger coming back from the Indies, who, having, after
+many years' fatigues and hurry in business, gotten a good estate, with
+innumerable difficulties and hazards, is arrived safe at London with all
+his effects, and has the pleasure of saying he shall never venture upon
+the seas any more.
+
+When we were married we came back immediately to my lodgings (for the
+church was but just by), and we were so privately married that none but
+Amy and my friend the Quaker was acquainted with it. As soon as we came
+into the house he took me in his arms, and kissing me, "Now you are my
+own," says he. "Oh that you had been so good to have done this eleven
+years ago!" "Then," said I, "you, perhaps, would have been tired of me
+long ago; it is much better now, for now all our happy days are to come.
+Besides," said I, "I should not have been half so rich;" but that I said
+to myself, for there was no letting him into the reason of it. "Oh!"
+says he, "I should not have been tired of you; but, besides having the
+satisfaction of your company, it had saved me that unlucky blow at
+Paris, which was a dead loss to me of above eight thousand pistoles, and
+all the fatigues of so many years' hurry and business;" and then he
+added, "But I'll make you pay for it all, now I have you." I started a
+little at the words. "Ay," said I, "do you threaten already? Pray what
+d'ye mean by that?" and began to look a little grave.
+
+"I'll tell you," says he, "very plainly what I mean;" and still he held
+me fast in his arms. "I intend from this time never to trouble myself
+with any more business, so I shall never get one shilling for you more
+than I have already; all that you will lose one way. Next, I intend not
+to trouble myself with any of the care or trouble of managing what
+either you have for me or what I have to add to it; but you shall e'en
+take it all upon yourself, as the wives do in Holland; so you will pay
+for it that way too, for all the drudgery shall be yours. Thirdly, I
+intend to condemn you to the constant bondage of my impertinent company,
+for I shall tie you like a pedlar's pack at my back. I shall scarce
+ever be from you; for I am sure I can take delight in nothing else in
+this world." "Very well," says I; "but I am pretty heavy. I hope you'll
+set me down sometimes when you are aweary." "As for that," says he,
+"tire me if you can."
+
+This was all jest and allegory; but it was all true, in the moral of the
+fable, as you shall hear in its place. We were very merry the rest of
+the day, but without any noise or clutter; for he brought not one of his
+acquaintance or friends, either English or foreigner. The honest Quaker
+provided us a very noble dinner indeed, considering how few we were to
+eat it; and every day that week she did the like, and would at last have
+it be all at her own charge, which I was utterly averse to; first,
+because I knew her circumstances not to be very great, though not very
+low; and next, because she had been so true a friend, and so cheerful a
+comforter to me, ay, and counsellor too, in all this affair, that I had
+resolved to make her a present that should be some help to her when all
+was over.
+
+But to return to the circumstances of our wedding. After being very
+merry, as I have told you, Amy and the Quaker put us to bed, the honest
+Quaker little thinking we had been abed together eleven years before.
+Nay, that was a secret which, as it happened, Amy herself did not know.
+Amy grinned and made faces, as if she had been pleased; but it came out
+in so many words, when he was not by, the sum of her mumbling and
+muttering was, that this should have been done ten or a dozen years
+before; that it would signify little now; that was to say, in short,
+that her mistress was pretty near fifty, and too old to have any
+children. I chid her; the Quaker laughed, complimented me upon my not
+being so old as Amy pretended, that I could not be above forty, and
+might have a house full of children yet. But Amy and I too knew better
+than she how it was, for, in short, I was old enough to have done
+breeding, however I looked; but I made her hold her tongue.
+
+In the morning my Quaker landlady came and visited us before we were up,
+and made us eat cakes and drink chocolate in bed; and then left us
+again, and bid us take a nap upon it, which I believe we did. In short,
+she treated us so handsomely, and with such an agreeable cheerfulness,
+as well as plenty, as made it appear to me that Quakers may, and that
+this Quaker did, understand good manners as well as any other people.
+
+I resisted her offer, however, of treating us for the whole week; and I
+opposed it so long that I saw evidently that she took it ill, and would
+have thought herself slighted if we had not accepted it. So I said no
+more, but let her go on, only told her I would be even with her; and so
+I was. However, for that week she treated us as she said she would, and
+did it so very fine, and with such a profusion of all sorts of good
+things, that the greatest burthen to her was how to dispose of things
+that were left; for she never let anything, how dainty or however large,
+be so much as seen twice among us.
+
+I had some servants indeed, which helped her off a little; that is to
+say, two maids, for Amy was now a woman of business, not a servant, and
+ate always with us. I had also a coachman and a boy. My Quaker had a
+man-servant too, but had but one maid; but she borrowed two more of some
+of her friends for the occasion, and had a man-cook for dressing the
+victuals.
+
+She was only at a loss for plate, which she gave me a whisper of; and I
+made Amy fetch a large strong-box, which I had lodged in a safe hand, in
+which was all the fine plate which I had provided on a worse occasion,
+as is mentioned before; and I put it into the Quaker's hand, obliging
+her not to use it as mine, but as her own, for a reason I shall mention
+presently.
+
+I was now my Lady ----, and I must own I was exceedingly pleased with
+it; 'twas so big and so great to hear myself called "her ladyship," and
+"your ladyship," and the like, that I was like the Indian king at
+Virginia, who, having a house built for him by the English, and a lock
+put upon the door, would sit whole days together with the key in his
+hand, locking and unlocking, and double-locking, the door, with an
+unaccountable pleasure at the novelty; so I could have sat a whole day
+together to hear Amy talk to me, and call me "your ladyship" at every
+word; but after a while the novelty wore off and the pride of it abated,
+till at last truly I wanted the other title as much as I did that of
+ladyship before.
+
+We lived this week in all the innocent mirth imaginable, and our
+good-humoured Quaker was so pleasant in her way that it was particularly
+entertaining to us. We had no music at all, or dancing; only I now and
+then sung a French song to divert my spouse, who desired it, and the
+privacy of our mirth greatly added to the pleasure of it. I did not make
+many clothes for my wedding, having always a great many rich clothes by
+me, which, with a little altering for the fashion, were perfectly new.
+The next day he pressed me to dress, though we had no company. At last,
+jesting with him, I told him I believed I was able to dress me so, in
+one kind of dress that I had by me, that he would not know his wife when
+he saw her, especially if anybody else was by. No, he said, that was
+impossible, and he longed to see that dress. I told him I would dress me
+in it, if he would promise me never to desire me to appear in it before
+company. He promised he would not, but wanted to know why too; as
+husbands, you know, are inquisitive creatures, and love to inquire after
+anything they think is kept from them; but I had an answer ready for
+him. "Because," said I, "it is not a decent dress in this country, and
+would not look modest." Neither, indeed, would it, for it was but one
+degree off from appearing in one's shift, but was the usual wear in the
+country where they were used. He was satisfied with my answer, and gave
+me his promise never to ask me to be seen in it before company. I then
+withdrew, taking only Amy and the Quaker with me; and Amy dressed me in
+my old Turkish habit which I danced in formerly, &c., as before. The
+Quaker was charmed with the dress, and merrily said, that if such a
+dress should come to be worn here, she should not know what to do; she
+should be tempted not to dress in the Quaker's way any more.
+
+When all the dress was put on, I loaded it with jewels, and in
+particular I placed the large breast-jewel which he had given me of a
+thousand pistoles upon the front of the _tyhaia_, or head-dress, where
+it made a most glorious show indeed. I had my own diamond necklace on,
+and my hair was _tout brilliant_, all glittering with jewels.
+
+His picture set with diamonds I had placed stitched to my vest, just, as
+might be supposed, upon my heart (which is the compliment in such cases
+among the Eastern people); and all being open at the breast, there was
+no room for anything of a jewel there.
+
+In this figure, Amy holding the train of my robe, I came down to him. He
+was surprised, and perfectly astonished. He knew me, to be sure, because
+I had prepared him, and because there was nobody else there but the
+Quaker and Amy; but he by no means knew Amy, for she had dressed herself
+in the habit of a Turkish slave, being the garb of my little Turk which
+I had at Naples, as I have said; she had her neck and arms bare, was
+bareheaded, and her hair braided in a long tassel hanging down her back;
+but the jade could neither hold her countenance or her chattering
+tongue, so as to be concealed long.
+
+Well, he was so charmed with this dress that he would have me sit and
+dine in it; but it was so thin, and so open before, and the weather
+being also sharp, that I was afraid of taking cold; however, the fire
+being enlarged and the doors kept shut, I sat to oblige him, and he
+professed he never saw so fine a dress in his life. I afterwards told
+him that my husband (so he called the jeweller that was killed) bought
+it for me at Leghorn, with a young Turkish slave which I parted with at
+Paris; and that it was by the help of that slave that I learned how to
+dress in it, and how everything was to be worn, and many of the Turkish
+customs also, with some of their language. This story agreeing with the
+fact, only changing the person, was very natural, and so it went off
+with him; but there was good reason why I should not receive any company
+in this dress--that is to say, not in England. I need not repeat it; you
+will hear more of it.
+
+But when I came abroad I frequently put it on, and upon two or three
+occasions danced in it, but always at his request.
+
+We continued at the Quaker's lodgings for above a year; for now, making
+as though it was difficult to determine where to settle in England to
+his satisfaction, unless in London, which was not to mine, I pretended
+to make him an offer, that, to oblige him, I began to incline to go and
+live abroad with him; that I knew nothing could be more agreeable to
+him, and that as to me, every place was alike; that, as I had lived
+abroad without a husband so many years, it could be no burthen to me to
+live abroad again, especially with him. Then we fell to straining our
+courtesies upon one another. He told me he was perfectly easy at living
+in England, and had squared all his affairs accordingly; for that, as he
+had told me he intended to give over all business in the world, as well
+the care of managing it as the concern about it, seeing we were both in
+condition neither to want it or to have it be worth our while, so I
+might see it was his intention, by his getting himself naturalised, and
+getting the patent of baronet, &c. Well, for all that, I told him I
+accepted his compliment, but I could not but know that his native
+country, where his children were breeding up, must be most agreeable to
+him, and that, if I was of such value to him, I would be there then, to
+enhance the rate of his satisfaction; that wherever he was would be a
+home to me, and any place in the world would be England to me if he was
+with me; and thus, in short, I brought him to give me leave to oblige
+him with going to live abroad, when, in truth, I could not have been
+perfectly easy at living in England, unless I had kept constantly within
+doors, lest some time or other the dissolute life I had lived here
+should have come to be known, and all those wicked things have been
+known too, which I now began to be very much ashamed of.
+
+When we closed up our wedding week, in which our Quaker had been so very
+handsome to us, I told him how much I thought we were obliged to her for
+her generous carriage to us; how she had acted the kindest part through
+the whole, and how faithful a friend she had been to me upon all
+occasions; and then letting him know a little of her family unhappiness,
+I proposed that I thought I not only ought to be grateful to her, but
+really to do something extraordinary for her, towards making her easy in
+her affairs. And I added, that I had no hangers-on that should trouble
+him; that there was nobody belonged to me but what was thoroughly
+provided for, and that, if I did something for this honest woman that
+was considerable, it should be the last gift I would give to anybody in
+the world but Amy; and as for her, we were not agoing to turn her
+adrift, but whenever anything offered for her, we would do as we saw
+cause; that, in the meantime, Amy was not poor, that she had saved
+together between seven and eight hundred pounds. By the way, I did not
+tell him how, and by what wicked ways she got it, but that she had it;
+and that was enough to let him know she would never be in want of us.
+
+My spouse was exceedingly pleased with my discourse about the Quaker,
+made a kind of a speech to me upon the subject of gratitude, told me it
+was one of the brightest parts of a gentlewoman, that it was so twisted
+with honesty, nay, and even with religion too, that he questioned
+whether either of them could be found where gratitude was not to be
+found; that in this act there was not only gratitude, but charity; and
+that to make the charity still more Christian-like, the object too had
+real merit to attract it; he therefore agreed to the thing with all his
+heart, only would have had me let him pay it out of his effects.
+
+I told him, as for that, I did not design, whatever I had said formerly,
+that we should have two pockets; and that though I had talked to him of
+being a free woman, and an independent, and the like, and he had offered
+and promised that I should keep all my own estate in my own hands; yet,
+that since I had taken him, I would e'en do as other honest wives
+did--where I thought fit to give myself, I should give what I had too;
+that if I reserved anything, it should be only in case of mortality, and
+that I might give it to his children afterwards, as my own gift; and
+that, in short, if he thought fit to join stocks, we would see to-morrow
+morning what strength we could both make up in the world, and bringing
+it all together, consider, before we resolved upon the place of
+removing, how we should dispose of what we had, as well as of ourselves.
+This discourse was too obliging, and he too much of a man of sense not
+to receive it as it was meant. He only answered, we would do in that as
+we should both agree; but the thing under our present care was to show
+not gratitude only, but charity and affection too, to our kind friend
+the Quaker; and the first word he spoke of was to settle a thousand
+pounds upon her for her life--that is to say, sixty pounds a year--but
+in such a manner as not to be in the power of any person to reach but
+herself. This was a great thing, and indeed showed the generous
+principles of my husband, and for that reason I mention it; but I
+thought that a little too much too, and particularly because I had
+another thing in view for her about the plate; so I told him I thought,
+if he gave her a purse with a hundred guineas as a present first, and
+then made her a compliment of L40 per annum for her life, secured any
+such way as she should desire, it would be very handsome.
+
+He agreed to that; and the same day, in the evening, when we were just
+going to bed, he took my Quaker by the hand, and, with a kiss, told her
+that we had been very kindly treated by her from the beginning of this
+affair, and his wife before, as she (meaning me) had informed him; and
+that he thought himself bound to let her see that she had obliged
+friends who knew how to be grateful; that for his part of the obligation
+he desired she would accept of that, for an acknowledgment in part only
+(putting the gold into her hand), and that his wife would talk with her
+about what farther he had to say to her; and upon that, not giving her
+time hardly to say "Thank ye," away he went upstairs into our
+bedchamber, leaving her confused and not knowing what to say.
+
+When he was gone she began to make very handsome and obliging
+representations of her goodwill to us both, but that it was without
+expectation of reward; that I had given her several valuable presents
+before--and so, indeed, I had; for, besides the piece of linen which I
+had given her at first, I had given her a suit of damask table-linen, of
+the linen I bought for my balls, viz., three table-cloths and three
+dozen of napkins; and at another time I gave her a little necklace of
+gold beads, and the like; but that is by the way. But she mentioned
+them, I say, and how she was obliged by me on many other occasions; that
+she was not in condition to show her gratitude any other way, not being
+able to make a suitable return; and that now we took from her all
+opportunity, to balance my former friendship, and left her more in debt
+than she was before. She spoke this in a very good kind of manner, in
+her own way, but which was very agreeable indeed, and had as much
+apparent sincerity, and I verily believe as real as was possible to be
+expressed; but I put a stop to it, and bade her say no more, but accept
+of what my spouse had given her, which was but in part, as she had heard
+him say. "And put it up," says I, "and come and sit down here, and give
+me leave to say something else to you on the same head, which my spouse
+and I have settled between ourselves in your behalf." "What dost thee
+mean?" says she, and blushed, and looked surprised, but did not stir.
+She was going to speak again, but I interrupted her, and told her she
+should make no more apologies of any kind whatever, for I had better
+things than all this to talk to her of; so I went on, and told her, that
+as she had been so friendly and kind to us on every occasion, and that
+her house was the lucky place where we came together, and that she knew
+I was from her own mouth acquainted in part with her circumstances, we
+were resolved she should be the better for us as long as she lived. Then
+I told what we had resolved to do for her, and that she had nothing more
+to do but to consult with me how it should be effectually secured for
+her, distinct from any of the effects which were her husband's; and that
+if her husband did so supply her that she could live comfortably, and
+not want it for bread or other necessaries, she should not make use of
+it, but lay up the income of it, and add it every year to the principal,
+so to increase the annual payment, which in time, and perhaps before she
+might come to want it, might double itself; that we were very willing
+whatever she should so lay up should be to herself, and whoever she
+thought fit after her; but that the forty pounds a year must return to
+our family after her life, which we both wished might be long and happy.
+
+Let no reader wonder at my extraordinary concern for this poor woman, or
+at my giving my bounty to her a place in this account. It is not, I
+assure you, to make a pageantry of my charity, or to value myself upon
+the greatness of my soul, that should give in so profuse a manner as
+this, which was above my figure, if my wealth had been twice as much as
+it was; but there was another spring from whence all flowed, and 'tis on
+that account I speak of it. Was it possible I could think of a poor
+desolate woman with four children, and her husband gone from her, and
+perhaps good for little if he had stayed--I say, was I, that had tasted
+so deep of the sorrows of such a kind of widowhood, able to look on her,
+and think of her circumstances, and not be touched in an uncommon
+manner? No, no; I never looked on her and her family, though she was not
+left so helpless and friendless as I had been, without remembering my
+own condition, when Amy was sent out to pawn or sell my pair of stays to
+buy a breast of mutton and a bunch of turnips; nor could I look on her
+poor children, though not poor and perishing, like mine, without tears;
+reflecting on the dreadful condition that mine were reduced to, when
+poor Amy sent them all into their aunt's in Spitalfields, and run away
+from them. These were the original springs, or fountain-head, from
+whence my affectionate thoughts were moved to assist this poor woman.
+
+When a poor debtor, having lain long in the Compter, or Ludgate, or the
+King's Bench for debt, afterwards gets out, rises again in the world,
+and grows rich, such a one is a certain benefactor to the prisoners
+there, and perhaps to every prison he passes by as long as he lives, for
+he remembers the dark days of his own sorrow; and even those who never
+had the experience of such sorrows to stir up their minds to acts of
+charity would have the same charitable, good disposition did they as
+sensibly remember what it is that distinguishes them from others by a
+more favourable and merciful Providence.
+
+This, I say, was, however, the spring of my concern for this honest,
+friendly, and grateful Quaker; and as I had so plentiful a fortune in
+the world, I resolved she should taste the fruit of her kind usage to me
+in a manner that she could not expect.
+
+All the while I talked to her I saw the disorder of her mind; the sudden
+joy was too much for her, and she coloured, trembled, changed, and at
+last grew pale, and was indeed near fainting, when she hastily rung a
+little bell for her maid, who coming in immediately, she beckoned to
+her--for speak she could not--to fill her a glass of wine; but she had
+no breath to take it in, and was almost choked with that which she took
+in her mouth. I saw she was ill, and assisted her what I could, and with
+spirits and things to smell to just kept her from fainting, when she
+beckoned to her maid to withdraw, and immediately burst out in crying,
+and that relieved her. When she recovered herself a little she flew to
+me, and throwing her arms about my neck, "Oh!" says she, "thou hast
+almost killed me;" and there she hung, laying her head in my neck for
+half a quarter of an hour, not able to speak, but sobbing like a child
+that had been whipped.
+
+I was very sorry that I did not stop a little in the middle of my
+discourse and make her drink a glass of wine before it had put her
+spirits into such a violent motion; but it was too late, and it was ten
+to one odds but that it had killed her.
+
+But she came to herself at last, and began to say some very good things
+in return for my kindness. I would not let her go on, but told her I had
+more to say to her still than all this, but that I would let it alone
+till another time. My meaning was about the box of plate, good part of
+which I gave her, and some I gave to Amy; for I had so much plate, and
+some so large, that I thought if I let my husband see it he might be apt
+to wonder what occasion I could ever have for so much, and for plate of
+such a kind too; as particularly a great cistern for bottles, which cost
+a hundred and twenty pounds, and some large candlesticks too big for any
+ordinary use. These I caused Amy to sell; in short, Amy sold above three
+hundred pounds' worth of plate; what I gave the Quaker was worth above
+sixty pounds, and I gave Amy above thirty pounds' worth, and yet I had a
+great deal left for my husband.
+
+Nor did our kindness to the Quaker end with the forty pounds a year, for
+we were always, while we stayed with her, which was above ten months,
+giving her one good thing or another; and, in a word, instead of lodging
+with her, she boarded with us, for I kept the house, and she and all
+her family ate and drank with us, and yet we paid her the rent of the
+house too; in short, I remembered my widowhood, and I made this widow's
+heart glad many a day the more upon that account.
+
+And now my spouse and I began to think of going over to Holland, where I
+had proposed to him to live, and in order to settle all the
+preliminaries of our future manner of living, I began to draw in my
+effects, so as to have them all at command upon whatever occasion we
+thought fit; after which, one morning I called my spouse up to me: "Hark
+ye, sir," said I to him, "I have two very weighty questions to ask of
+you. I don't know what answer you will give to the first, but I doubt
+you will be able to give but a sorry answer to the other, and yet, I
+assure you, it is of the last importance to yourself, and towards the
+future part of your life, wherever it is to be."
+
+He did not seem to be much alarmed, because he could see I was speaking
+in a kind of merry way. "Let's hear your questions, my dear," says he,
+"and I'll give the best answer I can to them." "Why, first," says I:
+
+"I. You have married a wife here, made her a lady, and put her in
+expectation of being something else still when she comes abroad. Pray
+have you examined whether you are able to supply all her extravagant
+demands when she comes abroad, and maintain an expensive Englishwoman in
+all her pride and vanity? In short, have you inquired whether you are
+able to keep her?
+
+"II. You have married a wife here, and given her a great many fine
+things, and you maintain her like a princess, and sometimes call her so.
+Pray what portion have you had with her? what fortune has she been to
+you? and where does her estate lie, that you keep her so fine? I am
+afraid that you keep her in a figure a great deal above her estate, at
+least above all that you have seen of it yet. Are you sure you han't got
+a bite, and that you have not made a beggar a lady?"
+
+"Well," says he, "have you any more questions to ask? Let's have them
+all together; perhaps they may be all answered in a few words, as well
+as these two." "No," says I, "these are the two grand questions--at
+least for the present." "Why, then," says he, "I'll answer you in a few
+words; that I am fully master of my own circumstances, and, without
+farther inquiry, can let my wife you speak of know, that as I have made
+her a lady I can maintain her as a lady, wherever she goes with me; and
+this whether I have one pistole of her portion, or whether she has any
+portion or no; and as I have not inquired whether she has any portion or
+not, so she shall not have the less respect showed her from me, or be
+obliged to live meaner, or be anyways straitened on that account; on the
+contrary, if she goes abroad to live with me in my own country, I will
+make her more than a lady, and support the expense of it too, without
+meddling with anything she has; and this, I suppose," says he, "contains
+an answer to both your questions together."
+
+He spoke this with a great deal more earnestness in his countenance than
+I had when I proposed my questions, and said a great many kind things
+upon it, as the consequence of former discourses, so that I was obliged
+to be in earnest too. "My dear," says I, "I was but in jest in my
+questions; but they were proposed to introduce what I am going to say to
+you in earnest; namely, that if I am to go abroad, 'tis time I should
+let you know how things stand, and what I have to bring you with your
+wife; how it is to be disposed and secured, and the like; and therefore
+come," says I, "sit down, and let me show you your bargain here; I hope
+you will find that you have not got a wife without a fortune."
+
+He told me then, that since he found I was in earnest, he desired that I
+would adjourn it till to-morrow, and then we would do as the poor people
+do after they marry, feel in their pockets, and see how much money they
+can bring together in the world. "Well," says I, "with all my heart;"
+and so we ended our talk for that time.
+
+As this was in the morning, my spouse went out after dinner to his
+goldsmith's, as he said, and about three hours after returns with a
+porter and two large boxes with him; and his servant brought another
+box, which I observed was almost as heavy as the two that the porter
+brought, and made the poor fellow sweat heartily; he dismissed the
+porter, and in a little while after went out again with his man, and
+returning at night, brought another porter with more boxes and bundles,
+and all was carried up, and put into a chamber, next to our bedchamber;
+and in the morning he called for a pretty large round table, and began
+to unpack.
+
+When the boxes were opened, I found they were chiefly full of books, and
+papers, and parchments, I mean books of accounts, and writings, and such
+things as were in themselves of no moment to me, because I understood
+them not; but I perceived he took them all out, and spread them about
+him upon the table and chairs, and began to be very busy with them; so I
+withdrew and left him; and he was indeed so busy among them, that he
+never missed me till I had been gone a good while; but when he had gone
+through all his papers, and come to open a little box, he called for me
+again. "Now," says he, and called me his countess, "I am ready to answer
+your first question; if you will sit down till I have opened this box,
+we will see how it stands."
+
+So we opened the box; there was in it indeed what I did not expect, for
+I thought he had sunk his estate rather than raised it; but he produced
+me in goldsmiths' bills, and stock in the English East India Company,
+about sixteen thousand pounds sterling; then he gave into my hands nine
+assignments upon the Bank of Lyons in France, and two upon the rents of
+the town-house in Paris, amounting in the whole to 5800 crowns per
+annum, or annual rent, as it is called there; and lastly, the sum of
+30,000 rixdollars in the Bank of Amsterdam; besides some jewels and gold
+in the box to the value of about L1500 or L1600, among which was a very
+good necklace of pearl of about L200 value; and that he pulled out and
+tied about my neck, telling me that should not be reckoned into the
+account.
+
+I was equally pleased and surprised, and it was with an inexpressible
+joy that I saw him so rich.
+
+"You might well tell me," said I, "that you were able to make me
+countess, and maintain me as such." In short, he was immensely rich; for
+besides all this, he showed me, which was the reason of his being so
+busy among the books, I say, he showed me several adventures he had
+abroad in the business of his merchandise; as particularly an eighth
+share in an East India ship then abroad; an account-courant with a
+merchant at Cadiz in Spain; about L3000 lent upon bottomry, upon ships
+gone to the Indies; and a large cargo of goods in a merchant's hands,
+for sale at Lisbon in Portugal; so that in his books there was about
+L12,000 more; all which put together, made about L27,000 sterling, and
+L1320 a year.
+
+I stood amazed at this account, as well I might, and said nothing to him
+for a good while, and the rather because I saw him still busy looking
+over his books. After a while, as I was going to express my wonder,
+"Hold, my dear," says he, "this is not all neither;" then he pulled me
+out some old seals, and small parchment rolls, which I did not
+understand; but he told me they were a right of reversion which he had
+to a paternal estate in his family, and a mortgage of 14,000 rixdollars,
+which he had upon it, in the hands of the present possessor; so that was
+about L3000 more.
+
+"But now hold again," says he, "for I must pay my debts out of all this,
+and they are very great, I assure you;" and the first he said was a
+black article of 8000 pistoles, which he had a lawsuit about at Paris,
+but had it awarded against him, which was the loss he had told me of,
+and which made him leave Paris in disgust; that in other accounts he
+owed about L5300 sterling; but after all this, upon the whole, he had
+still L17,000 clear stock in money, and L1320 a year in rent.
+
+After some pause, it came to my turn to speak. "Well," says I, "'tis
+very hard a gentleman with such a fortune as this should come over to
+England, and marry a wife with nothing; it shall never," says I, "be
+said, but what I have, I'll bring into the public stock;" so I began to
+produce.
+
+First, I pulled out the mortgage which good Sir Robert had procured for
+me, the annual rent L700 per annum; the principal money L14,000.
+
+Secondly, I pulled out another mortgage upon land, procured by the same
+faithful friend, which at three times had advanced L12,000.
+
+Thirdly, I pulled him out a parcel of little securities, procured by
+several hands, by fee-farm rents, and such petty mortgages as those
+times afforded, amounting to L10,800 principal money, and paying six
+hundred and thirty-six pounds a-year. So that in the whole there was two
+thousand and fifty-six pounds a year ready money constantly coming in.
+
+When I had shown him all these, I laid them upon the table, and bade him
+take them, that he might be able to give me an answer to the second
+question. What fortune he had with his wife? And laughed a little at it.
+
+He looked at them awhile, and then handed them all back again to me: "I
+will not touch them," says he, "nor one of them, till they are all
+settled in trustees' hands for your own use, and the management wholly
+your own."
+
+I cannot omit what happened to me while all this was acting; though it
+was cheerful work in the main, yet I trembled every joint of me, worse
+for aught I know than ever Belshazzar did at the handwriting on the
+wall, and the occasion was every way as just. "Unhappy wretch," said I
+to myself, "shall my ill-got wealth, the product of prosperous lust, and
+of a vile and vicious life of whoredom and adultery, be intermingled
+with the honest well-gotten estate of this innocent gentleman, to be a
+moth and a caterpillar among it, and bring the judgments of heaven upon
+him, and upon what he has, for my sake? Shall my wickedness blast his
+comforts? Shall I be fire in his flax? and be a means to provoke heaven
+to curse his blessings? God forbid! I'll keep them asunder if it be
+possible."
+
+This is the true reason why I have been so particular in the account of
+my vast acquired stock; and how his estate, which was perhaps the
+product of many years' fortunate industry, and which was equal if not
+superior to mine at best, was, at my request, kept apart from mine, as
+is mentioned above.
+
+I have told you how he gave back all my writings into my own hands
+again. "Well," says I, "seeing you will have it be kept apart, it shall
+be so, upon one condition, which I have to propose, and no other." "And
+what is the condition?" says he. "Why," says I, "all the pretence I can
+have for the making over my own estate to me is, that in case of your
+mortality, I may have it reserved for me, if I outlive you." "Well,"
+says he, "that is true" "But then," said I, "the annual income is always
+received by the husband, during his life, as 'tis supposed, for the
+mutual subsistence of the family; now," says I, "here is L2000 a year,
+which I believe is as much as we shall spend, and I desire none of it
+may be saved; and all the income of your own estate, the interest of the
+L17,000 and the L1320 a year, may be constantly laid by for the increase
+of your estate; and so," added I, "by joining the interest every year to
+the capital you will perhaps grow as rich as you would do if you were to
+trade with it all, if you were obliged to keep house out of it too."
+
+He liked the proposal very well, and said it should be so; and this way
+I, in some measure, satisfied myself that I should not bring my husband
+under the blast of a just Providence, for mingling my cursed ill-gotten
+wealth with his honest estate. This was occasioned by the reflections
+which, at some certain intervals of time, came into my thoughts of the
+justice of heaven, which I had reason to expect would some time or other
+still fall upon me or my effects, for the dreadful life I had lived.
+
+And let nobody conclude from the strange success I met with in all my
+wicked doings, and the vast estate which I had raised by it, that
+therefore I either was happy or easy. No, no, there was a dart struck
+into the liver; there was a secret hell within, even all the while, when
+our joy was at the highest; but more especially now, after it was all
+over, and when, according to all appearance, I was one of the happiest
+women upon earth; all this while, I say, I had such constant terror upon
+my mind, as gave me every now and then very terrible shocks, and which
+made me expect something very frightful upon every accident of life.
+
+In a word, it never lightened or thundered, but I expected the next
+flash would penetrate my vitals, and melt the sword (soul) in this
+scabbard of flesh; it never blew a storm of wind, but I expected the
+fall of some stack of chimneys, or some part of the house, would bury me
+in its ruins; and so of other things.
+
+But I shall perhaps have occasion to speak of all these things again
+by-and-by; the case before us was in a manner settled; we had full four
+thousand pounds per annum for our future subsistence, besides a vast sum
+in jewels and plate; and besides this, I had about eight thousand pounds
+reserved in money which I kept back from him, to provide for my two
+daughters, of whom I have much yet to say.
+
+With this estate, settled as you have heard, and with the best husband
+in the world, I left England again; I had not only, in human prudence,
+and by the nature of the thing, being now married and settled in so
+glorious a manner,--I say, I had not only abandoned all the gay and
+wicked course which I had gone through before, but I began to look back
+upon it with that horror and that detestation which is the certain
+companion, if not the forerunner, of repentance.
+
+Sometimes the wonders of my present circumstances would work upon me,
+and I should have some raptures upon my soul, upon the subject of my
+coming so smoothly out of the arms of hell, that I was not ingulfed in
+ruin, as most who lead such lives are, first or last; but this was a
+flight too high for me; I was not come to that repentance that is raised
+from a sense of Heaven's goodness; I repented of the crime, but it was
+of another and lower kind of repentance, and rather moved by my fears of
+vengeance, than from a sense of being spared from being punished, and
+landed safe after a storm.
+
+The first thing which happened after our coming to the Hague (where we
+lodged for a while) was, that my spouse saluted me one morning with the
+title of countess, as he said he intended to do, by having the
+inheritance to which the honour was annexed made over to him. It is
+true, it was a reversion, but it soon fell, and in the meantime, as all
+the brothers of a count are called counts, so I had the title by
+courtesy, about three years before I had it in reality.
+
+I was agreeably surprised at this coming so soon, and would have had my
+spouse have taken the money which it cost him out of my stock, but he
+laughed at me, and went on.
+
+I was now in the height of my glory and prosperity, and I was called the
+Countess de ----; for I had obtained that unlooked for, which I secretly
+aimed at, and was really the main reason of my coming abroad. I took now
+more servants, lived in a kind of magnificence that I had not been
+acquainted with, was called "your honour" at every word, and had a
+coronet behind my coach; though at the same time I knew little or
+nothing of my new pedigree.
+
+The first thing that my spouse took upon him to manage, was to declare
+ourselves married eleven years before our arriving in Holland; and
+consequently to acknowledge our little son, who was yet in England, to
+be legitimate; order him to be brought over, and added to his family,
+and acknowledge him to be our own.
+
+This was done by giving notice to his people at Nimeguen, where his
+children (which were two sons and a daughter) were brought up, that he
+was come over from England, and that he was arrived at the Hague with
+his wife, and should reside there some time, and that he would have his
+two sons brought down to see him; which accordingly was done, and where
+I entertained them with all the kindness and tenderness that they could
+expect from their mother-in-law; and who pretended to be so ever since
+they were two or three years old.
+
+This supposing us to have been so long married was not difficult at all,
+in a country where we had been seen together about that time, viz.,
+eleven years and a half before, and where we had never been seen
+afterwards till we now returned together: this being seen together was
+also openly owned and acknowledged, of course, by our friend the
+merchant at Rotterdam, and also by the people in the house where we both
+lodged in the same city, and where our first intimacies began, and who,
+as it happened, were all alive; and therefore, to make it the more
+public, we made a tour to Rotterdam again, lodged in the same house, and
+was visited there by our friend the merchant, and afterwards invited
+frequently to his house, where he treated us very handsomely.
+
+This conduct of my spouse, and which he managed very cleverly, was
+indeed a testimony of a wonderful degree of honesty and affection to our
+little son; for it was done purely for the sake of the child.
+
+I call it an honest affection, because it was from a principle of
+honesty that he so earnestly concerned himself to prevent the scandal
+which would otherwise have fallen upon the child, who was itself
+innocent; and as it was from this principle of justice that he so
+earnestly solicited me, and conjured me by the natural affections of a
+mother, to marry him when it was yet young within me and unborn, that
+the child might not suffer for the sin of its father and mother; so,
+though at the same time he really loved me very well, yet I had reason
+to believe that it was from this principle of justice to the child that
+he came to England again to seek me with design to marry me, and, as he
+called it, save the innocent lamb from infamy worse than death.
+
+It was with a just reproach to myself that I must repeat it again, that
+I had not the same concern for it, though it was the child of my own
+body; nor had I ever the hearty affectionate love to the child that he
+had. What the reason of it was I cannot tell; and, indeed, I had shown a
+general neglect of the child through all the gay years of my London
+revels, except that I sent Amy to look upon it now and then, and to pay
+for its nursing; as for me, I scarce saw it four times in the first four
+years of its life, and often wished it would go quietly out of the
+world; whereas a son which I had by the jeweller, I took a different
+care of, and showed a different concern for, though I did not let him
+know me; for I provided very well for him, had him put out very well to
+school, and when he came to years fit for it, let him go over with a
+person of honesty and good business, to the Indies; and after he had
+lived there some time, and began to act for himself, sent him over the
+value of L2000, at several times, with which he traded and grew rich;
+and, as 'tis to be hoped, may at last come over again with forty or
+fifty thousand pounds in his pocket, as many do who have not such
+encouragement at their beginning.
+
+I also sent him over a wife, a beautiful young lady, well-bred, an
+exceeding good-natured pleasant creature; but the nice young fellow did
+not like her, and had the impudence to write to me, that is, to the
+person I employed to correspond with him, to send him another, and
+promised that he would marry her I had sent him, to a friend of his, who
+liked her better than he did; but I took it so ill, that I would not
+send him another, and withal, stopped another article of L1000 which I
+had appointed to send him. He considered of it afterwards, and offered
+to take her; but then truly she took so ill the first affront he put
+upon her, that she would not have him, and I sent him word I thought she
+was very much in the right. However, after courting her two years, and
+some friends interposing, she took him, and made him an excellent wife,
+as I knew she would, but I never sent him the thousand pounds cargo, so
+that he lost that money for misusing me, and took the lady at last
+without it.
+
+My new spouse and I lived a very regular, contemplative life; and, in
+itself, certainly a life filled with all human felicity. But if I looked
+upon my present situation with satisfaction, as I certainly did, so, in
+proportion, I on all occasions looked back on former things with
+detestation, and with the utmost affliction; and now, indeed, and not
+till now, those reflections began to prey upon my comforts, and lessen
+the sweets of my other enjoyments. They might be said to have gnawed a
+hole in my heart before; but now they made a hole quite through it: now
+they ate into all my pleasant things, made bitter every sweet, and mixed
+my sighs with every smile.
+
+Not all the affluence of a plentiful fortune; not a hundred thousand
+pounds estate (for, between us, we had little less); not honour and
+titles, attendants and equipages; in a word, not all the things we call
+pleasure, could give me any relish, or sweeten the taste of things to
+me; at least, not so much but I grew sad, heavy, pensive, and
+melancholy; slept little, and ate little; dreamed continually of the
+most frightful and terrible things imaginable: nothing but apparitions
+of devils and monsters, falling into gulfs, and off from steep and high
+precipices, and the like; so that in the morning, when I should rise,
+and be refreshed with the blessing of rest, I was hag-ridden with
+frights and terrible things formed merely in the imagination, and was
+either tired and wanted sleep, or overrun with vapours, and not fit for
+conversing with my family, or any one else.
+
+My husband, the tenderest creature in the world, and particularly so to
+me, was in great concern for me, and did everything that lay in his
+power to comfort and restore me; strove to reason me out of it; then
+tried all the ways possible to divert me: but it was all to no purpose,
+or to but very little.
+
+My only relief was sometimes to unbosom myself to poor Amy, when she and
+I was alone; and she did all she could to comfort me. But all was to
+little effect there; for, though Amy was the better penitent before,
+when we had been in the storm, Amy was just where she used to be now, a
+wild, gay, loose wretch, and not much the graver for her age; for Amy
+was between forty and fifty by this time too.
+
+But to go on with my own story. As I had no comforter, so I had no
+counsellor; it was well, as I often thought, that I was not a Roman
+Catholic; for what a piece of work should I have made, to have gone to a
+priest with such a history as I had to tell him; and what penance would
+any father confessor have obliged me to perform, especially if he had
+been honest, and true to his office!
+
+However, as I had none of the recourse, so I had none of the absolution,
+by which the criminal confessing goes away comforted; but I went about
+with a heart loaded with crime, and altogether in the dark as to what I
+was to do; and in this condition I languished near two years. I may well
+call it languishing, for if Providence had not relieved me, I should
+have died in little time. But of that hereafter.
+
+I must now go back to another scene, and join it to this end of my
+story, which will complete all my concern with England, at least all
+that I shall bring into this account.
+
+I have hinted at large what I had done for my two sons, one at Messina,
+and the other in the Indies; but I have not gone through the story of my
+two daughters. I was so in danger of being known by one of them, that I
+durst not see her, so as to let her know who I was; and for the other, I
+could not well know how to see her, and own her, and let her see me,
+because she must then know that I would not let her sister know me,
+which would look strange; so that, upon the whole, I resolved to see
+neither of them at all. But Amy managed all that for me; and when she
+had made gentlewomen of them both, by giving them a good, though late
+education, she had like to have blown up the whole case, and herself and
+me too, by an unhappy discovery of herself to the last of them, that is,
+to her who was our cook-maid, and who, as I said before, Amy had been
+obliged to turn away, for fear of the very discovery which now happened.
+I have observed already in what manner Amy managed her by a third
+person; and how the girl, when she was set up for a lady, as above, came
+and visited Amy at my lodgings; after which, Amy going, as was her
+custom, to see the girl's brother (my son) at the honest man's house in
+Spitalfields, both the girls were there, merely by accident, at the same
+time; and the other girl unawares discovered the secret, namely, that
+this was the lady that had done all this for them.
+
+Amy was greatly surprised at it; but as she saw there was no remedy, she
+made a jest of it, and so after that conversed openly, being still
+satisfied that neither of them could make much of it, as long as they
+knew nothing of me. So she took them together one time, and told them
+the history, as she called it, of their mother, beginning at the
+miserable carrying them to their aunt's; she owned she was not their
+mother herself, but described her to them. However, when she said she
+was not their mother, one of them expressed herself very much surprised,
+for the girl had taken up a strong fancy that Amy was really her mother,
+and that she had, for some particular reasons, concealed it from her;
+and therefore, when she told her frankly that she was not her mother,
+the girl fell a-crying, and Amy had much ado to keep life in her. This
+was the girl who was at first my cook-maid in the Pall Mall. When Amy
+had brought her to again a little, and she had recovered her first
+disorder, Amy asked what ailed her? The poor girl hung about her, and
+kissed her, and was in such a passion still, though she was a great
+wench of nineteen or twenty years old, that she could not be brought to
+speak a great while. At last, having recovered her speech, she said
+still, "But oh! Do not say you a'n't my mother! I'm sure you are my
+mother;" and then the girl cried again like to kill herself. Amy could
+not tell what to do with her a good while; she was loth to say again she
+was not her mother, because she would not throw her into a fit of
+crying again; but she went round about a little with her. "Why, child,"
+says she, "why would you have me be your mother? If it be because I am
+so kind to you, be easy, my dear," says Amy; "I'll be as kind to you
+still, as if I was your mother."
+
+"Ay, but," says the girl, "I am sure you are my mother too; and what
+have I done that you won't own me, and that you will not be called my
+mother? Though I am poor, you have made me a gentlewoman," says she,
+"and I won't do anything to disgrace you; besides," added she, "I can
+keep a secret, too, especially for my own mother, sure;" then she calls
+Amy her dear mother, and hung about her neck again, crying still
+vehemently.
+
+This last part of the girl's words alarmed Amy, and, as she told me,
+frighted her terribly; nay, she was so confounded with it, that she was
+not able to govern herself, or to conceal her disorder from the girl
+herself, as you shall hear. Amy was at a full stop, and confused to the
+last degree; and the girl, a sharp jade, turned it upon her. "My dear
+mother," says she, "do not be uneasy about it; I know it all; but do not
+be uneasy, I won't let my sister know a word of it, or my brother
+either, without you giving me leave; but don't disown me now you have
+found me; don't hide yourself from me any longer; I can't bear that,"
+says she, "it will break my heart."
+
+"I think the girl's mad," says Amy; "why, child, I tell thee, if I was
+thy mother I would not disown thee; don't you see I am as kind to you
+as if I was your mother?" Amy might as well have sung a song to a
+kettledrum, as talk to her. "Yes," says the girl, "you are very good to
+me indeed;" and that was enough to make anybody believe she was her
+mother too; but, however, that was not the case, she had other reasons
+to believe, and to know, that she was her mother; and it was a sad thing
+she would not let her call her mother, who was her own child.
+
+Amy was so heart-full with the disturbance of it, that she did not enter
+farther with her into the inquiry, as she would otherwise have done; I
+mean, as to what made the girl so positive; but comes away, and tells me
+the whole story.
+
+I was thunderstruck with the story at first, and much more afterwards,
+as you shall hear; but, I say, I was thunderstruck at first, and amazed,
+and said to Amy, "There must be something or other in it more than we
+know of." But, having examined farther into it, I found the girl had no
+notion of anybody but of Amy; and glad I was that I was not concerned in
+the pretence, and that the girl had no notion of me in it. But even this
+easiness did not continue long; for the next time Amy went to see her,
+she was the same thing, and rather more violent with Amy than she was
+before. Amy endeavoured to pacify her by all the ways imaginable: first,
+she told her she took it ill that she would not believe her; and told
+her, if she would not give over such a foolish whimsey, she would leave
+her to the wide world as she found her.
+
+This put the girl into fits, and she cried ready to kill herself, and
+hung about Amy again like a child. "Why," says Amy, "why can you not be
+easy with me, then, and compose yourself, and let me go on to do you
+good, and show you kindness, as I would do, and as I intend to do? Can
+you think that if I was your mother, I would not tell you so? What
+whimsey is this that possesses your mind?" says Amy. Well, the girl told
+her in a few words (but those few such as frighted Amy out of her wits,
+and me too) that she knew well enough how it was. "I know," says she,
+"when you left ----," naming the village, "where I lived when my father
+went away from us all, that you went over to France; I know that too,
+and who you went with," says the girl; "did not my Lady Roxana come back
+again with you? I know it all well enough; though I was but a child, I
+have heard it all." And thus she run on with such discourse as put Amy
+out of all temper again; and she raved at her like a bedlam, and told
+her she would never come near her any more; she might go a-begging again
+if she would; she'd have nothing to do with her. The girl, a passionate
+wench, told her she knew the worst of it, she could go to service again,
+and if she would not own her own child, she must do as she pleased; then
+she fell into a passion of crying again, as if she would kill herself.
+
+In short, this girl's conduct terrified Amy to the last degree, and me
+too; and was it not that we knew the girl was quite wrong in some
+things, she was yet so right in some other, that it gave me a great deal
+of perplexity; but that which put Amy the most to it, was that the girl
+(my daughter) told her that she (meaning me, her mother) had gone away
+with the jeweller, and into France too; she did not call him the
+jeweller, but with the landlord of the house; who, after her mother fell
+into distress, and that Amy had taken all the children from her, made
+much of her, and afterwards married her.
+
+In short, it was plain the girl had but a broken account of things, but
+yet that she had received some accounts that had a reality in the bottom
+of them, so that, it seems, our first measures, and the amour with the
+jeweller, were not so concealed as I thought they had been; and, it
+seems, came in a broken manner to my sister-in-law, who Amy carried the
+children to, and she made some bustle, it seems, about it. But, as good
+luck was, it was too late, and I was removed and gone, none knew
+whither, or else she would have sent all the children home to me again,
+to be sure.
+
+This we picked out of the girl's discourse, that is to say, Amy did, at
+several times; but it all consisted of broken fragments of stories, such
+as the girl herself had heard so long ago, that she herself could make
+very little of it; only that in the main, that her mother had played the
+whore; had gone away with the gentleman that was landlord of the house;
+that he married her; that she went into France. And, as she had learned
+in my family, where she was a servant, that Mrs. Amy and her Lady Roxana
+had been in France together, so she put all these things together, and
+joining them with the great kindness that Amy now showed her, possessed
+the creature that Amy was really her mother, nor was it possible for Amy
+to conquer it for a long time.
+
+But this, after I had searched into it, as far as by Amy's relation I
+could get an account of it, did not disquiet me half so much as that the
+young slut had got the name of Roxana by the end, and that she knew who
+her Lady Roxana was, and the like; though this, neither, did not hang
+together, for then she would not have fixed upon Amy for her mother. But
+some time after, when Amy had almost persuaded her out of it, and that
+the girl began to be so confounded in her discourses of it, that she
+made neither head nor tail, at last the passionate creature flew out in
+a kind of rage, and said to Amy, that if she was not her mother, Madam
+Roxana was her mother then, for one of them, she was sure, was her
+mother; and then all this that Amy had done for her was by Madam
+Roxana's order. "And I am sure," says she, "it was my Lady Roxana's
+coach that brought the gentlewoman, whoever it was, to my uncle's in
+Spitalfields, for the coachman told me so." Amy fell a-laughing at her
+aloud, as was her usual way; but, as Amy told me, it was but on one
+side of her mouth, for she was so confounded at her discourse, that she
+was ready to sink into the ground; and so was I too when she told it me.
+
+However, Amy brazened her out of it all; told her, "Well, since you
+think you are so high-born as to be my Lady Roxana's daughter, you may
+go to her and claim your kindred, can't you? I suppose," says Amy, "you
+know where to find her?" She said she did not question to find her, for
+she knew where she was gone to live privately; but, though, she might be
+removed again. "For I know how it is," says she, with a kind of a smile
+or a grin; "I know how it all is, well enough."
+
+Amy was so provoked, that she told me, in short, she began to think it
+would be absolutely necessary to murder her. That expression filled me
+with horror, all my blood ran chill in my veins, and a fit of trembling
+seized me, that I could not speak a good while; at last. "What, is the
+devil in you, Amy?" said I. "Nay, nay," says she, "let it be the devil
+or not the devil, if I thought she knew one tittle of your history, I
+would despatch her if she were my own daughter a thousand times." "And
+I," says I in a rage, "as well as I love you, would be the first that
+should put the halter about your neck, and see you hanged with more
+satisfaction than ever I saw you in my life; nay," says I, "you would
+not live to be hanged, I believe I should cut your throat with my own
+hand; I am almost ready to do it," said I, "as 'tis, for your but
+naming the thing." With that, I called her cursed devil, and bade her
+get out of the room.
+
+I think it was the first time that ever I was angry with Amy in all my
+life; and when all was done, though she was a devilish jade in having
+such a thought, yet it was all of it the effect of her excess of
+affection and fidelity to me.
+
+But this thing gave me a terrible shock, for it happened just after I
+was married, and served to hasten my going over to Holland; for I would
+not have been seen, so as to be known by the name of Roxana, no, not for
+ten thousand pounds; it would have been enough to have ruined me to all
+intents and purposes with my husband, and everybody else too; I might as
+well have been the "German princess."
+
+Well, I set Amy to work; and give Amy her due, she set all her wits to
+work to find out which way this girl had her knowledge, but, more
+particularly, how much knowledge she had--that is to say, what she
+really knew, and what she did not know, for this was the main thing with
+me; how she could say she knew who Madam Roxana was, and what notions
+she had of that affair, was very mysterious to me, for it was certain
+she could not have a right notion of me, because she would have it be
+that Amy was her mother.
+
+I scolded heartily at Amy for letting the girl ever know her, that is to
+say, know her in this affair; for that she knew her could not be hid,
+because she, as I might say, served Amy, or rather under Amy, in my
+family, as is said before; but she (Amy) talked with her at first by
+another person, and not by herself; and that secret came out by an
+accident, as I have said above.
+
+Amy was concerned at it as well as I, but could not help it; and though
+it gave us great uneasiness, yet, as there was no remedy, we were bound
+to make as little noise of it as we could, that it might go no farther.
+I bade Amy punish the girl for it, and she did so, for she parted with
+her in a huff, and told her she should see she was not her mother, for
+that she could leave her just where she found her; and seeing she could
+not be content to be served by the kindness of a friend, but that she
+would needs make a mother of her, she would, for the future, be neither
+mother or friend, and so bid her go to service again, and be a drudge as
+she was before.
+
+The poor girl cried most lamentably, but would not be beaten out of it
+still; but that which dumbfoundered Amy more than all the rest was that
+when she had berated the poor girl a long time, and could not beat her
+out of it, and had, as I have observed, threatened to leave her, the girl
+kept to what she said before, and put this turn to it again, that she
+was sure, if Amy wa'n't, my Lady Roxana was her mother, and that she
+would go find her out; adding, that she made no doubt but she could do
+it, for she knew where to inquire the name of her new husband.
+
+Amy came home with this piece of news in her mouth to me. I could easily
+perceive when she came in that she was mad in her mind, and in a rage at
+something or other, and was in great pain to get it out; for when she
+came first in, my husband was in the room. However, Amy going up to
+undress her, I soon made an excuse to follow her, and coming into the
+room, "What the d--l is the matter, Amy?" says I; "I am sure you have
+some bad news." "News," says Amy aloud; "ay, so I have; I think the d--l
+is in that young wench. She'll ruin us all and herself too; there's no
+quieting her." So she went on and told me all the particulars; but sure
+nothing was so astonished as I was when she told me that the girl knew I
+was married, that she knew my husband's name, and would endeavour to
+find me out. I thought I should have sunk down at the very words. In the
+middle of all my amazement, Amy starts up and runs about the room like a
+distracted body. "I must put an end to it, that I will; I can't bear
+it--I must murder her, I'll kill the b----;" and swears by her Maker, in
+the most serious tone in the world, and then repeated it over three or
+four times, walking to and again in the room. "I will, in short, I will
+kill her, if there was not another wench in the world."
+
+"Prithee hold thy tongue, Amy," says I; "why, thou art mad." "Ay, so I
+am," says she, "stark mad; but I'll be the death of her for all that,
+and then I shall be sober again." "But you sha'n't," says I, "you
+sha'n't hurt a hair of her head; why, you ought to be hanged for what
+you have done already, for having resolved on it is doing it; as to the
+guilt of the fact you are a murderer already, as much as if you had done
+it already."
+
+"I know that," says Amy, "and it can be no worse; I'll put you out of
+your pain, and her too; she shall never challenge you for her mother in
+this world, whatever she may in the next." "Well, well," says I, "be
+quiet, and do not talk thus, I can't bear it." So she grew a little
+soberer after a while.
+
+I must acknowledge, the notion of being discovered carried with it so
+many frightful ideas, and hurried my thoughts so much, that I was scarce
+myself any more than Amy, so dreadful a thing is a load of guilt upon
+the mind.
+
+And yet when Amy began the second time to talk thus abominably of
+killing the poor child, of murdering her, and swore by her Maker that
+she would, so that I began to see that she was in earnest, I was farther
+terrified a great deal, and it helped to bring me to myself again in
+other cases.
+
+We laid our heads together then to see if it was possible to discover by
+what means she had learned to talk so, and how she (I mean my girl) came
+to know that her mother had married a husband; but it would not do, the
+girl would acknowledge nothing, and gave but a very imperfect account of
+things still, being disgusted to the last degree with Amy's leaving her
+so abruptly as she did.
+
+Well, Amy went to the house where the boy was; but it was all one, there
+they had only heard a confused story of the lady somebody, they knew not
+who, which the same wench had told them, but they gave no heed to it at
+all. Amy told them how foolishly the girl had acted, and how she had
+carried on the whimsey so far, in spite of all they could say to her;
+that she had taken it so ill, she would see her no more, and so she
+might e'en go to service again if she would, for she (Amy) would have
+nothing to do with her unless she humbled herself and changed her note,
+and that quickly too.
+
+The good old gentleman, who had been the benefactor to them all, was
+greatly concerned at it, and the good woman his wife was grieved beyond
+all expressing, and begged her ladyship (meaning Amy), not to resent it;
+they promised, too, they would talk with her about it, and the old
+gentlewoman added, with some astonishment, "Sure she cannot be such a
+fool but she will be prevailed with to hold her tongue, when she has it
+from your own mouth that you are not her mother, and sees that it
+disobliges your ladyship to have her insist upon it." And so Amy came
+away with some expectation that it would be stopped here.
+
+But the girl was such a fool for all that, and persisted in it
+obstinately, notwithstanding all they could say to her; nay, her sister
+begged and entreated her not to play the fool, for that it would ruin
+her too, and that the lady (meaning Amy) would abandon them both.
+
+Well, notwithstanding this, she insisted, I say, upon it, and which was
+worse, the longer it lasted the more she began to drop Amy's ladyship,
+and would have it that the Lady Roxana was her mother, and that she had
+made some inquiries about it, and did not doubt but she should find her
+out.
+
+When it was come to this, and we found there was nothing to be done with
+the girl, but that she was so obstinately bent upon the search after me,
+that she ventured to forfeit all she had in view; I say, when I found it
+was come to this, I began to be more serious in my preparations of my
+going beyond sea, and particularly, it gave me some reason to fear that
+there was something in it. But the following accident put me beside all
+my measures, and struck me into the greatest confusion that ever I was
+in my life.
+
+I was so near going abroad that my spouse and I had taken measures for
+our going off; and because I would be sure not to go too public, but so
+as to take away all possibility of being seen, I had made some exception
+to my spouse against going in the ordinary public passage boats. My
+pretence to him was the promiscuous crowds in those vessels, want of
+convenience, and the like. So he took the hint, and found me out an
+English merchant-ship, which was bound for Rotterdam, and getting soon
+acquainted with the master, he hired his whole ship, that is to say, his
+great cabin, for I do not mean his ship for freight, that so we had all
+the conveniences possible for our passage; and all things being near
+ready, he brought home the captain one day to dinner with him, that I
+might see him, and be acquainted a little with him. So we came after
+dinner to talk of the ship and the conveniences on board, and the
+captain pressed me earnestly to come on board and see the ship,
+intimating that he would treat us as well as he could; and in discourse
+I happened to say I hoped he had no other passengers. He said no, he had
+not; but, he said, his wife had courted him a good while to let her go
+over to Holland with him, for he always used that trade, but he never
+could think of venturing all he had in one bottom; but if I went with
+him he thought to take her and her kinswoman along with him this voyage,
+that they might both wait upon me; and so added, that if we would do him
+the honour to dine on board the next day, he would bring his wife on
+board, the better to make us welcome.
+
+Who now could have believed the devil had any snare at the bottom of all
+this? or that I was in any danger on such an occasion, so remote and out
+of the way as this was? But the event was the oddest that could be
+thought of. As it happened, Amy was not at home when we accepted this
+invitation, and so she was left out of the company; but instead of Amy,
+we took our honest, good-humoured, never-to-be-omitted friend the
+Quaker, one of the best creatures that ever lived, sure; and who,
+besides a thousand good qualities unmixed with one bad one, was
+particularly excellent for being the best company in the world; though
+I think I had carried Amy too, if she had not been engaged in this
+unhappy girl's affair. For on a sudden the girl was lost, and no news
+was to be heard of her; and Amy had haunted her to every place she could
+think of, that it was likely to find her in; but all the news she could
+hear of her was, that she was gone to an old comrade's house of hers,
+which she called sister, and who was married to a master of a ship, who
+lived at Redriff; and even this the jade never told me. It seems, when
+this girl was directed by Amy to get her some breeding, go to the
+boarding-school, and the like, she was recommended to a boarding-school
+at Camberwell, and there she contracted an acquaintance with a young
+lady (so they are all called), her bedfellow, that they called sisters,
+and promised never to break off their acquaintance.
+
+But judge you what an unaccountable surprise I must be in when I came on
+board the ship and was brought into the captain's cabin, or what they
+call it, the great cabin of the ship, to see his lady or wife, and
+another young person with her, who, when I came to see her near hand,
+was my old cook-maid in the Pall Mall, and, as appeared by the sequel of
+the story, was neither more or less than my own daughter. That I knew
+her was out of doubt; for though she had not had opportunity to see me
+very often, yet I had often seen her, as I must needs, being in my own
+family so long.
+
+If ever I had need of courage, and a full presence of mind, it was now;
+it was the only valuable secret in the world to me, all depended upon
+this occasion; if the girl knew me, I was undone; and to discover any
+surprise or disorder had been to make her know me, or guess it, and
+discover herself.
+
+I was once going to feign a swooning and fainting away, and so falling
+on the ground, or floor, put them all into a hurry and fright, and by
+that means to get an opportunity to be continually holding something to
+my nose to smell to, and so hold my hand or my handkerchief, or both,
+before my mouth; then pretend I could not bear the smell of the ship, or
+the closeness of the cabin. But that would have been only to remove into
+a clearer air upon the quarter-deck, where we should, with it, have had
+a clearer light too; and if I had pretended the smell of the ship, it
+would have served only to have carried us all on shore to the captain's
+house, which was hard by; for the ship lay so close to the shore, that
+we only walked over a plank to go on board, and over another ship which
+lay within her; so this not appearing feasible, and the thought not
+being two minutes old, there was no time, for the two ladies rose up,
+and we saluted, so that I was bound to come so near my girl as to kiss
+her, which I would not have done had it been possible to have avoided
+it, but there was no room to escape.
+
+I cannot but take notice here, that notwithstanding there was a secret
+horror upon my mind, and I was ready to sink when I came close to her to
+salute her, yet it was a secret inconceivable pleasure to me when I
+kissed her, to know that I kissed my own child, my own flesh and blood,
+born of my body, and who I had never kissed since I took the fatal
+farewell of them all, with a million of tears, and a heart almost dead
+with grief, when Amy and the good woman took them all away, and went
+with them to Spitalfields. No pen can describe, no words can express, I
+say, the strange impression which this thing made upon my spirits. I
+felt something shoot through my blood, my heart fluttered, my head
+flashed, and was dizzy, and all within me, as I thought, turned about,
+and much ado I had not to abandon myself to an excess of passion at the
+first sight of her, much more when my lips touched her face. I thought I
+must have taken her in my arms and kissed her again a thousand times,
+whether I would or no.
+
+But I roused up my judgment, and shook it off, and with infinite
+uneasiness in my mind, I sat down. You will not wonder if upon this
+surprise I was not conversable for some minutes, and that the disorder
+had almost discovered itself. I had a complication of severe things upon
+me, I could not conceal my disorder without the utmost difficulty, and
+yet upon my concealing it depended the whole of my prosperity; so I used
+all manner of violence with myself to prevent the mischief which was at
+the door.
+
+Well, I saluted her, but as I went first forward to the captain's lady,
+who was at the farther end of the cabin, towards the light, I had the
+occasion offered to stand with my back to the light, when I turned
+about to her, who stood more on my left hand, so that she had not a fair
+sight of me, though I was so near her. I trembled, and knew neither what
+I did or said, I was in the utmost extremity, between so many particular
+circumstances as lay upon me, for I was to conceal my disorder from
+everybody at the utmost peril, and at the same time expected everybody
+would discern it. I was to expect she would discover that she knew me,
+and yet was, by all means possible, to prevent it. I was to conceal
+myself, if possible, and yet had not the least room to do anything
+towards it. In short, there was no retreat, no shifting anything off, no
+avoiding or preventing her having a full sight of me, nor was there any
+counterfeiting my voice, for then my husband would have perceived it. In
+short, there was not the least circumstance that offered me any
+assistance, or any favourable thing to help me in this exigence.
+
+After I had been upon the rack for near half-an-hour, during which I
+appeared stiff and reserved, and a little too formal, my spouse and the
+captain fell into discourses about the ship and the sea, and business
+remote from us women; and by-and-by the captain carried him out upon the
+quarter-deck, and left us all by ourselves in the great cabin. Then we
+began to be a little freer one with another, and I began to be a little
+revived by a sudden fancy of my own--namely, I thought I perceived that
+the girl did not know me, and the chief reason of my having such a
+notion was because I did not perceive the least disorder in her
+countenance, or the least change in her carriage, no confusion, no
+hesitation in her discourse; nor, which I had my eye particularly upon,
+did I observe that she fixed her eyes much upon me, that is to say, not
+singling me out to look steadily at me, as I thought would have been the
+case, but that she rather singled out my friend the Quaker, and chatted
+with her on several things; but I observed, too, that it was all about
+indifferent matters.
+
+This greatly encouraged me, and I began to be a little cheerful; but I
+was knocked down again as with a thunderclap, when turning to the
+captain's wife, and discoursing of me, she said to her, "Sister, I
+cannot but think my lady to be very much like such a person." Then she
+named the person, and the captain's wife said she thought so too. The
+girl replied again, she was sure she had seen me before, but she could
+not recollect where; I answered (though her speech was not directed to
+me) that I fancied she had not seen me before in England, but asked if
+she had lived in Holland. She said, No, no, she had never been out of
+England, and I added, that she could not then have known me in England,
+unless it was very lately, for I had lived at Rotterdam a great while.
+This carried me out of that part of the broil pretty well, and to make
+it go off better, when a little Dutch boy came into the cabin, who
+belonged to the captain, and who I easily perceived to be Dutch, I
+jested and talked Dutch to him, and was merry about the boy, that is to
+say, as merry as the consternation I was still in would let me be.
+
+However, I began to be thoroughly convinced by this time that the girl
+did not know me, which was an infinite satisfaction to me, or, at least,
+that though she had some notion of me, yet that she did not think
+anything about my being who I was, and which, perhaps, she would have
+been as glad to have known as I would have been surprised if she had;
+indeed, it was evident that, had she suspected anything of the truth,
+she would not have been able to have concealed it.
+
+Thus this meeting went off, and, you may be sure, I was resolved, if
+once I got off of it, she should never see me again to revive her fancy;
+but I was mistaken there too, as you shall hear. After we had been on
+board, the captain's lady carried us home to her house, which was but
+just on shore, and treated us there again very handsomely, and made us
+promise that we would come again and see her before we went to concert
+our affairs for the voyage and the like, for she assured us that both
+she and her sister went the voyage at that time for our company, and I
+thought to myself, "Then you'll never go the voyage at all;" for I saw
+from that moment that it would be no way convenient for my ladyship to
+go with them, for that frequent conversation might bring me to her mind,
+and she would certainly claim her kindred to me in a few days, as indeed
+would have been the case.
+
+It is hardly possible for me to conceive what would have been our part
+in this affair had my woman Amy gone with me on board this ship; it had
+certainly blown up the whole affair, and I must for ever after have been
+this girl's vassal, that is to say, have let her into the secret, and
+trusted to her keeping it too, or have been exposed and undone. The very
+thought filled me with horror.
+
+But I was not so unhappy neither, as it fell out, for Amy was not with
+us, and that was my deliverance indeed; yet we had another chance to get
+over still. As I resolved to put off the voyage, so I resolved to put
+off the visit, you may be sure, going upon this principle, namely, that
+I was fixed in it that the girl had seen her last of me, and should
+never see me more.
+
+However, to bring myself well off, and, withal, to see, if I could, a
+little farther into the matter, I sent my friend the Quaker to the
+captain's lady to make the visit promised, and to make my excuse that I
+could not possibly wait on her, for that I was very much out of order;
+and in the end of the discourse I bade her insinuate to them that she
+was afraid I should not be able to get ready to go the voyage as soon as
+the captain would be obliged to go, and that perhaps we might put it off
+to his next voyage. I did not let the Quaker into any other reason for
+it than that I was indisposed; and not knowing what other face to put
+upon that part, I made her believe that I thought I was a-breeding.
+
+It was easy to put that into her head, and she of course hinted to the
+captain's lady that she found me so very ill that she was afraid I would
+miscarry, and then, to be sure, I could not think of going.
+
+She went, and she managed that part very dexterously, as I knew she
+would, though she knew not a word of the grand reason of my
+indisposition; but I was all sunk and dead-hearted again when she told
+me she could not understand the meaning of one thing in her visit,
+namely, that the young woman, as she called her, that was with the
+captain's lady, and who she called sister, was most impertinently
+inquisitive into things; as who I was? how long I had been in England?
+where I had lived? and the like; and that, above all the rest, she
+inquired if I did not live once at the other end of the town.
+
+"I thought her inquiries so out of the way," says the honest Quaker,
+"that I gave her not the least satisfaction; but as I saw by thy answers
+on board the ship, when she talked of thee, that thou didst not incline
+to let her be acquainted with thee, so I was resolved that she should
+not be much the wiser for me; and when she asked me if thou ever
+lived'st here or there, I always said, No, but that thou wast a Dutch
+lady, and was going home again to thy family, and lived abroad."
+
+I thanked her very heartily for that part, and indeed she served me in
+it more than I let her know she did: in a word, she thwarted the girl so
+cleverly, that if she had known the whole affair she could not have
+done it better.
+
+But, I must acknowledge, all this put me upon the rack again, and I was
+quite discouraged, not at all doubting but that the jade had a right
+scent of things, and that she knew and remembered my face, but had
+artfully concealed her knowledge of me till she might perhaps do it more
+to my disadvantage. I told all this to Amy, for she was all the relief I
+had. The poor soul (Amy) was ready to hang herself, that, as she said,
+she had been the occasion of it all; and that if I was ruined (which was
+the word I always used to her), she had ruined me; and she tormented
+herself about it so much, that I was sometimes fain to comfort her and
+myself too.
+
+What Amy vexed herself at was, chiefly, that she should be surprised so
+by the girl, as she called her; I mean surprised into a discovery of
+herself to the girl; which indeed was a false step of Amy's, and so I
+had often told her. But it was to no purpose to talk of that now, the
+business was, how to get clear of the girl's suspicions, and of the girl
+too, for it looked more threatening every day than other; and if I was
+uneasy at what Amy had told me of her rambling and rattling to her
+(Amy), I had a thousand times as much reason to be uneasy now, when she
+had chopped upon me so unhappily as this; and not only had seen my face,
+but knew too where I lived, what name I went by, and the like.
+
+And I am not come to the worst of it yet neither, for a few days after
+my friend the Quaker had made her visit, and excused me on the account
+of indisposition, as if they had done it in over and above kindness,
+because they had been told I was not well, they come both directly to my
+lodgings to visit me: the captain's wife and my daughter (who she called
+sister), and the captain, to show them the place; the captain only
+brought them to the door, put them in, and went away upon some business.
+
+Had not the kind Quaker, in a lucky moment, come running in before them,
+they had not only clapped in upon me, in the parlour, as it had been a
+surprise, but which would have been a thousand times worse, had seen Amy
+with me; I think if that had happened, I had had no remedy but to take
+the girl by herself, and have made myself known to her, which would have
+been all distraction.
+
+But the Quaker, a lucky creature to me, happened to see them come to the
+door, before they rung the bell, and instead of going to let them in,
+came running in with some confusion in her countenance, and told me who
+was a-coming; at which Amy run first and I after her, and bid the Quaker
+come up as soon as she had let them in.
+
+I was going to bid her deny me, but it came into my thoughts, that
+having been represented so much out of order, it would have looked very
+odd; besides, I knew the honest Quaker, though she would do anything
+else for me, would not lie for me, and it would have been hard to have
+desired it of her.
+
+After she had let them in, and brought them into the parlour, she came
+up to Amy and I, who were hardly out of the fright, and yet were
+congratulating one another that Amy was not surprised again.
+
+They paid their visit in form, and I received them as formally, but took
+occasion two or three times to hint that I was so ill that I was afraid
+I should not be able to go to Holland, at least not so soon as the
+captain must go off; and made my compliment how sorry I was to be
+disappointed of the advantage of their company and assistance in the
+voyage; and sometimes I talked as if I thought I might stay till the
+captain returned, and would be ready to go again; then the Quaker put
+in, that then I might be too far gone, meaning with child, that I should
+not venture at all; and then (as if she should be pleased with it)
+added, she hoped I would stay and lie in at her house; so as this
+carried its own face with it, 'twas well enough.
+
+But it was now high time to talk of this to my husband, which, however,
+was not the greatest difficulty before me; for after this and other chat
+had taken up some time, the young fool began her tattle again; and two
+or three times she brought it in, that I was so like a lady that she had
+the honour to know at the other end of the town, that she could not put
+that lady out of her mind when I was by, and once or twice I fancied the
+girl was ready to cry; by and by she was at it again, and at last I
+plainly saw tears in her eyes; upon which I asked her if the lady was
+dead, because she seemed to be in some concern for her. She made me much
+easier by her answer than ever she did before; she said she did not
+really know, but she believed she was dead.
+
+This, I say, a little relieved my thoughts, but I was soon down again;
+for, after some time, the jade began to grow talkative; and as it was
+plain that she had told all that her head could retain of Roxana, and
+the days of joy which I had spent at that part of the town, another
+accident had like to have blown us all up again.
+
+I was in a kind of dishabille when they came, having on a loose robe,
+like a morning-gown, but much after the Italian way; and I had not
+altered it when I went up, only dressed my head a little; and as I had
+been represented as having been lately very ill, so the dress was
+becoming enough for a chamber.
+
+This morning vest, or robe, call it as you please, was more shaped to
+the body than we wear them since, showing the body in its true shape,
+and perhaps a little too plainly if it had been to be worn where any men
+were to come; but among ourselves it was well enough, especially for hot
+weather; the colour was green, figured, and the stuff a French damask,
+very rich.
+
+This gown or vest put the girl's tongue a running again, and her sister,
+as she called her, prompted it; for as they both admired my vest, and
+were taken up much about the beauty of the dress, the charming damask,
+the noble trimming, and the like, my girl puts in a word to the sister
+(captain's wife), "This is just such a thing as I told you," says she,
+"the lady danced in." "What," says the captain's wife, "the Lady Roxana
+that you told me of? Oh! that's a charming story," says she, "tell it my
+lady." I could not avoid saying so too, though from my soul I wished her
+in heaven for but naming it; nay, I won't say but if she had been
+carried t'other way it had been much as one to me, if I could but have
+been rid of her, and her story too, for when she came to describe the
+Turkish dress, it was impossible but the Quaker, who was a sharp,
+penetrating creature, should receive the impression in a more dangerous
+manner than the girl, only that indeed she was not so dangerous a
+person; for if she had known it all, I could more freely have trusted
+her than I could the girl, by a great deal, nay, I should have been
+perfectly easy in her.
+
+However, as I have said, her talk made me dreadfully uneasy, and the
+more when the captain's wife mentioned but the name of Roxana. What my
+face might do towards betraying me I knew not, because I could not see
+myself, but my heart beat as if it would have jumped out at my mouth,
+and my passion was so great, that, for want of vent, I thought I should
+have burst. In a word, I was in a kind of a silent rage, for the force I
+was under of restraining my passion was such as I never felt the like
+of. I had no vent, nobody to open myself to, or to make a complaint to,
+for my relief; I durst not leave the room by any means, for then she
+would have told all the story in my absence, and I should have been
+perpetually uneasy to know what she had said, or had not said; so that,
+in a word, I was obliged to sit and hear her tell all the story of
+Roxana, that is to say, of myself, and not know at the same time whether
+she was in earnest or in jest, whether she knew me or no; or, in short,
+whether I was to be exposed, or not exposed.
+
+She began only in general with telling where she lived, what a place she
+had of it, how gallant a company her lady had always had in the house;
+how they used to sit up all night in the house gaming and dancing; what
+a fine lady her mistress was, and what a vast deal of money the upper
+servants got; as for her, she said, her whole business was in the next
+house, so that she got but little, except one night that there was
+twenty guineas given to be divided among the servants, when, she said,
+she got two guineas and a half for her share.
+
+She went on, and told them how many servants there was, and how they
+were ordered; but, she said, there was one Mrs. Amy who was over them
+all; and that she, being the lady's favourite, got a great deal. She did
+not know, she said, whether Amy was her Christian name or her surname,
+but she supposed it was her surname; that they were told she got
+threescore pieces of gold at one time, being the same night that the
+rest of the servants had the twenty guineas divided among them.
+
+I put in at that word, and said it was a vast deal to give away. "Why,"
+says I, "it was a portion for a servant." "O madam!" says she, "it was
+nothing to what she got afterwards; we that were servants hated her
+heartily for it; that is to say, we wished it had been our lot in her
+stead." Then I said again, "Why, it was enough to get her a good
+husband, and settle her for the world, if she had sense to manage it."
+"So it might, to be sure, madam," says she, "for we were told she laid
+up above L500; but, I suppose, Mrs. Amy was too sensible that her
+character would require a good portion to put her off."
+
+"Oh," said I, "if that was the case it was another thing."
+
+"Nay," says she, "I don't know, but they talked very much of a young
+lord that was very great with her."
+
+"And pray what came of her at last?" said I, for I was willing to hear a
+little (seeing she would talk of it) what she had to say, as well of Amy
+as of myself.
+
+"I don't know, madam," said she, "I never heard of her for several
+years, till t'other day I happened to see her."
+
+"Did you indeed?" says I (and made mighty strange of it); "what! and in
+rags, it may be," said I; "that's often the end of such creatures."
+
+"Just the contrary, madam," says she. "She came to visit an acquaintance
+of mine, little thinking, I suppose, to see me, and, I assure you, she
+came in her coach."
+
+"In her coach!" said I; "upon my word, she had made her market then; I
+suppose she made hay while the sun shone. Was she married, pray?"
+
+"I believe she had been married, madam," says she, "but it seems she had
+been at the East Indies; and if she was married, it was there, to be
+sure. I think she said she had good luck in the Indies."
+
+"That is, I suppose," said I, "had buried her husband there."
+
+"I understood it so, madam," says she, "and that she had got his
+estate."
+
+"Was that her good luck?" said I; "it might be good to her, as to the
+money indeed, but it was but the part of a jade to call it good luck."
+
+Thus far our discourse of Mrs. Amy went, and no farther, for she knew no
+more of her; but then the Quaker unhappily, though undesignedly, put in
+a question, which the honest good-humoured creature would have been far
+from doing if she had known that I had carried on the discourse of Amy
+on purpose to drop Roxana out of the conversation.
+
+But I was not to be made easy too soon. The Quaker put in, "But I think
+thou saidst something was behind of thy mistress; what didst thou call
+her? Roxana, was it not? Pray, what became of her?"
+
+"Ay, ay, Roxana," says the captain's wife; "pray, sister, let's hear the
+story of Roxana; it will divert my lady, I'm sure."
+
+"That's a damned lie," said I to myself; "if you knew how little 't
+would divert me, you would have too much advantage over me." Well, I saw
+no remedy, but the story must come on, so I prepared to hear the worst
+of it.
+
+"Roxana!" says she, "I know not what to say of her; she was so much
+above us, and so seldom seen, that we could know little of her but by
+report; but we did sometimes see her too; she was a charming woman
+indeed, and the footmen used to say that she was to be sent for to
+court."
+
+"To court!" said I; "why, she was at court, wasn't she? the Pall Mall is
+not far from Whitehall."
+
+"Yes, madam," says she, "but I mean another way."
+
+"I understand thee," says the Quaker; "thou meanest, I suppose, to be
+mistress to the king."
+
+"Yes, madam," said she.
+
+I cannot help confessing what a reserve of pride still was left in me;
+and though I dreaded the sequel of the story, yet when she talked how
+handsome and how fine a lady this Roxana was, I could not help being
+pleased and tickled with it, and put in questions two or three times of
+how handsome she was; and was she really so fine a woman as they talked
+of; and the like, on purpose to hear her repeat what the people's
+opinion of me was, and how I had behaved.
+
+"Indeed," says she, at last, "she was a most beautiful creature as ever
+I saw in my life." "But then," said I, "you never had the opportunity to
+see her but when she was set out to the best advantage."
+
+"Yes, yes, madam," says she, "I have seen her several times in her
+_deshabille_. And I can assure you, she was a very fine woman; and that
+which was more still, everybody said she did not paint."
+
+This was still agreeable to me one way; but there was a devilish sting
+in the tail of it all, and this last article was one; wherein she said
+she had seen me several times in my _deshabille_. This put me in mind
+that then she must certainly know me, and it would come out at last;
+which was death to me but to think of.
+
+"Well, but, sister," says the captain's wife, "tell my lady about the
+ball; that's the best of all the story; and of Roxana's dancing in a
+fine outlandish dress."
+
+"That's one of the brightest parts of her story indeed," says the girl.
+"The case was this: we had balls and meetings in her ladyship's
+apartments every week almost; but one time my lady invited all the
+nobles to come such a time, and she would give them a ball; and there
+was a vast crowd indeed," says she.
+
+"I think you said the king was there, sister, didn't you?"
+
+"No, madam," says she, "that was the second time, when they said the
+king had heard how finely the Turkish lady danced, and that he was
+there to see her; but the king, if his Majesty was there, came
+disguised."
+
+"That is, what they call incog.," says my friend the Quaker; "thou canst
+not think the king would disguise himself." "Yes," says the girl, "it
+was so; he did not come in public with his guards, but we all knew which
+was the king well enough, that is to say, which they said was the king."
+
+"Well," says the captain's wife, "about the Turkish dress; pray let us
+hear that." "Why," says she, "my lady sat in a fine little drawing-room,
+which opened into the great room, and where she received the compliments
+of the company; and when the dancing began, a great lord," says she, "I
+forget who they called him (but he was a very great lord or duke, I
+don't know which), took her out, and danced with her; but after a while,
+my lady on a sudden shut the drawing-room, and ran upstairs with her
+woman, Mrs. Amy; and though she did not stay long (for I suppose she had
+contrived it all beforehand), she came down dressed in the strangest
+figure that ever I saw in my life; but it was exceeding fine."
+
+Here she went on to describe the dress, as I have done already; but did
+it so exactly, that I was surprised at the manner of her telling it;
+there was not a circumstance of it left out.
+
+I was now under a new perplexity, for this young slut gave so complete
+an account of everything in the dress, that my friend the Quaker
+coloured at it, and looked two or three times at me, to see if I did not
+do so too; for (as she told me afterwards) she immediately perceived it
+was the same dress that she had seen me have on, as I have said before.
+However, as she saw I took no notice of it, she kept her thought private
+to herself; and I did so too, as well as I could.
+
+I put in two or three times, that she had a good memory, that could be
+so particular in every part of such a thing.
+
+"Oh, madam!" says she, "we that were servants, stood by ourselves in a
+corner, but so as we could see more than some strangers; besides," says
+she, "it was all our conversation for several days in the family, and
+what one did not observe another did." "Why," says I to her, "this was
+no Persian dress; only, I suppose your lady was some French comedian,
+that is to say, a stage Amazon, that put on a counterfeit dress to
+please the company, such as they used in the play of Tamerlane at Paris,
+or some such."
+
+"No, indeed, madam," says she, "I assure you my lady was no actress; she
+was a fine modest lady, fit to be a princess; everybody said if she was
+a mistress, she was fit to be a mistress to none but the king; and they
+talked her up for the king as if it had really been so. Besides, madam,"
+says she, "my lady danced a Turkish dance; all the lords and gentry said
+it was so; and one of them swore he had seen it danced in Turkey
+himself, so that it could not come from the theatre at Paris; and then
+the name Roxana," says she, "was a Turkish name."
+
+"Well," said I, "but that was not your lady's name, I suppose?"
+
+"No, no, madam," said she, "I know that. I know my lady's name and
+family very well; Roxana was not her name, that's true, indeed."
+
+Here she run me aground again, for I durst not ask her what was Roxana's
+real name, lest she had really dealt with the devil, and had boldly
+given my own name in for answer; so that I was still more and more
+afraid that the girl had really gotten the secret somewhere or other;
+though I could not imagine neither how that could be.
+
+In a word, I was sick of the discourse, and endeavoured many ways to put
+an end to it, but it was impossible; for the captain's wife, who called
+her sister, prompted her, and pressed her to tell it, most ignorantly
+thinking that it would be a pleasant tale to all of us.
+
+Two or three times the Quaker put in, that this Lady Roxana had a good
+stock of assurance; and that it was likely, if she had been in Turkey,
+she had lived with, or been kept by, some great bashaw there. But still
+she would break in upon all such discourse, and fly out into the most
+extravagant praises of her mistress, the famed Roxana. I run her down as
+some scandalous woman; that it was not possible to be otherwise; but she
+would not hear of it; her lady was a person of such and such
+qualifications that nothing but an angel was like her, to be sure; and
+yet, after all she could say, her own account brought her down to this,
+that, in short, her lady kept little less than a gaming ordinary; or, as
+it would be called in the times since that, an assembly for gallantry
+and play.
+
+All this while I was very uneasy, as I said before, and yet the whole
+story went off again without any discovery, only that I seemed a little
+concerned that she should liken me to this gay lady, whose character I
+pretended to run down very much, even upon the foot of her own relation.
+
+But I was not at the end of my mortifications yet, neither, for now my
+innocent Quaker threw out an unhappy expression, which put me upon the
+tenters again. Says she to me, "This lady's habit, I fancy, is just such
+a one as thine, by the description of it;" and then turning to the
+captain's wife, says she, "I fancy my friend has a finer Turkish or
+Persian dress, a great deal." "Oh," says the girl, "'tis impossible to
+be finer; my lady's," says she, "was all covered with gold and diamonds;
+her hair and head-dress, I forget the name they gave it," said she,
+"shone like the stars, there were so many jewels in it."
+
+I never wished my good friend the Quaker out of my company before now;
+but, indeed, I would have given some guineas to have been rid of her
+just now; for beginning to be curious in the comparing the two dresses,
+she innocently began a description of mine; and nothing terrified me so
+much as the apprehension lest she should importune me to show it, which
+I was resolved I would never agree to. But before it came to this, she
+pressed my girl to describe the tyhaia, or head-dress, which she did so
+cleverly that the Quaker could not help saying mine was just such a one;
+and after several other similitudes, all very vexatious to me, out comes
+the kind motion to me to let the ladies see my dress; and they joined
+their eager desires of it, even to importunity.
+
+I desired to be excused, though I had little to say at first why I
+declined it; but at last it came into my head to say it was packed up
+with my other clothes that I had least occasion for, in order to be sent
+on board the captain's ship; but that if we lived to come to Holland
+together (which, by the way, I resolved should never happen), then, I
+told them, at unpacking my clothes, they should see me dressed in it;
+but they must not expect I should dance in it, like the Lady Roxana in
+all her fine things.
+
+This carried it off pretty well; and getting over this, got over most of
+the rest, and I began to be easy again; and, in a word, that I may
+dismiss the story too, as soon as may be, I got rid at last of my
+visitors, who I had wished gone two hours sooner than they intended it.
+
+As soon as they were gone, I ran up to Amy, and gave vent to my passions
+by telling her the whole story, and letting her see what mischiefs one
+false step of hers had like, unluckily, to have involved us all in;
+more, perhaps, than we could ever have lived to get through. Amy was
+sensible of it enough, and was just giving her wrath a vent another way,
+viz., by calling the poor girl all the damned jades and fools (and
+sometimes worse names) that she could think of, in the middle of which
+up comes my honest, good Quaker, and put an end to our discourse. The
+Quaker came in smiling (for she was always soberly cheerful). "Well,"
+says she, "thou art delivered at last; I come to joy thee of it; I
+perceived thou wert tired grievously of thy visitors."
+
+"Indeed," says I, "so I was; that foolish young girl held us all in a
+Canterbury story; I thought she would never have done with it." "Why,
+truly, I thought she was very careful to let thee know she was but a
+cook-maid." "Ay," says I, "and at a gaming-house, or gaming-ordinary,
+and at t'other end of the town too; all which (by the way) she might
+know would add very little to her good name among us citizens."
+
+"I can't think," says the Quaker, "but she had some other drift in that
+long discourse; there's something else in her head," says she, "I am
+satisfied of that." Thought I, "Are you satisfied of it? I am sure I am
+the less satisfied for that; at least 'tis but small satisfaction to me
+to hear you say so. What can this be?" says I; "and when will my
+uneasiness have an end?" But this was silent, and to myself, you may be
+sure. But in answer to my friend the Quaker, I returned by asking her a
+question or two about it; as what she thought was in it, and why she
+thought there was anything in it. "For," says I, "she can have nothing
+in it relating to me."
+
+"Nay," says the kind Quaker, "if she had any view towards thee, that's
+no business of mine; and I should be far from desiring thee to inform
+me."
+
+This alarmed me again; not that I feared trusting the good-humoured
+creature with it, if there had been anything of just suspicion in her;
+but this affair was a secret I cared not to communicate to anybody.
+However, I say, this alarmed me a little; for as I had concealed
+everything from her, I was willing to do so still; but as she could not
+but gather up abundance of things from the girl's discourse, which
+looked towards me, so she was too penetrating to be put off with such
+answers as might stop another's mouth. Only there was this double
+felicity in it, first, that she was not inquisitive to know or find
+anything out, and not dangerous if she had known the whole story. But,
+as I say, she could not but gather up several circumstances from the
+girl's discourse, as particularly the name of Amy, and the several
+descriptions of the Turkish dress which my friend the Quaker had seen,
+and taken so much notice of, as I have said above.
+
+As for that, I might have turned it off by jesting with Amy, and asking
+her who she lived with before she came to live with me. But that would
+not do, for we had unhappily anticipated that way of talking, by having
+often talked how long Amy had lived with me; and, which was still worse,
+by having owned formerly that I had had lodgings in the Pall Mall; so
+that all those things corresponded too well. There was only one thing
+that helped me out with the Quaker, and that was the girl's having
+reported how rich Mrs. Amy was grown, and that she kept her coach. Now,
+as there might be many more Mrs. Amys besides mine, so it was not likely
+to be my Amy, because she was far from such a figure as keeping her
+coach; and this carried it off from the suspicions which the good
+friendly Quaker might have in her head.
+
+But as to what she imagined the girl had in her head, there lay more
+real difficulty in that part a great deal, and I was alarmed at it very
+much, for my friend the Quaker told me that she observed the girl was in
+a great passion when she talked of the habit, and more when I had been
+importuned to show her mine, but declined it. She said she several times
+perceived her to be in disorder, and to restrain herself with great
+difficulty; and once or twice she muttered to herself that she had found
+it out, or that she would find it out, she could not tell whether; and
+that she often saw tears in her eyes; that when I said my suit of
+Turkish clothes was put up, but that she should see it when we arrived
+in Holland, she heard her say softly she would go over on purpose then.
+
+After she had ended her observations, I added: "I observed, too, that
+the girl talked and looked oddly, and that she was mighty inquisitive,
+but I could not imagine what it was she aimed at." "Aimed at," says the
+Quaker, "'tis plain to me what she aims at. She believes thou art the
+same Lady Roxana that danced in the Turkish vest, but she is not
+certain." "Does she believe so?" says I; "if I had thought that, I would
+have put her out of her pain." "Believe so!" says the Quaker; "yes, and
+I began to think so too, and should have believed so still, if thou
+had'st not satisfied me to the contrary by thy taking no notice of it,
+and by what thou hast said since." "Should you have believed so?" said I
+warmly; "I am very sorry for that. Why, would you have taken me for an
+actress, or a French stage-player?" "No," says the good kind creature,
+"thou carriest it too far; as soon as thou madest thy reflections upon
+her, I knew it could not be; but who could think any other when she
+described the Turkish dress which thou hast here, with the head-tire and
+jewels, and when she named thy maid Amy too, and several other
+circumstances concurring? I should certainly have believed it," said
+she, "if thou hadst not contradicted it; but as soon as I heard thee
+speak, I concluded it was otherwise." "That was very kind," said I, "and
+I am obliged to you for doing me so much justice; it is more, it seems,
+than that young talking creature does." "Nay," says the Quaker, "indeed
+she does not do thee justice; for she as certainly believes it still as
+ever she did." "Does she?" said I. "Ay," says the Quaker; "and I warrant
+thee she'll make thee another visit about it." "Will she?" said I;
+"then I believe I shall downright affront her." "No, thou shalt not
+affront her," says she (full of her good-humour and temper), "I'll take
+that part off thy hands, for I'll affront her for thee, and not let her
+see thee." I thought that was a very kind offer, but was at a loss how
+she would be able to do it; and the thought of seeing her there again
+half distracted me, not knowing what temper she would come in, much less
+what manner to receive her in; but my fast friend and constant
+comforter, the Quaker, said she perceived the girl was impertinent, and
+that I had no inclination to converse with her, and she was resolved I
+should not be troubled with her. But I shall have occasion to say more
+of this presently, for this girl went farther yet than I thought she
+had.
+
+It was now time, as I said before, to take measures with my husband, in
+order to put off my voyage; so I fell into talk with him one morning as
+he was dressing, and while I was in bed. I pretended I was very ill; and
+as I had but too easy a way to impose upon him, because he so absolutely
+believed everything I said, so I managed my discourse as that he should
+understand by it I was a-breeding, though I did not tell him so.
+
+However, I brought it about so handsomely that, before he went out of
+the room, he came and sat down by my bedside, and began to talk very
+seriously to me upon the subject of my being so every day ill, and
+that, as he hoped I was with child, he would have me consider well of
+it, whether I had not best alter my thoughts of the voyage to Holland;
+for that being sea-sick, and which was worse, if a storm should happen,
+might be very dangerous to me. And after saying abundance of the kindest
+things that the kindest of husbands in the world could say, he concluded
+that it was his request to me, that I would not think any more of going
+till after all should be over; but that I would, on the contrary,
+prepare to lie-in where I was, and where I knew, as well as he, I could
+be very well provided, and very well assisted.
+
+This was just what I wanted, for I had, as you have heard, a thousand
+good reasons why I should put off the voyage, especially with that
+creature in company; but I had a mind the putting it off should be at
+his motion, not my own; and he came into it of himself, just as I would
+have had it. This gave me an opportunity to hang back a little, and to
+seem as if I was unwilling. I told him I could not abide to put him to
+difficulties and perplexities in his business; that now he had hired the
+great cabin in the ship, and, perhaps, paid some of the money, and, it
+may be, taken freight for goods; and to make him break it all off again
+would be a needless charge to him, or, perhaps, a damage to the captain.
+
+As to that, he said, it was not to be named, and he would not allow it
+to be any consideration at all; that he could easily pacify the captain
+of the ship by telling him the reason of it, and that if he did make
+him some satisfaction for the disappointment, it should not be much.
+
+"But, my dear," says I, "you ha'n't heard me say I am with child,
+neither can I say so; and if it should not be so at last, then I shall
+have made a fine piece of work of it indeed; besides," says I, "the two
+ladies, the captain's wife and her sister, they depend upon our going
+over, and have made great preparations, and all in compliment to me;
+what must I say to them?"
+
+"Well, my dear," says he, "if you should not be with child, though I
+hope you are, yet there is no harm done; the staying three or four
+months longer in England will be no damage to me, and we can go when we
+please, when we are sure you are not with child, or, when it appearing
+that you are with child, you shall be down and up again; and as for the
+captain's wife and sister, leave that part to me; I'll answer for it
+there shall be no quarrel raised upon that subject. I'll make your
+excuse to them by the captain himself, so all will be well enough there,
+I'll warrant you."
+
+This was as much as I could desire, and thus it rested for awhile. I had
+indeed some anxious thoughts about this impertinent girl, but believed
+that putting off the voyage would have put an end to it all, so I began
+to be pretty easy; but I found myself mistaken, for I was brought to the
+point of destruction by her again, and that in the most unaccountable
+manner imaginable.
+
+My husband, as he and I had agreed, meeting the captain of the ship,
+took the freedom to tell him that he was afraid he must disappoint him,
+for that something had fallen out which had obliged him to alter his
+measures, and that his family could not be ready to go time enough for
+him.
+
+"I know the occasion, sir," says the captain; "I hear your lady has got
+a daughter more than she expected; I give you joy of it." "What do you
+mean by that?" says my spouse. "Nay, nothing," says the captain, "but
+what I hear the women tattle over the tea-table. I know nothing, but
+that you don't go the voyage upon it, which I am sorry for; but you know
+your own affairs," added the captain, "that's no business of mine."
+
+"Well, but," says my husband, "I must make you some satisfaction for the
+disappointment," and so pulls out his money. "No, no," says the captain;
+and so they fell to straining their compliments one upon another; but,
+in short, my spouse gave him three or four guineas, and made him take
+it. And so the first discourse went off again, and they had no more of
+it.
+
+But it did not go off so easily with me, for now, in a word, the clouds
+began to thicken about me, and I had alarms on every side. My husband
+told me what the captain had said, but very happily took it that the
+captain had brought a tale by halves, and having heard it one way, had
+told it another; and that neither could he understand the captain,
+neither did the captain understand himself, so he contented himself to
+tell me, he said, word for word, as the captain delivered it.
+
+How I kept my husband from discovering my disorder you shall hear
+presently; but let it suffice to say just now, that if my husband did
+not understand the captain, nor the captain understand himself, yet I
+understood them both very well; and, to tell the truth, it was a worse
+shock than ever I had yet. Invention supplied me, indeed, with a sudden
+motion to avoid showing my surprise; for as my spouse and I was sitting
+by a little table near the fire, I reached out my hand, as if I had
+intended to take a spoon which lay on the other side, and threw one of
+the candles off of the table; and then snatching it up, started up upon
+my feet, and stooped to the lap of my gown and took it in my hand. "Oh!"
+says I, "my gown's spoiled; the candle has greased it prodigiously."
+This furnished me with an excuse to my spouse to break off the discourse
+for the present, and call Amy down; and Amy not coming presently, I said
+to him, "My dear, I must run upstairs and put it off, and let Amy clean
+it a little." So my husband rose up too, and went into a closet where he
+kept his papers and books, and fetched a book out, and sat down by
+himself to read.
+
+Glad I was that I had got away, and up I run to Amy, who, as it
+happened, was alone. "Oh, Amy!" says I, "we are all utterly undone." And
+with that I burst out a-crying, and could not speak a word for a great
+while.
+
+I cannot help saying that some very good reflections offered themselves
+upon this head. It presently occurred, what a glorious testimony it is
+to the justice of Providence, and to the concern Providence has in
+guiding all the affairs of men (even the least as well as the greatest),
+that the most secret crimes are, by the most unforeseen accidents,
+brought to light and discovered.
+
+Another reflection was, how just it is that sin and shame follow one
+another so constantly at the heels; that they are not like attendants
+only, but, like cause and consequence, necessarily connected one with
+another; that the crime going before, the scandal is certain to follow;
+and that 'tis not in the power of human nature to conceal the first, or
+avoid the last.
+
+"What shall I do, Amy?" said I, as soon as I could speak, "and what will
+become of me?" And then I cried again so vehemently that I could say no
+more a great while. Amy was frighted almost out of her wits, but knew
+nothing what the matter was; but she begged to know, and persuaded me to
+compose myself, and not cry so. "Why, madam, if my master should come up
+now," says she, "he will see what a disorder you are in; he will know
+you have been crying, and then he will want to know the cause of it."
+With that I broke out again. "Oh, he knows it already, Amy," says I, "he
+knows all! 'Tis all discovered, and we are undone!" Amy was
+thunderstruck now indeed. "Nay," says Amy, "if that be true, we are
+undone indeed; but that can never be; that's impossible, I'm sure."
+
+"No, no," says I, "'tis far from impossible, for I tell you 'tis so."
+And by this time, being a little recovered, I told her what discourse my
+husband and the captain had had together, and what the captain had said.
+This put Amy into such a hurry that she cried, she raved, she swore and
+cursed like a mad thing; then she upbraided me that I would not let her
+kill the girl when she would have done it, and that it was all my own
+doing, and the like. Well, however, I was not for killing the girl yet.
+I could not bear the thoughts of that neither.
+
+We spent half-an-hour in these extravagances, and brought nothing out of
+them neither; for indeed we could do nothing or say nothing that was to
+the purpose; for if anything was to come out-of-the-way, there was no
+hindering it, or help for it; so after thus giving a vent to myself by
+crying, I began to reflect how I had left my spouse below, and what I
+had pretended to come up for; so I changed my gown that I pretended the
+candle fell upon, and put on another, and went down.
+
+When I had been down a good while, and found my spouse did not fall into
+the story again, as I expected, I took heart, and called for it. "My
+dear," said I, "the fall of the candle put you out of your history,
+won't you go on with it?" "What history?" says he. "Why," says I, "about
+the captain." "Oh," says he, "I had done with it. I know no more than
+that the captain told a broken piece of news that he had heard by
+halves, and told more by halves than he heard it,--namely, of your being
+with child, and that you could not go the voyage."
+
+I perceived my husband entered not into the thing at all, but took it
+for a story, which, being told two or three times over, was puzzled, and
+come to nothing, and that all that was meant by it was what he knew, or
+thought he knew already--viz., that I was with child, which he wished
+might be true.
+
+His ignorance was a cordial to my soul, and I cursed them in my thoughts
+that should ever undeceive him; and as I saw him willing to have the
+story end there, as not worth being farther mentioned, I closed it too,
+and said I supposed the captain had it from his wife; she might have
+found somebody else to make her remarks upon; and so it passed off with
+my husband well enough, and I was still safe there, where I thought
+myself in most danger. But I had two uneasinesses still; the first was
+lest the captain and my spouse should meet again, and enter into farther
+discourse about it; and the second was lest the busy impertinent girl
+should come again, and when she came, how to prevent her seeing Amy,
+which was an article as material as any of the rest; for seeing Amy
+would have been as fatal to me as her knowing all the rest.
+
+As to the first of these, I knew the captain could not stay in town
+above a week, but that his ship being already full of goods, and fallen
+down the river, he must soon follow, so I contrived to carry my husband
+somewhere out of town for a few days, that they might be sure not to
+meet.
+
+My greatest concern was where we should go. At last I fixed upon North
+Hall; not, I said, that I would drink the waters, but that I thought the
+air was good, and might be for my advantage. He, who did everything upon
+the foundation of obliging me, readily came into it, and the coach was
+appointed to be ready the next morning; but as we were settling matters,
+he put in an ugly word that thwarted all my design, and that was, that
+he had rather I would stay till afternoon, for that he should speak to
+the captain the next morning if he could, to give him some letters,
+which he could do, and be back again about twelve o'clock.
+
+I said, "Ay, by all means." But it was but a cheat on him, and my voice
+and my heart differed; for I resolved, if possible, he should not come
+near the captain, nor see him, whatever came of it.
+
+In the evening, therefore, a little before we went to bed, I pretended
+to have altered my mind, and that I would not go to North Hall, but I
+had a mind to go another way, but I told him I was afraid his business
+would not permit him. He wanted to know where it was. I told him,
+smiling, I would not tell him, lest it should oblige him to hinder his
+business. He answered with the same temper, but with infinitely more
+sincerity, that he had no business of so much consequence as to hinder
+him going with me anywhere that I had a mind to go. "Yes," says I, "you
+want to speak with the captain before he goes away." "Why, that's true,"
+says he, "so I do," and paused awhile; and then added, "but I'll write a
+note to a man that does business for me to go to him; 'tis only to get
+some bills of loading signed, and he can do it." When I saw I had gained
+my point, I seemed to hang back a little. "My dear," says I, "don't
+hinder an hour's business for me; I can put it off for a week or two
+rather than you shall do yourself any prejudice." "No, no," says he,
+"you shall not put it off an hour for me, for I can do my business by
+proxy with anybody but my wife." And then he took me in his arms and
+kissed me. How did my blood flush up into my face when I reflected how
+sincerely, how affectionately, this good-humoured gentleman embraced the
+most cursed piece of hypocrisy that ever came into the arms of an honest
+man! His was all tenderness, all kindness, and the utmost sincerity;
+mine all grimace and deceit;--a piece of mere manage and framed conduct
+to conceal a past life of wickedness, and prevent his discovering that
+he had in his arms a she-devil, whose whole conversation for twenty-five
+years had been black as hell, a complication of crime, and for which,
+had he been let into it, he must have abhorred me and the very mention
+of my name. But there was no help for me in it; all I had to satisfy
+myself was that it was my business to be what I was, and conceal what I
+had been; that all the satisfaction I could make him was to live
+virtuously for the time to come, not being able to retrieve what had
+been in time past; and this I resolved upon, though, had the great
+temptation offered, as it did afterwards, I had reason to question my
+stability. But of that hereafter.
+
+After my husband had kindly thus given up his measures to mine, we
+resolved to set out in the morning early. I told him that my project, if
+he liked it, was to go to Tunbridge, and he, being entirely passive in
+the thing, agreed to it with the greatest willingness; but said if I had
+not named Tunbridge, he would have named Newmarket, there being a great
+court there, and abundance of fine things to be seen. I offered him
+another piece of hypocrisy here, for I pretended to be willing to go
+thither, as the place of his choice, but indeed I would not have gone
+for a thousand pounds; for the court being there at that time, I durst
+not run the hazard of being known at a place where there were so many
+eyes that had seen me before. So that, after some time, I told my
+husband that I thought Newmarket was so full of people at that time,
+that we should get no accommodation; that seeing the court and the crowd
+was no entertainment at all to me, unless as it might be so to him, that
+if he thought fit, we would rather put it off to another time; and that
+if, when we went to Holland, we should go by Harwich, we might take a
+round by Newmarket and Bury, and so come down to Ipswich, and go from
+thence to the seaside. He was easily put off from this, as he was from
+anything else that I did not approve; and so, with all imaginable
+facility, he appointed to be ready early in the morning to go with me
+for Tunbridge.
+
+I had a double design in this, viz., first, to get away my spouse from
+seeing the captain any more; and secondly, to be out of the way myself,
+in case this impertinent girl, who was now my plague, should offer to
+come again, as my friend the Quaker believed she would, and as indeed
+happened within two or three days afterwards.
+
+Having thus secured my going away the next day, I had nothing to do but
+to furnish my faithful agent the Quaker with some instructions what to
+say to this tormentor (for such she proved afterwards), and how to
+manage her, if she made any more visits than ordinary.
+
+I had a great mind to leave Amy behind too, as an assistant, because she
+understood so perfectly well what to advise upon any emergence; and Amy
+importuned me to do so. But I know not what secret impulse prevailed
+over my thoughts against it; I could not do it for fear the wicked jade
+should make her away, which my very soul abhorred the thoughts of;
+which, however, Amy found means to bring to pass afterwards, as I may in
+time relate more particularly.
+
+It is true I wanted as much to be delivered from her as ever a sick man
+did from a third-day ague; and had she dropped into the grave by any
+fair way, as I may call it, I mean, had she died by any ordinary
+distemper, I should have shed but very few tears for her. But I was not
+arrived to such a pitch of obstinate wickedness as to commit murder,
+especially such as to murder my own child, or so much as to harbour a
+thought so barbarous in my mind. But, as I said, Amy effected all
+afterwards without my knowledge, for which I gave her my hearty curse,
+though I could do little more; for to have fallen upon Amy had been to
+have murdered myself. But this tragedy requires a longer story than I
+have room for here. I return to my journey.
+
+My dear friend the Quaker was kind, and yet honest, and would do
+anything that was just and upright to serve me, but nothing wicked or
+dishonourable. That she might be able to say boldly to the creature, if
+she came, she did not know where I was gone, she desired I would not let
+her know; and to make her ignorance the more absolutely safe to herself,
+and likewise to me, I allowed her to say that she heard us talk of going
+to Newmarket, &c. She liked that part, and I left all the rest to her,
+to act as she thought fit; only charged her, that if the girl entered
+into the story of the Pall Mall, she should not entertain much talk
+about it, but let her understand that we all thought she spoke of it a
+little too particularly; and that the lady (meaning me) took it a
+little ill to be so likened to a public mistress, or a stage-player, and
+the like; and so to bring her, if possible, to say no more of it.
+However, though I did not tell my friend the Quaker how to write to me,
+or where I was, yet I left a sealed paper with her maid to give her, in
+which I gave her a direction how to write to Amy, and so, in effect, to
+myself.
+
+It was but a few days after I was gone, but the impatient girl came to
+my lodgings on pretence to see how I did, and to hear if I intended to
+go the voyage, and the like. My trusty agent was at home, and received
+her coldly at the door; but told her that the lady, which she supposed
+she meant, was gone from her house.
+
+This was a full stop to all she could say for a good while; but as she
+stood musing some time at the door, considering what to begin a talk
+upon, she perceived my friend the Quaker looked a little uneasy, as if
+she wanted to go in and shut the door, which stung her to the quick; and
+the wary Quaker had not so much as asked her to come in; for seeing her
+alone she expected she would be very impertinent, and concluded that I
+did not care how coldly she received her.
+
+But she was not to be put off so. She said if the Lady ---- was not to
+be spoken with, she desired to speak two or three words with her,
+meaning my friend the Quaker. Upon that the Quaker civilly but coldly
+asked her to walk in, which was what she wanted. Note.--She did not
+carry her into her best parlour, as formerly, but into a little outer
+room, where the servants usually waited.
+
+By the first of her discourse she did not stick to insinuate as if she
+believed I was in the house, but was unwilling to be seen; and pressed
+earnestly that she might speak but two words with me; to which she added
+earnest entreaties, and at last tears.
+
+"I am sorry," says my good creature the Quaker, "thou hast so ill an
+opinion of me as to think I would tell thee an untruth, and say that the
+Lady ---- was gone from my house if she was not! I assure thee I do not
+use any such method; nor does the Lady ---- desire any such kind of
+service from me, as I know of. If she had been in the house, I should
+have told thee so."
+
+She said little to that, but said it was business of the utmost
+importance that she desired to speak with me about, and then cried again
+very much.
+
+"Thou seem'st to be sorely afflicted," says the Quaker, "I wish I could
+give thee any relief; but if nothing will comfort thee but seeing the
+Lady ----, it is not in my power."
+
+"I hope it is," says she again; "to be sure it is of great consequence
+to me, so much that I am undone without it."
+
+"Thou troublest me very much to hear thee say so," says the Quaker; "but
+why, then, didst thou not speak to her apart when thou wast here
+before?"
+
+"I had no opportunity," says she, "to speak to her alone, and I could
+not do it in company; if I could have spoken but two words to her alone,
+I would have thrown myself at her foot, and asked her blessing."
+
+"I am surprised at thee; I do not understand thee," says the Quaker.
+
+"Oh!" says she, "stand my friend if you have any charity, or if you have
+any compassion for the miserable; for I am utterly undone!"
+
+"Thou terrifiest me," says the Quaker, "with such passionate
+expressions, for verily I cannot comprehend thee!"
+
+"Oh!" says she, "she is my mother! she is my mother! and she does not
+own me!"
+
+"Thy mother!" says the Quaker, and began to be greatly moved indeed. "I
+am astonished at thee: what dost thou mean?"
+
+"I mean nothing but what I say," says she. "I say again, she is my
+mother, and will not own me;" and with that she stopped with a flood of
+tears.
+
+"Not own thee!" says the Quaker; and the tender good creature wept too.
+"Why," says she, "she does not know thee, and never saw thee before."
+
+"No," says the girl, "I believe she does not know me, but I know her;
+and I know that she is my mother."
+
+"It's impossible, thou talk'st mystery!" says the Quaker; "wilt thou
+explain thyself a little to me?"
+
+"Yes, yes," says she, "I can explain it well enough. I am sure she is my
+mother, and I have broke my heart to search for her; and now to lose her
+again, when I was so sure I had found her, will break my heart more
+effectually."
+
+"Well, but if she be thy mother," says the Quaker, "how can it be that
+she should not know thee?"
+
+"Alas!" says she, "I have been lost to her ever since I was a child; she
+has never seen me."
+
+"And hast thou never seen her?" says the Quaker.
+
+"Yes," says she, "I have seen her; often enough I saw her; for when she
+was the Lady Roxana I was her housemaid, being a servant, but I did not
+know her then, nor she me; but it has all come out since. Has she not a
+maid named Amy?" Note.--The honest Quaker was--nonplussed, and greatly
+surprised at that question.
+
+"Truly," says she, "the Lady ---- has several women servants, but I do
+not know all their names."
+
+"But her woman, her favourite," adds the girl; "is not her name Amy?"
+
+"Why, truly," says the Quaker, with a very happy turn of wit, "I do not
+like to be examined; but lest thou shouldest take up any mistakes by
+reason of my backwardness to speak, I will answer thee for once, that
+what her woman's name is I know not, but they call her Cherry."
+
+_N.B._--My husband gave her that name in jest on our wedding-day, and we
+had called her by it ever after; so that she spoke literally true at
+that time.
+
+The girl replied very modestly that she was sorry if she gave her any
+offence in asking; that she did not design to be rude to her, or pretend
+to examine her; but that she was in such an agony at this disaster that
+she knew not what she did or said; and that she should be very sorry to
+disoblige her, but begged of her again, as she was a Christian and a
+woman, and had been a mother of children, that she would take pity on
+her, and, if possible, assist her, so that she might but come to me and
+speak a few words to me.
+
+The tender-hearted Quaker told me the girl spoke this with such moving
+eloquence that it forced tears from her; but she was obliged to say that
+she neither knew where I was gone or how to write to me; but that if she
+did ever see me again she would not fail to give me an account of all
+she had said to her, or that she should yet think fit to say, and to
+take my answer to it, if I thought fit to give any.
+
+Then the Quaker took the freedom to ask a few particulars about this
+wonderful story, as she called it; at which the girl, beginning at the
+first distresses of my life, and indeed of her own, went through all the
+history of her miserable education, her service under the Lady Roxana,
+as she called me, and her relief by Mrs. Amy, with the reasons she had
+to believe that as Amy owned herself to be the same that lived with her
+mother, and especially that Amy was the Lady Roxana's maid too, and came
+out of France with her, she was by those circumstances, and several
+others in her conversation, as fully convinced that the Lady Roxana was
+her mother, as she was that the Lady ---- at her house (the Quaker's)
+was the very same Roxana that she had been servant to.
+
+My good friend the Quaker, though terribly shocked at the story, and not
+well knowing what to say, yet was too much my friend to seem convinced
+in a thing which she did not know to be true, and which, if it was true,
+she could see plainly I had a mind should not be known; so she turned
+her discourse to argue the girl out of it. She insisted upon the slender
+evidence she had of the fact itself, and the rudeness of claiming so
+near a relation of one so much above her, and of whose concern in it she
+had no knowledge, at least no sufficient proof; that as the lady at her
+house was a person above any disguises, so she could not believe that
+she would deny her being her daughter, if she was really her mother;
+that she was able sufficiently to have provided for her if she had not a
+mind to have her known; and, therefore, seeing she had heard all she had
+said of the Lady Roxana, and was so far from owning herself to be the
+person, so she had censured that sham lady as a cheat and a common
+woman; and that 'twas certain she could never be brought to own a name
+and character she had so justly exposed.
+
+Besides, she told her that her lodger, meaning me, was not a sham lady,
+but the real wife of a knight-baronet; and that she knew her to be
+honestly such, and far above such a person as she had described. She
+then added that she had another reason why it was not very possible to
+be true. "And that is," says she, "thy age is in the way; for thou
+acknowledgest that thou art four-and twenty years old, and that thou
+wast the youngest of three of thy mother's children; so that, by thy
+account, thy mother must be extremely young, or this lady cannot be thy
+mother; for thou seest," says she, "and any one may see, she is but a
+young woman now, and cannot be supposed to be above forty years old, if
+she is so much; and is now big with child at her going into the country;
+so that I cannot give any credit to thy notion of her being thy mother;
+and if I might counsel thee, it should be to give over that thought, as
+an improbable story that does but serve to disorder thee, and disturb
+thy head; for," added she, "I perceive thou art much disturbed indeed."
+
+But this was all nothing; she could be satisfied with nothing but seeing
+me; but the Quaker defended herself very well, and insisted on it that
+she could not give her any account of me; and finding her still
+importunate, she affected at last being a little disgusted that she
+should not believe her, and added, that indeed, if she had known where I
+was gone, she would not have given any one an account of it, unless I
+had given her orders to do so. "But seeing she has not acquainted me,"
+says she, "where she has gone, 'tis an intimation to me she was not
+desirous it should be publicly known;" and with this she rose up, which
+was as plain a desiring her to rise up too and begone as could be
+expressed, except the downright showing her the door.
+
+Well, the girl rejected all this, and told her she could not indeed
+expect that she (the Quaker) should be affected with the story she had
+told her, however moving, or that she should take any pity on her. That
+it was her misfortune, that when she was at the house before, and in the
+room with me, she did not beg to speak a word with me in private, or
+throw herself upon the floor at my feet, and claim what the affection of
+a mother would have done for her; but since she had slipped her
+opportunity, she would wait for another; that she found by her (the
+Quaker's) talk, that she had not quite left her lodgings, but was gone
+into the country, she supposed for the air; and she was resolved she
+would take so much knight-errantry upon her, that she would visit all
+the airing-places in the nation, and even all the kingdom over, ay, and
+Holland too, but she would find me; for she was satisfied she could so
+convince me that she was my own child, that I would not deny it; and she
+was sure I was so tender and compassionate, I would not let her perish
+after I was convinced that she was my own flesh and blood; and in saying
+she would visit all the airing-places in England, she reckoned them all
+up by name, and began with Tunbridge, the very place I was gone to; then
+reckoning up Epsom, North Hall, Barnet, Newmarket, Bury, and at last,
+the Bath; and with this she took her leave.
+
+My faithful agent the Quaker failed not to write to me immediately; but
+as she was a cunning as well as an honest woman, it presently occurred
+to her that this was a story which, whether true or false, was not very
+fit to come to my husband's knowledge; that as she did not know what I
+might have been, or might have been called in former times, and how far
+there might have been something or nothing in it, so she thought if it
+was a secret I ought to have the telling it myself; and if it was not,
+it might as well be public afterwards as now; and that, at least, she
+ought to leave it where she found it, and not hand it forwards to
+anybody without my consent. These prudent measures were inexpressibly
+kind, as well as seasonable; for it had been likely enough that her
+letter might have come publicly to me, and though my husband would not
+have opened it, yet it would have looked a little odd that I should
+conceal its contents from him, when I had pretended so much to
+communicate all my affairs.
+
+In consequence of this wise caution, my good friend only wrote me in few
+words, that the impertinent young woman had been with her, as she
+expected she would; and that she thought it would be very convenient
+that, if I could spare Cherry, I would send her up (meaning Amy),
+because she found there might be some occasion for her.
+
+As it happened, this letter was enclosed to Amy herself, and not sent
+by the way I had at first ordered; but it came safe to my hands; and
+though I was alarmed a little at it, yet I was not acquainted with the
+danger I was in of an immediate visit from this teasing creature till
+afterwards; and I ran a greater risk, indeed, than ordinary, in that I
+did not send Amy up under thirteen or fourteen days, believing myself as
+much concealed at Tunbridge as if I had been at Vienna.
+
+But the concern of my faithful spy (for such my Quaker was now, upon the
+mere foot of her own sagacity), I say, her concern for me, was my safety
+in this exigence, when I was, as it were, keeping no guard for myself;
+for, finding Amy not come up, and that she did not know how soon this
+wild thing might put her designed ramble in practice, she sent a
+messenger to the captain's wife's house, where she lodged, to tell her
+that she wanted to speak with her. She was at the heels of the
+messenger, and came eager for some news; and hoped, she said, the lady
+(meaning me) had been come to town.
+
+The Quaker, with as much caution as she was mistress of, not to tell a
+downright lie, made her believe she expected to hear of me very quickly;
+and frequently, by the by, speaking of being abroad to take the air,
+talked of the country about Bury, how pleasant it was, how wholesome,
+and how fine an air; how the downs about Newmarket were exceeding fine,
+and what a vast deal of company there was, now the court was there; till
+at last, the girl began to conclude that my ladyship was gone thither;
+for, she said, she knew I loved to see a great deal of company.
+
+"Nay," says my friend, "thou takest me wrong; I did not suggest," says
+she, "that the person thou inquirest after is gone thither, neither do I
+believe she is, I assure thee." Well, the girl smiled, and let her know
+that she believed it for all that; so, to clench it fast, "Verily," says
+she, with great seriousness, "thou dost not do well, for thou suspectest
+everything and believest nothing. I speak solemnly to thee that I do not
+believe they are gone that way; so if thou givest thyself the trouble to
+go that way, and art disappointed, do not say that I have deceived
+thee." She knew well enough that if this did abate her suspicion it
+would not remove it, and that it would do little more than amuse her;
+but by this she kept her in suspense till Amy came up, and that was
+enough.
+
+When Amy came up, she was quite confounded to hear the relation which
+the Quaker gave her, and found means to acquaint me of it; only letting
+me know, to my great satisfaction, that she would not come to Tunbridge
+first, but that she would certainly go to Newmarket or Bury first.
+
+However, it gave me very great uneasiness; for as she resolved to ramble
+in search after me over the whole country, I was safe nowhere, no, not
+in Holland itself. So indeed I did not know what to do with her; and
+thus I had a bitter in all my sweet, for I was continually perplexed
+with this hussy, and thought she haunted me like an evil spirit.
+
+In the meantime Amy was next door to stark-mad about her; she durst not
+see her at my lodgings for her life; and she went days without number to
+Spitalfields, where she used to come, and to her former lodging, and
+could never meet with her. At length she took up a mad resolution that
+she would go directly to the captain's house in Redriff and speak with
+her. It was a mad step, that's true; but as Amy said she was mad, so
+nothing she could do could be otherwise. For if Amy had found her at
+Redriff, she (the girl) would have concluded presently that the Quaker
+had given her notice, and so that we were all of a knot; and that, in
+short, all she had said was right. But as it happened, things came to
+hit better than we expected; for that Amy going out of a coach to take
+water at Tower Wharf, meets the girl just come on shore, having crossed
+the water from Redriff. Amy made as if she would have passed by her,
+though they met so full that she did not pretend she did not see her,
+for she looked fairly upon her first, but then turning her head away
+with a slight, offered to go from her; but the girl stopped, and spoke
+first, and made some manners to her.
+
+Amy spoke coldly to her, and a little angry; and after some words,
+standing in the street or passage, the girl saying she seemed to be
+angry, and would not have spoken to her, "Why," says Amy, "how can you
+expect I should have any more to say to you after I had done so much
+for you, and you have behaved so to me?" The girl seemed to take no
+notice of that now, but answered, "I was going to wait on you now."
+"Wait on me!" says Amy; "what do you mean by that?" "Why," says she
+again, with a kind of familiarity, "I was going to your lodgings."
+
+Amy was provoked to the last degree at her, and yet she thought it was
+not her time to resent, because she had a more fatal and wicked design
+in her head against her; which, indeed, I never knew till after it was
+executed, nor durst Amy ever communicate it to me; for as I had always
+expressed myself vehemently against hurting a hair of her head, so she
+was resolved to take her own measures without consulting me any more.
+
+In order to this, Amy gave her good words, and concealed her resentment
+as much as she could; and when she talked of going to her lodging, Amy
+smiled and said nothing, but called for a pair of oars to go to
+Greenwich; and asked her, seeing she said she was going to her lodging,
+to go along with her, for she was going home, and was all alone.
+
+Amy did this with such a stock of assurance that the girl was
+confounded, and knew not what to say; but the more she hesitated, the
+more Amy pressed her to go; and talking very kindly to her, told her if
+she did not go to see her lodgings she might go to keep her company, and
+she would pay a boat to bring her back again; so, in a word, Amy
+prevailed on her to go into the boat with her, and carried her down to
+Greenwich.
+
+'Tis certain that Amy had no more business at Greenwich than I had, nor
+was she going thither; but we were all hampered to the last degree with
+the impertinence of this creature; and, in particular, I was horribly
+perplexed with it.
+
+As they were in the boat, Amy began to reproach her with ingratitude in
+treating her so rudely who had done so much for her, and been so kind to
+her; and to ask her what she had got by it, or what she expected to get.
+Then came in my share, the Lady Roxana. Amy jested with that, and
+bantered her a little, and asked her if she had found her yet.
+
+But Amy was both surprised and enraged when the girl told her roundly
+that she thanked her for what she had done for her, but that she would
+not have her think she was so ignorant as not to know that what she
+(Amy) had done was by her mother's order, and who she was beholden to
+for it. That she could never make instruments pass for principals, and
+pay the debt to the agent when the obligation was all to the original.
+That she knew well enough who she was, and who she was employed by. That
+she knew the Lady ---- very well (naming the name that I now went by),
+which was my husband's true name, and by which she might know whether
+she had found out her mother or no.
+
+Amy wished her at the bottom of the Thames; and had there been no
+watermen in the boat, and nobody in sight, she swore to me she would
+have thrown her into the river. I was horribly disturbed when she told
+me this story, and began to think this would, at last, all end in my
+ruin; but when Amy spoke of throwing her into the river and drowning
+her, I was so provoked at her that all my rage turned against Amy, and I
+fell thoroughly out with her. I had now kept Amy almost thirty years,
+and found her on all occasions the faithfullest creature to me that ever
+woman had--I say, faithful to me; for, however wicked she was, still she
+was true to me; and even this rage of hers was all upon my account, and
+for fear any mischief should befall me.
+
+But be that how it would, I could not bear the mention of her murdering
+the poor girl, and it put me so beside myself, that I rose up in a rage,
+and bade her get out of my sight, and out of my house; told her I had
+kept her too long, and that I would never see her face more. I had
+before told her that she was a murderer, and a bloody-minded creature;
+that she could not but know that I could not bear the thought of it,
+much less the mention of it; and that it was the impudentest thing that
+ever was known to make such a proposal to me, when she knew that I was
+really the mother of this girl, and that she was my own child; that it
+was wicked enough in her, but that she must conclude I was ten times
+wickeder than herself if I could come into it; that the girl was in the
+right, and I had nothing to blame her for; but that it was owing to the
+wickedness of my life that made it necessary for me to keep her from a
+discovery; but that I would not murder my child, though I was otherwise
+to be ruined by it. Amy replied, somewhat rough and short, Would I not?
+but she would, she said, if she had an opportunity; and upon these words
+it was that I bade her get out of my sight and out of my house; and it
+went so far that Amy packed up her alls, and marched off; and was gone
+for almost good and all. But of that in its order; I must go back to her
+relation of the voyage which they made to Greenwich together.
+
+They held on the wrangle all the way by water; the girl insisted upon
+her knowing that I was her mother, and told her all the history of my
+life in the Pall Mall, as well after her being turned away as before,
+and of my marriage since; and which was worse, not only who my present
+husband was, but where he had lived, viz., at Rouen in France. She knew
+nothing of Paris or of where we was going to live, namely, at Nimeguen;
+but told her in so many words that if she could not find me here, she
+would go to Holland after me.
+
+They landed at Greenwich, and Amy carried her into the park with her,
+and they walked above two hours there in the farthest and remotest
+walks; which Amy did because, as they talked with great heat, it was
+apparent they were quarrelling, and the people took notice of it.
+
+They walked till they came almost to the wilderness at the south side
+of the park; but the girl, perceiving Amy offered to go in there among
+the woods and trees, stopped short there, and would go no further; but
+said she would not go in there.
+
+Amy smiled, and asked her what was the matter? She replied short, she
+did not know where she was, nor where she was going to carry her, and
+she would go no farther; and without any more ceremony, turns back, and
+walks apace away from her. Amy owned she was surprised, and came back
+too, and called to her, upon which the girl stopped, and Amy coming up
+to her, asked her what she meant?
+
+The girl boldly replied she did not know but she might murder her; and
+that, in short, she would not trust herself with her, and never would
+come into her company again alone.
+
+It was very provoking, but, however, Amy kept her temper with much
+difficulty, and bore it, knowing that much might depend upon it; so she
+mocked her foolish jealousy, and told her she need not be uneasy for
+her, she would do her no harm, and would have done her good if she would
+have let her; but since she was of such a refractory humour, she should
+not trouble herself, for she should never come into her company again;
+and that neither she or her brother or sister should ever hear from her
+or see her any more; and so she should have the satisfaction of being
+the ruin of her brother and sisters as well as of herself.
+
+The girl seemed a little mollified at that, and said that for herself,
+she knew the worst of it, she could seek her fortune; but it was hard
+her brother and sister should suffer on her score; and said something
+that was tender and well enough on that account. But Amy told her it was
+for her to take that into consideration; for she would let her see that
+it was all her own; that she would have done them all good, but that
+having been used thus, she would do no more for any of them; and that
+she should not need to be afraid to come into her company again, for she
+would never give her occasion for it any more. This, by the way, was
+false in the girl too; for she did venture into Amy's company again
+after that, once too much, as I shall relate by itself.
+
+They grew cooler, however, afterwards, and Amy carried her into a house
+at Greenwich, where she was acquainted, and took an occasion to leave
+the girl in a room awhile, to speak to the people in the house, and so
+prepare them to own her as a lodger in the house; and then going in to
+her again told her there she lodged, if she had a mind to find her out,
+or if anybody else had anything to say to her. And so Amy dismissed her,
+and got rid of her again; and finding an empty hackney-coach in the
+town, came away by land to London, and the girl, going down to the
+water-side, came by boat.
+
+This conversation did not answer Amy's end at all, because it did not
+secure the girl from pursuing her design of hunting me out; and though
+my indefatigable friend the Quaker amused her three or four days, yet I
+had such notice of it at last that I thought fit to come away from
+Tunbridge upon it. And where to go I knew not; but, in short, I went to
+a little village upon Epping Forest, called Woodford, and took lodgings
+in a private house, where I lived retired about six weeks, till I
+thought she might be tired of her search, and have given me over.
+
+Here I received an account from my trusty Quaker that the wench had
+really been at Tunbridge, had found out my lodgings, and had told her
+tale there in a most dismal tone; that she had followed us, as she
+thought, to London; but the Quaker had answered her that she knew
+nothing of it, which was indeed true; and had admonished her to be easy,
+and not hunt after people of such fashion as we were, as if we were
+thieves; that she might be assured, that since I was not willing to see
+her, I would not be forced to it; and treating me thus would effectually
+disoblige me. And with such discourses as these she quieted her; and she
+(the Quaker) added that she hoped I should not be troubled much more
+with her.
+
+It was in this time that Amy gave me the history of her Greenwich
+voyage, when she spoke of drowning and killing the girl in so serious a
+manner, and with such an apparent resolution of doing it, that, as I
+said, put me in a rage with her, so that I effectually turned her away
+from me, as I have said above, and she was gone; nor did she so much as
+tell me whither or which way she was gone. On the other hand, when I
+came to reflect on it that now I had neither assistant or confidant to
+speak to, or receive the least information from, my friend the Quaker
+excepted, it made me very uneasy.
+
+I waited and expected and wondered from day to day, still thinking Amy
+would one time or other think a little and come again, or at least let
+me hear of her; but for ten days together I heard nothing of her. I was
+so impatient that I got neither rest by day or sleep by night, and what
+to do I knew not. I durst not go to town to the Quaker's for fear of
+meeting that vexatious creature, my girl, and I could get no
+intelligence where I was; so I got my spouse, upon pretence of wanting
+her company, to take the coach one day and fetch my good Quaker to me.
+
+When I had her, I durst ask her no questions, nor hardly knew which end
+of the business to begin to talk of; but of her own accord she told me
+that the girl had been three or four times haunting her for news from
+me; and that she had been so troublesome that she had been obliged to
+show herself a little angry with her; and at last told her plainly that
+she need give herself no trouble in searching after me by her means, for
+she (the Quaker) would not tell her if she knew; upon which she
+refrained awhile. But, on the other hand, she told me it was not safe
+for me to send my own coach for her to come in, for she had some reason
+to believe that she (my daughter) watched her door night and day; nay,
+and watched her too every time she went in and out; for she was so bent
+upon a discovery that she spared no pains, and she believed she had
+taken a lodging very near their house for that purpose.
+
+I could hardly give her a hearing of all this for my eagerness to ask
+for Amy; but I was confounded when she told me she had heard nothing of
+her. It is impossible to express the anxious thoughts that rolled about
+in my mind, and continually perplexed me about her; particularly I
+reproached myself with my rashness in turning away so faithful a
+creature that for so many years had not only been a servant but an
+agent; and not only an agent, but a friend, and a faithful friend too.
+
+Then I considered too that Amy knew all the secret history of my life;
+had been in all the intrigues of it, and been a party in both evil and
+good; and at best there was no policy in it; that as it was very
+ungenerous and unkind to run things to such an extremity with her, and
+for an occasion, too, in which all the fault she was guilty of was owing
+to her excessive care for my safety, so it must be only her steady
+kindness to me, and an excess of generous friendship for me, that should
+keep her from ill-using me in return for it; which ill-using me was
+enough in her power, and might be my utter undoing.
+
+These thoughts perplexed me exceedingly, and what course to take I
+really did not know. I began, indeed, to give Amy quite over, for she
+had now been gone above a fortnight, and as she had taken away all her
+clothes, and her money too, which was not a little, and so had no
+occasion of that kind to come any more, so she had not left any word
+where she was gone, or to which part of the world I might send to hear
+of her.
+
+And I was troubled on another account too, viz., that my spouse and I
+too had resolved to do very handsomely for Amy, without considering what
+she might have got another way at all; but we had said nothing of it to
+her, and so I thought, as she had not known what was likely to fall in
+her way, she had not the influence of that expectation to make her come
+back.
+
+Upon the whole, the perplexity of this girl, who hunted me as if, like a
+hound, she had had a hot scent, but was now at a fault, I say, that
+perplexity, and this other part of Amy being gone, issued in this--I
+resolved to be gone, and go over to Holland; there, I believed, I should
+be at rest. So I took occasion one day to tell my spouse that I was
+afraid he might take it ill that I had amused him thus long, and that at
+last I doubted I was not with child; and that since it was so, our
+things being packed up, and all in order for going to Holland, I would
+go away now when he pleased.
+
+My spouse, who was perfectly easy whether in going or staying, left it
+all entirely to me; so I considered of it, and began to prepare again
+for my voyage. But, alas! I was irresolute to the last degree. I was,
+for want of Amy, destitute; I had lost my right hand; she was my
+steward, gathered in my rents (I mean my interest money) and kept my
+accounts, and, in a word, did all my business; and without her, indeed,
+I knew not how to go away nor how to stay. But an accident thrust itself
+in here, and that even in Amy's conduct too, which frighted me away, and
+without her too, in the utmost horror and confusion.
+
+I have related how my faithful friend the Quaker was come to me, and
+what account she gave me of her being continually haunted by my
+daughter; and that, as she said, she watched her very door night and
+day. The truth was, she had set a spy to watch so effectually that she
+(the Quaker) neither went in or out but she had notice of it.
+
+This was too evident when, the next morning after she came to me (for I
+kept her all night), to my unspeakable surprise I saw a hackney-coach
+stop at the door where I lodged, and saw her (my daughter) in the coach
+all alone. It was a very good chance, in the middle of a bad one, that
+my husband had taken out the coach that very morning, and was gone to
+London. As for me, I had neither life or soul left in me; I was so
+confounded I knew not what to do or to say.
+
+My happy visitor had more presence of mind than I, and asked me if I had
+made no acquaintance among the neighbours. I told her, yes, there was a
+lady lodged two doors off that I was very intimate with. "But hast thou
+no way out backward to go to her?" says she. Now it happened there was
+a back-door in the garden, by which we usually went and came to and from
+the house, so I told her of it. "Well, well," says she, "go out and make
+a visit then, and leave the rest to me." Away I run, told the lady (for
+I was very free there) that I was a widow to-day, my spouse being gone
+to London, so I came not to visit her, but to dwell with her that day,
+because also our landlady had got strangers come from London. So having
+framed this orderly lie, I pulled some work out of my pocket, and added
+I did not come to be idle.
+
+As I went out one way, my friend the Quaker went the other to receive
+this unwelcome guest. The girl made but little ceremony, but having bid
+the coachman ring at the gate, gets down out of the coach and comes to
+the door, a country girl going to the door (belonging to the house), for
+the Quaker forbid any of my maids going. Madam asked for my Quaker by
+name, and the girl asked her to walk in.
+
+Upon this, my Quaker, seeing there was no hanging back, goes to her
+immediately, but put all the gravity upon her countenance that she was
+mistress of, and that was not a little indeed.
+
+When she (the Quaker) came into the room (for they had showed my
+daughter into a little parlour), she kept her grave countenance, but
+said not a word, nor did my daughter speak a good while; but after some
+time my girl began and said, "I suppose you know me, madam?"
+
+"Yes," says the Quaker, "I know thee." And so the dialogue went on.
+
+_Girl._ Then you know my business too?
+
+_Quaker._ No, verily, I do not know any business thou canst have here
+with me.
+
+_Girl._ Indeed, my business is not chiefly with you.
+
+_Qu._ Why, then, dost thou come after me thus far?
+
+_Girl._ You know whom I seek. [_And with that she cried._]
+
+_Qu._ But why shouldst thou follow me for her, since thou know'st that I
+assured thee more than once that I knew not where she was?
+
+_Girl._ But I hoped you could.
+
+_Qu._ Then thou must hope that I did not speak the truth, which would be
+very wicked.
+
+_Girl._ I doubt not but she is in this house.
+
+_Qu._ If those be thy thoughts, thou may'st inquire in the house; so
+thou hast no more business with me. Farewell! [_Offers to go._]
+
+_Girl._ I would not be uncivil; I beg you to let me see her.
+
+_Qu._ I am here to visit some of my friends, and I think thou art not
+very civil in following me hither.
+
+_Girl._ I came in hopes of a discovery in my great affair which you know
+of.
+
+_Qu._ Thou cam'st wildly, indeed; I counsel thee to go back again, and
+be easy; I shall keep my word with thee, that I would not meddle in it,
+or give thee any account, if I knew it, unless I had her orders.
+
+[Illustration: ROXANA'S DAUGHTER AND THE QUAKER
+
+_Here the girl importuned her again with the utmost earnestness, and
+cried bitterly_]
+
+_Girl._ If you knew my distress you could not be so cruel.
+
+_Qu._ Thou hast told me all thy story, and I think it might be more
+cruelty to tell thee than not to tell thee; for I understand she is
+resolved not to see thee, and declares she is not thy mother. Will'st
+thou be owned where thou hast no relation?
+
+_Girl._ Oh, if I could but speak to her, I would prove my relation to
+her so that she could not deny it any longer.
+
+_Qu._ Well, but thou canst not come to speak with her, it seems.
+
+_Girl._ I hope you will tell me if she is here. I had a good account
+that you were come out to see her, and that she sent for you.
+
+_Qu._ I much wonder how thou couldst have such an account. If I had come
+out to see her, thou hast happened to miss the house, for I assure thee
+she is not to be found in this house.
+
+Here the girl importuned her again with the utmost earnestness, and
+cried bitterly, insomuch that my poor Quaker was softened with it, and
+began to persuade me to consider of it, and, if it might consist with my
+affairs, to see her, and hear what she had to say; but this was
+afterwards. I return to the discourse.
+
+The Quaker was perplexed with her a long time; she talked of sending
+back the coach, and lying in the town all night. This, my friend knew,
+would be very uneasy to me, but she durst not speak a word against it;
+but on a sudden thought, she offered a bold stroke, which, though
+dangerous if it had happened wrong, had its desired effect.
+
+She told her that, as for dismissing her coach, that was as she pleased,
+she believed she would not easily get a lodging in the town; but that as
+she was in a strange place, she would so much befriend her, that she
+would speak to the people of the house, that if they had room, she might
+have a lodging there for one night, rather than be forced back to London
+before she was free to go.
+
+This was a cunning, though a dangerous step, and it succeeded
+accordingly, for it amused the creature entirely, and she presently
+concluded that really I could not be there then, otherwise she would
+never have asked her to lie in the house; so she grew cold again
+presently as to her lodging there, and said, No, since it was so, she
+would go back that afternoon, but she would come again in two or three
+days, and search that and all the towns round in an effectual manner, if
+she stayed a week or two to do it; for, in short, if I was in England or
+Holland she would find me.
+
+"In truth," says the Quaker, "thou wilt make me very hurtful to thee,
+then." "Why so?" says she, "Because wherever I go, thou wilt put thyself
+to great expense, and the country to a great deal of unnecessary
+trouble." "Not unnecessary," says she. "Yes, truly," says the Quaker;
+"it must be unnecessary, because it will be to no purpose. I think I
+must abide in my own house to save thee that charge and trouble."
+
+She said little to that, except that, she said, she would give her as
+little trouble as possible; but she was afraid she should sometimes be
+uneasy to her, which she hoped she would excuse. My Quaker told her she
+would much rather excuse her if she would forbear; for that if she would
+believe her, she would assure her she should never get any intelligence
+of me by her.
+
+That set her into tears again; but after a while, recovering herself,
+she told her perhaps she might be mistaken; and she (the Quaker) should
+watch herself very narrowly, or she might one time or other get some
+intelligence from her, whether she would or no; and she was satisfied
+she had gained some of her by this journey, for that if I was not in the
+house, I was not far off; and if I did not remove very quickly, she
+would find me out. "Very well," says my Quaker; "then if the lady is not
+willing to see thee, thou givest me notice to tell her, that she may get
+out of thy way."
+
+She flew out in a rage at that, and told my friend that if she did, a
+curse would follow her, and her children after her, and denounced such
+horrid things upon her as frighted the poor tender-hearted Quaker
+strangely, and put her more out of temper than ever I saw her before; so
+that she resolved to go home the next morning, and I, that was ten times
+more uneasy than she, resolved to follow her, and go to London too;
+which, however, upon second thoughts, I did not, but took effectual
+measures not to be seen or owned if she came any more; but I heard no
+more of her for some time.
+
+I stayed there about a fortnight, and in all that time I heard no more
+of her, or of my Quaker about her; but after about two days more, I had
+a letter from my Quaker, intimating that she had something of moment to
+say, that she could not communicate by letter, but wished I would give
+myself the trouble to come up, directing me to come with the coach into
+Goodman's Fields, and then walk to her back-door on foot, which being
+left open on purpose, the watchful lady, if she had any spies, could not
+well see me.
+
+My thoughts had for so long time been kept, as it were, waking, that
+almost everything gave me the alarm, and this especially, so that I was
+very uneasy; but I could not bring matters to bear to make my coming to
+London so clear to my husband as I would have done; for he liked the
+place, and had a mind, he said, to stay a little longer, if it was not
+against my inclination; so I wrote my friend the Quaker word that I
+could not come to town yet; and that, besides, I could not think of
+being there under spies, and afraid to look out of doors; and so, in
+short, I put off going for near a fortnight more.
+
+At the end of that time she wrote again, in which she told me that she
+had not lately seen the impertinent visitor which had been so
+troublesome; but that she had seen my trusty agent Amy, who told her
+she had cried for six weeks without intermission; that Amy had given her
+an account how troublesome the creature had been, and to what straits
+and perplexities I was driven by her hunting after and following me from
+place to place; upon which Amy had said, that, notwithstanding I was
+angry with her, and had used her so hardly for saying something about
+her of the same kind, yet there was an absolute necessity of securing
+her, and removing her out of the way; and that, in short, without asking
+my leave, or anybody's leave, she should take care she should trouble
+her mistress (meaning me) no more; and that after Amy had said so, she
+had indeed never heard any more of the girl; so that she supposed Amy
+had managed it so well as to put an end to it.
+
+The innocent, well-meaning creature, my Quaker, who was all kindness and
+goodness in herself, and particularly to me, saw nothing in this; but
+she thought Amy had found some way to persuade her to be quiet and easy,
+and to give over teasing and following me, and rejoiced in it for my
+sake; as she thought nothing of any evil herself, so she suspected none
+in anybody else, and was exceeding glad of having such good news to
+write to me; but my thoughts of it run otherwise.
+
+I was struck, as with a blast from heaven, at the reading her letter; I
+fell into a fit of trembling from head to foot, and I ran raving about
+the room like a mad woman. I had nobody to speak a word to, to give
+vent to my passion; nor did I speak a word for a good while, till after
+it had almost overcome me. I threw myself on the bed, and cried out,
+"Lord, be merciful to me, she has murdered my child!" and with that a
+flood of tears burst out, and I cried vehemently for above an hour.
+
+My husband was very happily gone out a-hunting, so that I had the
+opportunity of being alone, and to give my passions some vent, by which
+I a little recovered myself. But after my crying was over, then I fell
+in a new rage at Amy; I called her a thousand devils and monsters and
+hard-hearted tigers; I reproached her with her knowing that I abhorred
+it, and had let her know it sufficiently, in that I had, at it were,
+kicked her out of doors, after so many years' friendship and service,
+only for naming it to me.
+
+Well, after some time, my spouse came in from his sport, and I put on
+the best looks I could to deceive him; but he did not take so little
+notice of me as not to see I had been crying, and that something
+troubled me, and he pressed me to tell him. I seemed to bring it out
+with reluctance, but told him my backwardness was more because I was
+ashamed that such a trifle should have any effect upon me, than for any
+weight that was in it; so I told him I had been vexing myself about my
+woman Amy's not coming again; that she might have known me better than
+not to believe I should have been friends with her again, and the like;
+and that, in short, I had lost the best servant by my rashness that ever
+woman had.
+
+"Well, well," says he, "if that be all your grief, I hope you will soon
+shake it off; I'll warrant you in a little while we shall hear of Mrs.
+Amy again." And so it went off for that time. But it did not go off with
+me; for I was uneasy and terrified to the last degree, and wanted to get
+some farther account of the thing. So I went away to my sure and certain
+comforter, the Quaker, and there I had the whole story of it; and the
+good innocent Quaker gave me joy of my being rid of such an unsufferable
+tormentor.
+
+"Rid of her! Ay," says I, "if I was rid of her fairly and honourably;
+but I don't know what Amy may have done. Sure, she ha'n't made her
+away?" "Oh fie!" says my Quaker; "how canst thou entertain such a
+notion! No, no. Made her away? Amy didn't talk like that; I dare say
+thou may'st be easy in that; Amy has nothing of that in her head, I dare
+say," says she; and so threw it, as it were, out of my thoughts.
+
+But it would not do; it run in my head continually; night and day I
+could think of nothing else; and it fixed such a horror of the fact upon
+my spirits, and such a detestation of Amy, who I looked upon as the
+murderer, that, as for her, I believe if I could have seen her I should
+certainly have sent her to Newgate, or to a worse place, upon
+suspicion; indeed, I think I could have killed her with my own hands.
+
+As for the poor girl herself, she was ever before my eyes; I saw her by
+night and by day; she haunted my imagination, if she did not haunt the
+house; my fancy showed me her in a hundred shapes and postures; sleeping
+or waking, she was with me. Sometimes I thought I saw her with her
+throat cut; sometimes with her head cut, and her brains knocked out;
+other times hanged up upon a beam; another time drowned in the great
+pond at Camberwell. And all these appearances were terrifying to the
+last degree; and that which was still worse, I could really hear nothing
+of her; I sent to the captain's wife in Redriff, and she answered me,
+she was gone to her relations in Spitalfields. I sent thither, and they
+said she was there about three weeks ago, but that she went out in a
+coach with the gentlewoman that used to be so kind to her, but whither
+she was gone they knew not, for she had not been there since. I sent
+back the messenger for a description of the woman she went out with; and
+they described her so perfectly, that I knew it to be Amy, and none but
+Amy.
+
+I sent word again that Mrs. Amy, who she went out with, left her in two
+or three hours, and that they should search for her, for I had a reason
+to fear she was murdered. This frighted them all intolerably. They
+believed Amy had carried her to pay her a sum of money, and that
+somebody had watched her after her having received it, and had robbed
+and murdered her.
+
+I believed nothing of that part; but I believed, as it was, that
+whatever was done, Amy had done it; and that, in short, Amy had made her
+away; and I believed it the more, because Amy came no more near me, but
+confirmed her guilt by her absence.
+
+Upon the whole, I mourned thus for her for above a month; but finding
+Amy still come not near me, and that I must put my affairs in a posture
+that I might go to Holland, I opened all my affairs to my dear trusty
+friend the Quaker, and placed her, in matters of trust, in the room of
+Amy; and with a heavy, bleeding heart for my poor girl, I embarked with
+my spouse, and all our equipage and goods, on board another Holland's
+trader, not a packet-boat, and went over to Holland, where I arrived, as
+I have said.
+
+I must put in a caution, however, here, that you must not understand me
+as if I let my friend the Quaker into any part of the secret history of
+my former life; nor did I commit the grand reserved article of all to
+her, viz., that I was really the girl's mother, and the Lady Roxana;
+there was no need of that part being exposed; and it was always a maxim
+with me, that secrets should never be opened without evident utility. It
+could be of no manner of use to me or her to communicate that part to
+her; besides, she was too honest herself to make it safe to me; for
+though she loved me very sincerely, and it was plain by many
+circumstances that she did so, yet she would not lie for me upon
+occasion, as Amy would, and therefore it was not advisable on any terms
+to communicate that part; for if the girl, or any one else, should have
+come to her afterwards, and put it home to her, whether she knew that I
+was the girl's mother or not, or was the same as the Lady Roxana or not,
+she either would not have denied it, or would have done it with so ill a
+grace, such blushing, such hesitations and falterings in her answers, as
+would have put the matter out of doubt, and betrayed herself and the
+secret too.
+
+For this reason, I say, I did not discover anything of that kind to her;
+but I placed her, as I have said, in Amy's stead in the other affairs of
+receiving money, interests, rents, and the like, and she was as faithful
+as Amy could be, and as diligent.
+
+But there fell out a great difficulty here, which I knew not how to get
+over; and this was how to convey the usual supply of provision and money
+to the uncle and the other sister, who depended, especially the sister,
+upon the said supply for her support; and indeed, though Amy had said
+rashly that she would not take any more notice of the sister, and would
+leave her to perish, as above, yet it was neither in my nature, or Amy's
+either, much less was it in my design; and therefore I resolved to leave
+the management of what I had reserved for that work with my faithful
+Quaker, but how to direct her to manage them was the great difficulty.
+
+Amy had told them in so many words that she was not their mother, but
+that she was the maid Amy, that carried them to their aunt's; that she
+and their mother went over to the East Indies to seek their fortune, and
+that there good things had befallen them, and that their mother was very
+rich and happy; that she (Amy) had married in the Indies, but being now
+a widow, and resolving to come over to England, their mother had obliged
+her to inquire them out, and do for them as she had done; and that now
+she was resolved to go back to the Indies again; but that she had orders
+from their mother to do very handsomely by them; and, in a word, told
+them she had L2000 apiece for them, upon condition that they proved
+sober, and married suitably to themselves, and did not throw themselves
+away upon scoundrels.
+
+The good family in whose care they had been, I had resolved to take more
+than ordinary notice of; and Amy, by my order, had acquainted them with
+it, and obliged my daughters to promise to submit to their government,
+as formerly, and to be ruled by the honest man as by a father and
+counsellor; and engaged him to treat them as his children. And to oblige
+him effectually to take care of them, and to make his old age
+comfortable both to him and his wife, who had been so good to the
+orphans, I had ordered her to settle the other L2000, that is to say,
+the interest of it, which was L120 a year, upon them, to be theirs for
+both their lives, but to come to my two daughters after them. This was
+so just, and was so prudently managed by Amy, that nothing she ever did
+for me pleased me better. And in this posture, leaving my two daughters
+with their ancient friend, and so coming away to me (as they thought to
+the East Indies), she had prepared everything in order to her going over
+with me to Holland; and in this posture that matter stood when that
+unhappy girl, who I have said so much of, broke in upon all our
+measures, as you have heard, and, by an obstinacy never to be conquered
+or pacified, either with threats or persuasions, pursued her search
+after me (her mother) as I have said, till she brought me even to the
+brink of destruction; and would, in all probability, have traced me out
+at last, if Amy had not, by the violence of her passion, and by a way
+which I had no knowledge of, and indeed abhorred, put a stop to her, of
+which I cannot enter into the particulars here.
+
+However, notwithstanding this, I could not think of going away and
+leaving this work so unfinished as Amy had threatened to do, and for the
+folly of one child to leave the other to starve, or to stop my
+determined bounty to the good family I have mentioned. So, in a word, I
+committed the finishing it all to my faithful friend the Quaker, to whom
+I communicated as much of the whole story as was needful to empower her
+to perform what Amy had promised, and to make her talk so much to the
+purpose, as one employed more remotely than Amy had been, needed to be.
+
+To this purpose she had, first of all, a full possession of the money;
+and went first to the honest man and his wife, and settled all the
+matter with them; when she talked of Mrs. Amy, she talked of her as one
+that had been empowered by the mother of the girls in the Indies, but
+was obliged to go back to the Indies, and had settled all sooner if she
+had not been hindered by the obstinate humour of the other daughter;
+that she had left instructions with her for the rest; but that the other
+had affronted her so much that she was gone away without doing anything
+for her; and that now, if anything was done, it must be by fresh orders
+from the East Indies.
+
+I need not say how punctually my new agent acted; but, which was more,
+she brought the old man and his wife, and my other daughter, several
+times to her house, by which I had an opportunity, being there only as a
+lodger, and a stranger, to see my other girl, which I had never done
+before, since she was a little child.
+
+The day I contrived to see them I was dressed up in a Quaker's habit,
+and looked so like a Quaker, that it was impossible for them, who had
+never seen me before, to suppose I had ever been anything else; also my
+way of talking was suitable enough to it, for I had learned that long
+before.
+
+I have not time here to take notice what a surprise it was to me to see
+my child; how it worked upon my affections; with what infinite struggle
+I mastered a strong inclination that I had to discover myself to her;
+how the girl was the very counterpart of myself, only much handsomer;
+and how sweetly and modestly she behaved; how, on that occasion, I
+resolved to do more for her than I had appointed by Amy, and the like.
+
+It is enough to mention here, that as the settling this affair made way
+for my going on board, notwithstanding the absence of my old agent Amy,
+so, however, I left some hints for Amy too, for I did not yet despair of
+my hearing from her; and that if my good Quaker should ever see her
+again, she should let her see them; wherein, particularly, ordering her
+to leave the affair of Spitalfields just as I had done, in the hands of
+my friend, she should come away to me; upon this condition,
+nevertheless, that she gave full satisfaction to my friend the Quaker
+that she had not murdered my child; for if she had, I told her I would
+never see her face more. However, notwithstanding this, she came over
+afterwards, without giving my friend any of that satisfaction, or any
+account that she intended to come over.
+
+I can say no more now, but that, as above, being arrived in Holland,
+with my spouse and his son, formerly mentioned, I appeared there with
+all the splendour and equipage suitable to our new prospect, as I have
+already observed.
+
+Here, after some few years of flourishing and outwardly happy
+circumstances, I fell into a dreadful course of calamities, and Amy
+also; the very reverse of our former good days. The blast of Heaven
+seemed to follow the injury done the poor girl by us both, and I was
+brought so low again, that my repentance seemed to be only the
+consequence of my misery, as my misery was of my crime.
+
+
+
+
+CONTINUATION
+
+(_From the 1745 Edition_)
+
+
+In resolving to go to Holland with my husband, and take possession of
+the title of countess as soon as possible, I had a view of deceiving my
+daughter, were she yet alive, and seeking me out; for it seldom happens
+that a nobleman, or his lady, are called by their surnames, and as she
+was a stranger to our noble title, might have inquired at our next door
+neighbours for Mr. ----, the Dutch merchant, and not have been one jot
+the wiser for her inquiry. So one evening, soon after this resolution,
+as I and my husband were sitting together when supper was over, and
+talking of several various scenes in life, I told him that, as there was
+no likelihood of my being with child, as I had some reason to suspect I
+was some time before, I was ready to go with him to any part of the
+world, whenever he pleased. I said, that great part of my things were
+packed up, and what was not would not be long about, and that I had
+little occasion to buy any more clothes, linen, or jewels, whilst I was
+in England, having a large quantity of the richest and best of
+everything by me already. On saying these words, he took me in his
+arms, and told me that he looked on what I had now spoken with so great
+an emphasis, to be my settled resolution, and the fault should not lie
+on his side if it miscarried being put in practice.
+
+The next morning he went out to see some merchants, who had received
+advice of the arrival of some shipping which had been in great danger at
+sea, and whose insurance had run very high; and it was this interval
+that gave me an opportunity of my coming to a final resolution. I now
+told the Quaker, as she was sitting at work in her parlour, that we
+should very speedily leave her, and although she daily expected it, yet
+she was really sorry to hear that we had come to a full determination;
+she said abundance of fine things to me on the happiness of the life I
+did then, and was going to live; believing, I suppose, that a countess
+could not have a foul conscience; but at that very instant, I would
+have, had it been in my power, resigned husband, estate, title, and all
+the blessings she fancied I had in the world, only for her real virtue,
+and the sweet peace of mind, joined to a loving company of children,
+which she really possessed.
+
+When my husband returned, he asked me at dinner if I persevered in my
+resolution of leaving England; to which I answered in the affirmative.
+"Well," says he, "as all my affairs will not take up a week's time to
+settle, I will be ready to go from London with you in ten days' time."
+We fixed upon no particular place or abode, but in general concluded to
+go to Dover, cross the Channel to Calais, and proceed from thence by
+easy journeys to Paris, where after staying about a week, we intended to
+go through part of France, the Austrian Netherlands, and so on to
+Amsterdam, Rotterdam, or the Hague, as we were to settle before we went
+from Paris. As my husband did not care to venture all our fortune in one
+bottom, so our goods, money, and plate were consigned to several
+merchants, who had been his intimates many years, and he took notes of a
+prodigious value in his pocket, besides what he gave me to take care of
+during our journey. The last thing to be considered was, how we should
+go ourselves, and what equipage we should take with us; my thoughts were
+wholly taken up about it some time; I knew I was going to be a countess,
+and did not care to appear anything mean before I came to that honour;
+but, on the other hand, if I left London in any public way, I might
+possibly hear of inquiries after me in the road, that I had been
+acquainted with before. At last I said we would discharge all our
+servants, except two footmen, who should travel with us to Dover, and
+one maid to wait on me, that had lived with me only since the retreat of
+Amy, and she was to go through, if she was willing; and as to the
+carriage of us, a coach should be hired for my husband, myself, and
+maid, and two horses were to be hired for the footmen, who were to
+return with them to London.
+
+When the Quaker had heard when and how we intended to go, she begged, as
+there would be a spare seat in the coach, to accompany us as far as
+Dover, which we both readily consented to; no woman could be a better
+companion, neither was there any acquaintance that we loved better, or
+could show more respect to us.
+
+The morning before we set out, my husband sent for a master coachman to
+know the price of a handsome coach, with six able horses, to go to
+Dover. He inquired how many days we intended to be on the journey? My
+husband said he would go but very easy, and chose to be three days on
+the road; that they should stay there two days, and be three more
+returning to London, with a gentlewoman (meaning the Quaker) in it. The
+coachman said it would be an eight days' journey, and he would have ten
+guineas for it. My husband consented to pay him his demand, and he
+received orders to be ready at the door by seven of the clock the next
+morning: I was quite prepared to go, having no person to take leave of
+but the Quaker, and she had desired to see us take the packet-boat at
+Dover, before we parted with her; and the last night of my stay in
+London was spent very agreeably with the Quaker and her family. My
+husband, who stayed out later than usual, in taking his farewell of
+several merchants of his acquaintance, came home about eleven o'clock,
+and drank a glass or two of wine with us before we went to bed.
+
+The next morning, the whole family got up about five o'clock, and I,
+with my husband's consent, made each of the Quaker's daughters a present
+of a diamond ring, valued at L20, and a guinea apiece to all the
+servants, without exception. We all breakfasted together, and at the
+hour appointed, the coach and attendants came to the door; this drew
+several people about it, who were all very inquisitive to know who was
+going into the country, and what is never forgot on such occasions, all
+the beggars in the neighbourhood were prepared to give us their
+benedictions in hopes of an alms. When the coachmen had packed up what
+boxes were designed for our use, we, namely, my husband, the Quaker,
+myself, and the waiting-maid, all got into the coach, the footmen were
+mounted on horses behind, and in this manner the coach, after I had
+given a guinea to one of the Quaker's daughters equally to divide among
+the beggars at the door, drove away from the house, and I took leave of
+my lodging in the Minories, as well as of London.
+
+At St. George's Church, Southwark, we were met by three gentlemen on
+horseback, who were merchants of my husband's acquaintance, and had come
+out on purpose, to go half a day's journey with us; and as they kept
+talking to us at the coach side, we went a good pace, and were very
+merry together; we stopped at the best house of entertainment on
+Shooter's Hill.
+
+Here we stopped for about an hour, and drank some wine, and my husband,
+whose chief study was how to please and divert me, caused me to alight
+out of the coach; which the gentlemen who accompanied us observing,
+alighted also. The waiter showed us upstairs into a large room, whose
+window opened to our view a fine prospect of the river Thames, which
+here, they say, forms one of the most beautiful meanders. It was within
+an hour of high water, and such a number of ships coming in under sail
+quite astonished as well as delighted me, insomuch that I could not help
+breaking out into such-like expressions, "My dear, what a fine sight
+this is; I never saw the like before! Pray will they get to London this
+tide?" At which the good-natured gentleman smiled, and said, "Yes, my
+dear; why, there is London, and as the wind is quite fair for them, some
+of them will come to an anchor in about half-an-hour, and all within an
+hour."
+
+I was so taken up with looking down the river that, till my husband
+spoke, I had not once looked up the river; but when I did, and saw
+London, the Monument, the cathedral church of St. Paul, and the steeples
+belonging to the several parish churches, I was transported into an
+ecstasy, and could not refrain from saying, "Sure that cannot be the
+place we are now just come from, it must be further off, for that looks
+to be scarce three miles off, and we have been three hours, by my watch,
+coming from our lodgings in the Minories! No, no, it is not London, it
+is some other place!"
+
+Upon which one of the gentlemen present offered to convince me that the
+place I saw was London if I would go up to the top of the house, and
+view it from the turret. I accepted the offer, and I, my husband, and
+the three gentlemen were conducted by the master of the house upstairs
+into the turret. If I was delighted before with my prospect, I was now
+ravished, for I was elevated above the room I was in before upwards of
+thirty feet. I seemed a little dizzy, for the turret being a lantern,
+and giving light all ways, for some time I thought myself suspended in
+the air; but sitting down, and having eat a mouthful of biscuit and
+drank a glass of sack, I soon recovered, and then the gentleman who had
+undertaken to convince me that the place I was shown was really London,
+thus began, after having drawn aside one of the windows.
+
+"You see, my lady," says the gentleman, "the greatest, the finest, the
+richest, and the most populous city in the world, at least in Europe, as
+I can assure your ladyship, upon my own knowledge, it deserves the
+character I have given it." "But this, sir, will never convince me that
+the place you now show me is London, though I have before heard that
+London deserves the character you have with so much cordiality bestowed
+upon it. And this I can testify, that London, in every particular you
+have mentioned, greatly surpasses Paris, which is allowed by all
+historians and travellers to be the second city in Europe."
+
+Here the gentleman, pulling out his pocket-glass, desired me to look
+through it, which I did; and then he directed me to look full at St.
+Paul's, and to make that the centre of my future observation, and
+thereupon he promised me conviction.
+
+Whilst I took my observation, I sat in a high chair, made for that
+purpose, with a convenience before you to hold the glass. I soon found
+the cathedral, and then I could not help saying I have been several
+times up to the stone gallery, but not quite so often up to the iron
+gallery. Then I brought my eye to the Monument, and was obliged to
+confess I knew it to be such. The gentleman then moved the glass and
+desired me to look, which doing, I said, "I think I see Whitehall and
+St. James's Park, and I see also two great buildings like barns, but I
+do not know what they are." "Oh," says the gentleman, "they are the
+Parliament House and Westminster Abbey." "They may be so," said I; and
+continuing looking, I perceived the very house at Kensington which I had
+lived in some time; but of that I took no notice, yet I found my colour
+come, to think what a life of gaiety and wickedness I had lived. The
+gentleman, perceiving my disorder, said, "I am afraid I have tired your
+ladyship; I will make but one remove, more easterly, and then I believe
+you will allow the place we see to be London."
+
+He might have saved himself the trouble, for I was thoroughly convinced
+of my error; but to give myself time to recover, and to hide my
+confusion, I seemed not yet to be quite convinced. I looked, and the
+first object that presented itself was Aldgate Church, which, though I
+confess to my shame, I seldom saw the inside of it, yet I was well
+acquainted with the outside, for many times my friend the Quaker and I
+had passed and repassed by it when we used to go in the coach to take an
+airing. I saw the church, or the steeple of the church, so plain, and
+knew it so well, that I could not help saying, with some earnestness,
+"My dear, I see our church; the church, I mean, belonging to our
+neighbourhood; I am sure it is Aldgate Church." Then I saw the Tower,
+and all the shipping; and, taking my eye from the glass, I thanked the
+gentleman for the trouble I had given him, and said to him that I was
+fully convinced that the place I saw was London, and that it was the
+very place we came from that morning.
+
+When we came to Sittingbourne, our servant soon brought us word that
+although we were at the best inn in the town, yet there was nothing in
+the larder fit for our dinner. The landlord came in after him and began
+to make excuses for his empty cupboard. He told us, withal, that if we
+would please to stay, he would kill a calf, a sheep, a hog, or anything
+we had a fancy to. We ordered him to kill a pig and some pigeons, which,
+with a dish of fish, a cherry pie, and some pastry, made up a tolerable
+dinner. We made up two pounds ten shillings, for we caused the landlord,
+his wife, and two daughters, to dine with us, and help us off with our
+wine. Our landlady and her two daughters, with a glass or two given to
+the cook, managed two bottles of white wine. This operated so strong
+upon one of the young wenches that, my spouse being gone out into the
+yard, her tongue began to run; and, looking at me, she says to her
+mother, "La! mother, how much like the lady her ladyship is" (speaking
+of me), "the young woman who lodged here the other night, and stayed
+here part of the next day, and then set forward for Canterbury,
+described. The lady is the same person, I'm sure."
+
+This greatly alarmed me, and made me very uneasy, for I concluded this
+young woman could be no other than my daughter, who was resolved to find
+me out, whether I would or no. I desired the girl to describe the young
+woman she mentioned, which she did, and I was convinced it was my own
+daughter. I asked in what manner she travelled, and whether she had any
+company. I was answered that she was on foot, and that she had no
+company; but that she always travelled from place to place in company;
+that her method was, when she came into any town, to go to the best inns
+and inquire for the lady she sought; and then, when she had satisfied
+herself that the lady, whom she called her mother, was not to be found
+in that town or neighbourhood, she then begged the favour of the
+landlady of the inn where she was, to put her into such a company that
+she knew that she might go safe to the next town; that this was the
+manner of her proceeding at her house, and she believed she had
+practised it ever since she set out from London; and she hoped to meet
+with her mother, as she called her, upon the road.
+
+I asked my landlady whether she described our coach and equipage, but
+she said the young woman did not inquire concerning equipage, but only
+described a lady "so like your ladyship, that I have often, since I saw
+your ladyship, took you to be the very person she was looking for."
+
+Amidst the distractions of my mind, this afforded me some comfort, that
+my daughter was not in the least acquainted with the manner in which we
+travelled. My husband and the landlord returned, and that put an end to
+the discourse.
+
+I left this town with a heavy heart, feeling my daughter would
+infallibly find me out at Canterbury; but, as good luck would have it,
+she had left that city before we came thither, some time. I was very
+short in one thing, that I had not asked my landlady at Sittingbourne
+how long it was since my daughter was there. But when I came to
+Canterbury I was a very anxious and indefatigable in inquiring after my
+daughter, and I found that she had been at the inn where we then were,
+and had inquired for me, as I found by the description the people gave
+of myself.
+
+Here I learnt my daughter had left Canterbury a week. This pleased me;
+and I was determined to stay in Canterbury one day, to view the
+cathedral, and see the antiquities of this metropolis.
+
+As we had sixteen miles to our journey's end that night, for it was near
+four o'clock before we got into our coach again, the coachman drove with
+great speed, and at dusk in the evening we entered the west gate of the
+city, and put up at an inn in High Street (near St. Mary Bredman's
+church), which generally was filled with the best of company. The
+anxiety of my mind, on finding myself pursued by this girl, and the
+fatigue of my journey, had made me much out of order, my head ached, and
+I had no stomach.
+
+This made my husband (but he knew not the real occasion of my illness)
+and the Quaker very uneasy, and they did all in their power to persuade
+me to eat anything I could fancy.
+
+At length the landlady of the inn, who perceived I was more disturbed in
+my mind than sick, advised me to eat one poached egg, drink a glass of
+sack, eat a toast, and go to bed, and she warranted, she said, I should
+be well by the morning. This was immediately done; and I must
+acknowledge, that the sack and toast cheered me wonderfully, and I began
+to take heart again; and my husband would have the coachman in after
+supper, on purpose to divert me and the honest Quaker, who, poor
+creature, seemed much more concerned at my misfortune than I was myself.
+
+I went soon to bed, but for fear I should be worse in the night, two
+maids of the inn were ordered to sit up in an adjoining chamber; the
+Quaker and my waiting-maid lay in a bed in the same room, and my
+husband by himself in another apartment.
+
+While my maid was gone down on some necessary business, and likewise to
+get me some burnt wine, which I was to drink going to bed, or rather
+when I was just got into bed, the Quaker and I had the following
+dialogue:
+
+_Quaker._ The news thou heardest at Sittingbourne has disordered thee. I
+am glad the young woman has been out of this place a week; she went
+indeed for Dover; and when she comes there and canst not find thee, she
+may go to Deal, and so miss of thee.
+
+_Roxana._ What I most depend upon is, that as we do not travel by any
+particular name, but the general one of the baronet and his lady, and
+the girl hath no notion what sort of equipage we travelled with, it was
+not easy to make a discovery of me, unless she accidentally, in her
+travels, light upon you (meaning the Quaker), or upon me; either of
+which must unavoidably blow the secret I had so long laboured to
+conceal.
+
+_Quaker._ As thou intendest to stay here to-morrow, to see the things
+which thou callest antiquities, and which are more properly named the
+relics of the Whore of Babylon; suppose thou wert to send Thomas, who at
+thy command followeth after us, to the place called Dover, to inquire
+whether such a young woman has been inquiring for thee. He may go out
+betimes in the morning, and may return by night, for it is but twelve
+or fourteen miles at farthest thither.
+
+_Roxana._ I like thy scheme very well; and I beg the favour of you in
+the morning, as soon as you are up, to send Tom to Dover, with such
+instructions as you shall think proper.
+
+After a good night's repose I was well recovered, to the great
+satisfaction of all that were with me.
+
+The good-natured Quaker, always studious to serve and oblige me, got up
+about five o'clock in the morning, and going down into the inn-yard, met
+with Tom, gave him his instructions, and he set out for Dover before six
+o'clock.
+
+As we were at the best inn in the city, so we could readily have
+whatever we pleased, and whatever the season afforded; but my husband,
+the most indulgent man that ever breathed, having observed how heartily
+I ate my dinner at Rochester two days before, ordered the very same bill
+of fare, and of which I made a heartier meal than I did before. We were
+very merry, and after we had dined, we went to see the town-house, but
+as it was near five o'clock I left the Quaker behind me, to receive what
+intelligence she could get concerning my daughter, from the footman, who
+was expected to return from Dover at six.
+
+We came to the inn just as it was dark, and then excusing myself to my
+husband, I immediately ran up into my chamber, where I had appointed the
+Quaker to be against my return. I ran to her with eagerness, and
+inquired what news from Dover, by Tom, the footman.
+
+She said, Tom had been returned two hours; that he got to Dover that
+morning between seven and eight, and found, at the inn he put up at,
+there had been an inquisitive young woman to find out a gentleman that
+was a Dutch merchant, and a lady who was her mother; that the young
+woman perfectly well described his lady; that he found that she had
+visited every public inn in the town; that she said she would go to
+Deal, and that if she did not find the lady, her mother, there, she
+would go by the first ship to the Hague, and go from thence, to
+Amsterdam and Rotterdam, searching all the towns through which she
+passed in the United Provinces.
+
+This account pleased me very well, especially when I understood that she
+had been gone from Dover five days. The Quaker comforted me, and said it
+was lucky this busy creature had passed the road before us, otherwise
+she might easily have found means to have overtaken us, for, as she
+observed, the wench had such an artful way of telling her story, that
+she moved everybody to compassion; and she did not doubt but that if we
+had been before, as we were behind, she would have got those who would
+have assisted her with a coach, &c., to have pursued us, and they might
+have come up with us.
+
+I was of the honest Quaker's sentiments. I grew pretty easy, called Tom,
+and gave him half a guinea for his diligence; then I and the Quaker went
+into the parlour to my husband, and soon after supper came in, and I
+ate moderately, and we spent the remainder of the evening, for the clock
+had then tolled nine, very cheerfully; for my Quaker was so rejoiced at
+my good fortune, as she called it, that she was very alert, and
+exceeding good company; and her wit, and she had no small share of it, I
+thought was better played off than ever I had heard it before.
+
+My husband asked me how I should choose to go on board; I desired him to
+settle it as he pleased, telling him it was a matter of very great
+indifference to me, as he was to go with me. "That may be true, my
+dear," says he, "but I ask you for a reason or two, which I will lay
+before you, viz., if we hire a vessel for ourselves, we may set sail
+when we please, have the liberty of every part of the ship to ourselves,
+and land at what port, either in Holland or France, we might make choice
+of. Besides," added he, "another reason I mention it to you is, that I
+know you do not love much company, which, in going into the packet-boat,
+it is almost impossible to avoid." "I own, my dear," said I, "your
+reasons are very good; I have but one thing to say against them, which
+is, that the packet-boat, by its frequent voyages, must of course be
+furnished with experienced seamen, who know the seas too well even to
+run any hazard." (At this juncture the terrible voyage I and Amy made
+from France to Harwich came so strong in my mind, that I trembled so as
+to be taken notice of by my husband.) "Besides," added I, "the landlord
+may send the master of one of them to you, and I think it may be best to
+hire the state cabin, as they call it, to ourselves, by which method we
+shall avoid company, without we have an inclination to associate
+ourselves with such passengers we may happen to like; and the expense
+will be much cheaper than hiring a vessel to go the voyage with us
+alone, and every whit as safe."
+
+The Quaker, who had seriously listened to our discourse, gave it as her
+opinion that the method I had proposed was by far the safest, quickest,
+and cheapest. "Not," said she, "as I think thou wouldest be against any
+necessary expense, though I am certain thou wouldest not fling thy money
+away."
+
+Soon after, my husband ordered the landlord to send for one of the
+masters of the packet-boats, of whom he hired the great cabin, and
+agreed to sail from thence the next day, if the wind and the tide
+answered.
+
+The settling our method of going over sea had taken up the time till the
+dinner was ready, which we being informed of, came out of a chamber we
+had been in all the morning, to a handsome parlour, where everything was
+placed suitable to our rank; there was a large, old-fashioned service of
+plate, and a sideboard genteelly set off. The dinner was excellent, and
+well dressed.
+
+After dinner, we entered into another discourse, which was the hiring of
+servants to go with us from Dover to Paris; a thing frequently done by
+travellers; and such are to be met with at every stage inn. Our footmen
+set out this morning on their return to London, and the Quaker and coach
+was to go the next day. My new chambermaid, whose name was Isabel, was
+to go through the journey, on condition of doing no other business than
+waiting on me. In a while we partly concluded to let the hiring of
+men-servants alone till we came to Calais, for they could be of no use
+to us on board a ship, the sailor's or cabin boy's place being to attend
+the cabin passengers as well as his master.
+
+To divert ourselves, we took a walk after we had dined, round about the
+town, and coming to the garrison, and being somewhat thirsty, all went
+into the sutler's for a glass of wine. A pint was called for and
+brought; but the man of the house came in with it raving like a madman,
+saying, "Don't you think you are a villain, to ask for a pot of ale when
+I know you have spent all your money, and are ignorant of the means of
+getting more, without you hear of a place, which I look upon to be very
+unlikely?" "Don't be in such a passion, landlord," said my husband.
+"Pray, what is the matter?" "Oh, nothing, sir," says he; "but a young
+fellow in the sutling room, whom I find to have been a gentleman's
+servant, wants a place; and having spent all his money, would willingly
+run up a score with me, knowing I must get him a master if ever I intend
+to have my money." "Pray, sir," said my husband, "send the young fellow
+to me; if I like him, and can agree with him, it is possible I may take
+him into my service." The landlord took care we should not speak to him
+twice, he went and fetched him in himself, and my husband examined him
+before he spoke, as to his size, mien, and garb. The young man was clean
+dressed, of a middling stature, a dark complexion, and about
+twenty-seven years old.
+
+"I hear, young man," says he to him, "that you want a place; it may
+perhaps be in my power to serve you. Let me know at once what education
+you have had, if you have any family belonging to you, or if you are fit
+for a gentleman's service, can bring any person of reputation to your
+character, and are willing to go and live in Holland with me: we will
+not differ about your wages."
+
+The young fellow made a respectful bow to each of us, and addressed
+himself to my husband as follows: "Sir," said he, "in me you behold the
+eldest child of misfortune. I am but young, as you may see; I have no
+comers after me, and having lived with several gentlemen, some of whom
+are on their travels, others settled in divers parts of the world,
+besides what are dead, makes me unable to produce a character without a
+week's notice to write to London, and I should not doubt but by the
+return of the post to let you see some letters as would satisfy you in
+any doubts about me. My education," continued he, "is but very middling,
+being taken from school before I had well learnt to read, write, and
+cast accounts; and as to my parentage, I cannot well give you any
+account of them: all that I know is, that my father was a brewer, and by
+his extravagance ran out a handsome fortune, and afterwards left my poor
+mother almost penniless, with five small children, of which I was the
+second, though not above five years old. My mother knew not what to do
+with us, so she sent a poor girl, our maid, whose name I have forgot
+this many years, with us all to a relation's, and there left us, and I
+never saw or heard of or from them any more. Indeed, I inquired among
+the neighbours, and all that I could learn was that my mother's goods
+were seized, that she was obliged to apply to the parish for relief, and
+died of grief soon after. For my part," says he, "I was put into the
+hands of my father's sister, where, by her cruel usage, I was forced to
+run away at nine years of age; and the numerous scenes of life I have
+since gone through are more than would fill a small volume. Pray, sir,"
+added he, "let it satisfy you that I am thoroughly honest, and should be
+glad to serve you at any rate; and although I cannot possibly get a good
+character from anybody at present, yet I defy the whole world to give me
+an ill one, either in public or private life."
+
+If I had had the eyes of Argus I should have seen with them all on this
+occasion. I knew that this was my son, and one that, among all my
+inquiry, I could never get any account of. The Quaker seeing my colour
+come and go, and also tremble, said, "I verily believe thou art not
+well; I hope this Kentish air, which was always reckoned aguish, does
+not hurt thee?" "I am taken very sick of a sudden," said I; "so pray let
+me go to our inn that I may go to my chamber." Isabel being called in,
+she and the Quaker attended me there, leaving the young fellow with my
+spouse. When I was got into my chamber I was seized with such a grief as
+I had never known before; and flinging myself down upon the bed, burst
+into a flood of tears, and soon after fainted away. Soon after, I came a
+little to myself, and the Quaker begged of me to tell her what was the
+cause of my sudden indisposition. "Nothing at all," says I, "as I know
+of; but a sudden chilliness seized my blood, and that, joined to a
+fainting of the spirits, made me ready to sink."
+
+Presently after my husband came to see how I did, and finding me
+somewhat better, he told me that he had a mind to hire the young man I
+had left him with, for he believed he was honest and fit for our
+service. "My dear," says I, "I did not mind him. I would desire you to
+be cautious who we pick up on the road; but as I have the satisfaction
+of hiring my maids, I shall never trouble myself with the men-servants,
+that is wholly your province. However," added I (for I was very certain
+he was my son, and was resolved to have him in my service, though it was
+my interest to keep my husband off, in order to bring him on), "if you
+like the fellow, I am not averse to your hiring one servant in England.
+We are not obliged to trust him with much before we see his conduct,
+and if he does not prove as you may expect, you may turn him off
+whenever you please." "I believe," said my husband, "he has been
+ingenuous in his relation to me; and as a man who has seen great variety
+of life, and may have been the shuttlecock of fortune, the butt of envy,
+and the mark of malice, I will hire him when he comes to me here anon,
+as I have ordered him."
+
+As I knew he was to be hired, I resolved to be out of the way when he
+came to my husband; so about five o'clock I proposed to the Quaker to
+take a walk on the pier and see the shipping, while the tea-kettle was
+boiling. We went, and took Isabel with us, and as we were going along I
+saw my son Thomas (as I shall for the future call him) going to our inn;
+so we stayed out about an hour, and when we returned my husband told me
+he had hired the man, and that he was to come to him as a servant on the
+morrow morning. "Pray, my dear," said I, "did you ask where he ever
+lived, or what his name is?" "Yes," replied my husband, "he says his
+name is Thomas ----; and as to places, he has mentioned several families
+of note, and among others, he lived at my Lord ----'s, next door to the
+great French lady's in Pall Mall, whose name he tells me was Roxana." I
+was now in a sad dilemma, and was fearful I should be known by my own
+son; and the Quaker took notice of it, and afterwards told me she
+believed fortune had conspired that all the people I became acquainted
+with, should have known the Lady Roxana. "I warrant," said she, "this
+young fellow is somewhat acquainted with the impertinent wench that
+calls herself thy daughter."
+
+I was very uneasy in mind, but had one thing in my favour, which was
+always to keep myself at a very great distance from my servants; and as
+the Quaker was to part with us the next day or night, he would have
+nobody to mention the name Roxana to, and so of course it would drop.
+
+We supped pretty late at night, and were very merry, for my husband said
+all the pleasant things he could think of, to divert me from the
+supposed illness he thought I had been troubled with in the day. The
+Quaker kept up the discourse with great spirit, and I was glad to
+receive the impression, for I wanted the real illness to be drove out of
+my head.
+
+The next morning, after breakfast, Thomas came to his new place. He
+appeared very clean, and brought with him a small bundle, which I
+supposed to be linen tied up in a handkerchief. My husband sent him to
+order some porters belonging to the quay to fetch our boxes to the
+Custom-house, where they were searched, for which we paid one shilling;
+and he had orders to give a crown for head money, as they called it;
+their demand by custom is but sixpence a head, but we appeared to our
+circumstances in everything. As soon as our baggage was searched, it was
+carried from the Custom-house on board the packet-boat, and there
+lodged in the great cabin as we had ordered it.
+
+This took up the time till dinner, and when we were sitting together
+after we had both dined, the captain came to tell us that the wind was
+very fair, and that he was to sail at high water, which would be about
+ten o'clock at night. My husband asked him to stay and drink part of a
+bottle of wine with him, which he did; and their discourse being all in
+the maritime strain, the Quaker and I retired and left them together,
+for I had something to remind her of in our discourse before we left
+London. When we got into the garden, which was rather neat than fine, I
+repeated all my former requests to her about my children, Spitalfields,
+Amy, &c., and we sat talking together till Thomas was sent to tell us
+the captain was going, on which we returned; but, by the way, I kissed
+her and put a large gold medal into her hand, as a token of my sincere
+love, and desired that she would never neglect the things she had
+promised to perform, and her repeated promise gave me great
+satisfaction.
+
+The captain, who was going out of the parlour as we returned in, was
+telling my husband he would send six of his hands to conduct us to the
+boat, about a quarter of an hour before he sailed, and as the moon was
+at the full, he did not doubt of a pleasant passage.
+
+Our next business was to pay off the coachman, to whom my husband gave
+half a guinea extraordinary, to set the Quaker down at the house he
+took us all up at, which he promised to perform.
+
+As it was low water, we went on board to see the cabin that we were to
+go our voyage in, and the captain would detain us to drink a glass of
+the best punch, I think, I ever tasted.
+
+When we returned to the inn, we ordered supper to be ready by eight
+o'clock, that we might drink a parting glass to settle it, before we
+went on board; for my husband, who knew the sea very well, said a full
+stomach was the forerunner of sea-sickness, which I was willing to
+avoid.
+
+We invited the landlord, his wife, and daughter, to supper with us, and
+having sat about an hour afterwards, the captain himself, with several
+sailors, came to fetch us to the vessel. As all was paid, we had nothing
+to hinder us but taking a final leave of the Quaker, who would go to see
+us safe in the vessel, where tears flowed from both our eyes; and I
+turned short in the boat, while my husband took his farewell, and he
+then followed me, and I never saw the Quaker or England any more.
+
+We were no sooner on board than we hoisted sail; the anchors being up,
+and the wind fair, we cut the waves at a great rate, till about four
+o'clock in the morning, when a French boat came to fetch the mail to
+carry it to the post-house, and the boat cast her anchors, for we were a
+good distance from the shore, neither could we sail to the town till
+next tide, the present one being too far advanced in the ebb.
+
+We might have gone on shore in the boat that carried the mail, but my
+husband was sleeping in the cabin when it came to the packet-boat, and I
+did not care to disturb him; however, we had an opportunity soon after,
+for my husband awaking, and two other boats coming up with oars to see
+for passengers, Thomas came to let us know we might go on shore, if we
+pleased. My husband paid the master of the packet-boat for our passage,
+and Thomas, with the sailors' assistance, got our boxes into the wherry,
+so we sailed for Calais; but before our boat came to touch ground,
+several men, whose bread I suppose it is, rushed into the water, without
+shoes or stockings, to carry us on shore; so having paid ten shillings
+for the wherry, we each of us was carried from the boat to the land by
+two men, and our goods brought after us; here was a crown to be paid, to
+save ourselves from being wet, by all which a man that is going a
+travelling may see that it is not the bare expense of the packet-boat
+that will carry him to Calais.
+
+It would be needless to inform the reader of all the ceremonies that we
+passed through at this place before we were suffered to proceed on our
+journey; however, our boxes having been searched at the Custom-house, my
+husband had them plumbed, as they called it, to hinder any further
+inquiry about them; and we got them all to the Silver Lion, a noted inn,
+and the post-house of this place, where we took a stage-coach for
+ourselves, and the next morning, having well refreshed ourselves, we
+all, viz., my husband, self, and chambermaid within the coach, and
+Thomas behind (beside which my husband hired two horsemen well armed,
+who were pretty expensive, to travel with us), set forward on our
+journey.
+
+We were five days on our journey from Calais to Paris, which we went
+through with much satisfaction, for, having fine weather and good
+attendance, we had nothing to hope for.
+
+When we arrived at Paris (I began to be sorry I had ever proposed going
+to it for fear of being known, but as we were to stay there but a few
+days, I was resolved to keep very retired), we went to a merchant's
+house of my husband's acquaintance in the Rue de la Bourle, near the
+Carmelites, in the Faubourg de St. Jacques.
+
+This being a remote part of the city, on the south side, and near
+several pleasant gardens, I thought it would be proper to be a little
+indisposed, that my husband might not press me to go with him to see the
+curiosities; for he could do the most needful business, such as going to
+the bankers to exchange bills, despatching of letters, settling affairs
+with merchants, &c., without my assistance; and I had a tolerable plea
+for my conduct, such as the great fatigue of our journey, being among
+strangers, &c.; so we stayed at Paris eight days without my going to any
+particular places, except going one day to the gardens of Luxembourg,
+another to the church of Notre Dame on the Isle of Paris, a third to the
+Hotel Royale des Invalides, a fourth to the gardens of the Tuileries, a
+fifth to the suburbs of St. Lawrence, to see the fair which was then
+holding there; a sixth to the gardens of the Louvre, a seventh to the
+playhouse, and the eighth stayed all day at home to write a letter to
+the Quaker, letting her know where I then was, and how soon we should go
+forwards in our journey, but did not mention where we intended to
+settle, as, indeed, we had not yet settled that ourselves.
+
+One of the days, viz., that in which I went to the gardens of the
+Tuileries, I asked Thomas several questions about his father, mother,
+and other relations, being resolved, notwithstanding he was my own son,
+as he did not know it, to turn him off by some stratagem or another, if
+he had any manner of memory of me, either as his mother, or the Lady
+Roxana. I asked him if he had any particular memory of his mother or
+father; he answered, "No, I scarce remember anything of either of them,"
+said he, "but I have heard from several people that I had one brother
+and three sisters, though I never saw them all, to know them,
+notwithstanding I lived with an aunt four years; I often asked after my
+mother, and some people said she went away with a man, but it was
+allowed by most people, that best knew her, that she, being brought to
+the greatest distress, was carried to the workhouse belonging to the
+parish, where she died soon after with grief."
+
+Nothing could give me more satisfaction than what Thomas had related; so
+now, I thought I would ask about the Lady Roxana (for he had been my
+next-door neighbour when I had that title conferred on me). "Pray,
+Thomas," said I, "did not you speak of a great person of quality, whose
+name I have forgot, that lived next door to my Lord ----'s when you was
+his valet? pray who was she? I suppose a foreigner, by the name you
+called her." "Really, my lady," replied he, "I do not know who she was;
+all I can say of her is, that she kept the greatest company, and was a
+beautiful woman, by report, but I never saw her; she was called the Lady
+Roxana, was a very good mistress, but her character was not so good as
+to private life as it ought to be. Though I once had an opportunity,"
+continued he, "of seeing a fine outlandish dress she danced in before
+the king, which I took as a great favour, for the cook took me up when
+the lady was out, and she desired my lady's woman to show it to me."
+
+All this answered right, and I had nothing to do but to keep my Turkish
+dress out of the way, to be myself unknown to my child, for as he had
+never seen Roxana, so he knew nothing of me.
+
+In the interval, my husband had hired a stage-coach to carry us to the
+city of Menin, where he intended to go by water down the river Lys to
+Ghent, and there take coach to Isabella fort, opposite the city of
+Anvers, and cross the river to that place, and go from thence by land to
+Breda; and as he had agreed and settled this patrol, I was satisfied,
+and we set out next day. We went through several handsome towns and
+villages before we took water, but by water we went round part of the
+city of Courtrai, and several fortified towns. At Anvers we hired a
+coach to Breda, where we stayed two days to refresh ourselves, for we
+had been very much fatigued; as Willemstadt was situated so as to be
+convenient for our taking water for Rotterdam, we went there, and being
+shipped, had a safe and speedy voyage to that city.
+
+As we had resolved in our journey to settle at the Hague, we did not
+intend to stay any longer at Rotterdam, than while my husband had all
+our wealth delivered to him from the several merchants he had consigned
+it to. This business took up a month, during which time we lived in
+ready-furnished lodgings on the Great Quay, where all the respect was
+shown us as was due to our quality.
+
+Here my husband hired two more men-servants, and I took two maids, and
+turned Isabel, who was a well-bred, agreeable girl, into my companion;
+but that I might not be too much fatigued, my husband went to the Hague
+first, and left me, with three maids and Thomas, at Rotterdam, while he
+took a house, furnished it, and had everything ready for my reception,
+which was done with great expedition. One of his footmen came with a
+letter to me one morning, to let me know his master would come by the
+scow next day to take me home, in which he desired that I would prepare
+for my departure. I soon got everything ready, and the next morning, on
+the arrival of the scow, I saw my husband; and we both, with all the
+servants, left the city of Rotterdam, and safely got to the Hague the
+afternoon following.
+
+It was now the servants had notice given them to call me by the name of
+"my lady," as the honour of baronetage had entitled me, and with which
+title I was pretty well satisfied, but should have been more so had not
+I yet the higher title of countess in view.
+
+I now lived in a place where I knew nobody, neither was I known, on
+which I was pretty careful whom I became acquainted with; our
+circumstances were very good, my husband loving, to the greatest degree,
+my servants respectful; and, in short, I lived the happiest life woman
+could enjoy, had my former crimes never crept into my guilty conscience.
+
+I was in this happy state of life when I wrote a letter to the Quaker,
+in which I gave her a direction where she might send to me. And about a
+fortnight after, as I was one afternoon stepping into my coach in order
+to take an airing, the postman came to our door with letters, one of
+which was directed to me, and as soon as I saw it was the Quaker's hand,
+I bid the coachman put up again, and went into my closet to read the
+contents, which were as follows:
+
+     "DEAR FRIEND,--I have had occasion to write to thee several times
+     since we saw each other, but as this is my first letter, so it
+     shall contain all the business thou wouldst know. I got safe to
+     London, by thy careful ordering of the coach, and the attendants
+     were not at all wanting in their duty. When I had been at home a
+     few days, thy woman, Mrs. Amy, came to see me, so I took her to
+     task as thou ordered me, about murdering thy pretended daughter;
+     she declared her innocence, but said she had procured a false
+     evidence to swear a large debt against her, and by that means had
+     put her into a prison, and fee'd the keepers to hinder her from
+     sending any letter or message out of the prison to any person
+     whatever. This, I suppose, was the reason thou thought she was
+     murdered, because thou wert relieved from her by this base usage.
+     However, when I heard of it, I checked Amy very much, but was well
+     satisfied to hear she was alive. After this I did not hear from Amy
+     for above a month, and in the interim (as I knew thou wast safe), I
+     sent a friend of mine to pay the debt, and release the prisoner,
+     which he did, but was so indiscreet as to let her know who was the
+     benefactress. My next care was to manage thy Spitalfields business,
+     which I did with much exactness. And the day that I received thy
+     last letter, Amy came to me again, and I read as much of it to her
+     as she was concerned in: nay, I entreated her to drink tea with me,
+     and after it one glass of citron, in which she drank towards thy
+     good health, and she told me she would come to see thee as soon as
+     possible. Just as she was gone, I was reading thy letter again in
+     the little parlour, and that turbulent creature (thy pretended
+     daughter) came to me, as she said, to return thanks for the favour
+     I had done her, so I accidentally laid thy letter down in the
+     window, while I went to fetch her a glass of cordial, for she
+     looked sadly; and before I returned I heard the street door shut,
+     on which I went back without the liquor, not knowing who might have
+     come in, but missing her, I thought she might be gone to stand at
+     the door, and the wind had blown it to; but I was never the nearer,
+     she was sought for in vain. So when I believed her to be quite
+     gone, I looked to see if I missed anything, which I did not; but at
+     last, to my great surprise, I missed your letter, which she
+     certainly took and made off with. I was so terrified at this
+     unhappy chance that I fainted away, and had not one of my maidens
+     come in at that juncture, it might have been attended with fatal
+     consequences. I would advise thee to prepare thyself to see her,
+     for I verily believe she will come to thee. I dread your knowing of
+     this, but hope the best. Before I went to fetch the unhappy
+     cordial, she told me, as she had often done before, that she was
+     the eldest daughter, that the captain's wife was your second
+     daughter, and her sister, and that the youngest sister was dead.
+     She also said there were two brothers, the eldest of whom had never
+     been seen by any of them since he run away from an uncle's at nine
+     years of age, and that the youngest had been taken care of by an
+     old lady that kept her coach, whom he took to be his godmother. She
+     gave me a long history in what manner she was arrested and flung
+     into Whitechapel jail, how hardly she fared there; and at length
+     the keeper's wife, to whom she told her pitiful story, took
+     compassion of her, and recommended her to the bounty of a certain
+     lady who lived in that neighbourhood, that redeemed prisoners for
+     small sums, and who lay for their fees, every return of the day of
+     her nativity; that she was one of the six the lady had discharged;
+     that the lady prompted her to seek after her mother; that she
+     thereupon did seek thee in all the towns and villages between
+     London and Dover; that not finding thee at Dover she went to Deal;
+     and that at length, she being tired of seeking thee, she returned
+     by shipping to London, where she was no sooner arrived but she was
+     immediately arrested and flung into the Marshalsea prison, where
+     she lived in a miserable condition, without the use of pen, ink,
+     and paper, and without the liberty of having any one of her friends
+     come near her. 'In this condition I was,' continued she, 'when you
+     sent and paid my debt for me, and discharged me.' When she had
+     related all this she fell into such a fit of crying, sighing, and
+     sobbing, from which, when she was a little recovered, she broke out
+     into loud exclamations against the wickedness of the people in
+     England, that they could be so unchristian as to arrest her twice,
+     when she said it was as true as the Gospel that she never did owe
+     to any one person the sum of one shilling in all her life; that she
+     could not think who it was that should owe her so much ill-will,
+     for that she was not conscious to herself that she had any ways
+     offended any person in the whole universal world, except Mrs. Amy,
+     in the case of her mother, which, she affirmed, she was acquitted
+     of by all men, and hoped she should be so by her Maker; and that if
+     she (Mrs. Amy) had any hand in her sufferings, God would forgive
+     her, as she heartily did. 'But then,' she added, 'I will not stay
+     in England, I will go all over the world, I will go to France, to
+     Paris; I know my mother did once live there, and if I do not find
+     her there, I will go through Holland, to Amsterdam, to Rotterdam;
+     in short, I will go till I find my mother out, if I should die in
+     the pursuit.' I should be glad to hear of thine and thy spouse's
+     welfare, and remain with much sincerity, your sincere friend,
+
+     "M.P.
+
+     "The ninth of the month called October.
+
+     "P.S.--If thou hast any business to transact in this city, pray let
+     me know; I shall use my best endeavours to oblige thee; my
+     daughters all join with me in willing thee a hearty farewell."
+
+I concealed my surprise for a few minutes, only till I could get into
+the summer-house, at the bottom of our large garden; but when I was shut
+in, no living soul can describe the agony I was in, I raved, tore,
+fainted away, swore, prayed, wished, cried, and promised, but all
+availed nothing, I was now stuck in to see the worst of it, let what
+would happen.
+
+At last I came to the following resolution, which was to write a letter
+to the Quaker, and in it enclose a fifty pound bank-bill, and tell the
+Quaker to give that to the young woman if she called again, and also to
+let her know a fifty pound bill should be sent her every year, so long
+as she made no inquiry after me, and kept herself retired in England.
+Although this opened myself too full to the Quaker, yet I thought I had
+better venture my character abroad, than destroy my peace at home.
+
+Soon after, my husband came home, and he perceived I had been crying,
+and asked what was the reason. I told him that I had shed tears both
+for joy and sorrow: "For," said I, "I have received one of the
+tenderest letters from Amy, as it was possible for any person, and she
+tells me in it," added I, "that she will soon come to see me; which so
+overjoyed me, that I cried, and after it, I went to read the letter a
+second time, as I was looking out of the summer-house window over the
+canal; and in unfolding it, I accidentally let it fall in, by which
+mischance it is lost, for which I am very sorry, as I intended you
+should see it." "Pray, my dear," said he, "do not let that give you any
+uneasiness; if Amy comes, and you approve of it, you have my consent to
+take her into the house, in what capacity you please. I am very glad,"
+continued he, "that you have nothing of more consequence to be uneasy
+at, I fancy you would make but an indifferent helpmate if you had." Oh!
+thought I to myself, if you but knew half the things that lie on my
+conscience, I believe you would think that I bear them out past all
+example.
+
+About ten days afterwards, as we were sitting at dinner with two
+gentlemen, one of the footmen came to the door, and said, "My lady, here
+is a gentlewoman at the door who desires to speak with you: she says her
+name is Mrs. Amy."
+
+I no sooner heard her name, but I was ready to swoon away, but I ordered
+the footman to call Isabel, and ask the gentlewoman to walk up with her
+into my dressing-room; which he immediately did, and there I went to
+have my first interview with her. She kissed me for joy when she saw
+me, and I sent Isabel downstairs, for I was in pain till I had some
+private conversation with my old confidante.
+
+There was not much ceremony between us, before I told her all the
+material circumstances that had happened in her absence, especially
+about the girl's imprisonments which she had contrived, and how she had
+got my letter at the Quaker's, the very day she had been there. "Well,"
+says Amy, when I had told her all, "I find nothing is to ensue, if she
+lives, but your ruin; you would not agree to her death, so I will not
+make myself uneasy about her life; it might have been rectified, but you
+were angry with me for giving you the best of counsel, viz., when I
+proposed to murder her."
+
+"Hussy," said I, in the greatest passion imaginable, "how dare you
+mention the word murder? You wretch you, I could find in my heart, if my
+husband and the company were gone, to kick you out of my house. Have you
+not done enough to kill her, in throwing her into one of the worst jails
+in England, where, you see, that Providence in a peculiar manner
+appeared to her assistance. Away! thou art a wicked wretch; thou art a
+murderer in the sight of God."
+
+"I will say no more," says Amy, "but if I could have found her, after
+thy friend the Quaker had discharged her out of the Marshalsea prison, I
+had laid a scheme to have her taken up for a theft, and by that means
+got her transported for fourteen years. She will be with you soon, I am
+sure; I believe she is now in Holland."
+
+While we were in this discourse, I found the gentlemen who dined with us
+were going, so we came downstairs, and I went into the parlour to take
+leave of them before their departure. When they were gone, my husband
+told me he had been talking with them about taking upon him the title of
+Count or Earl of ----, as he had told me of, and as an opportunity now
+offered, he was going to put it in execution.
+
+I told him I was so well settled, as not to want anything this world
+could afford me, except the continuance of his life and love (though the
+very thing he had mentioned, joined with the death of my daughter, in
+the natural way, would have been much more to my satisfaction). "Well,
+my dear," says he, "the expense will be but small, and as I promised you
+the title, it shall not be long before the honour shall be brought home
+to your toilette." He was as good as his word, for that day week he
+brought the patent home to me, in a small box covered with crimson
+velvet and two gold hinges. "There, my lady countess," says he, "long
+may you live to bear the title, for I am certain you are a credit to
+it." In a few days after, I had the pleasure to see our equipage, as
+coach, chariot, &c., all new painted, and a coronet fixed at the proper
+place, and, in short, everything was proportioned to our quality, so
+that our house vied with most of the other nobility.
+
+It was at this juncture that I was at the pinnacle of all my worldly
+felicity, notwithstanding my soul was black with the foulest crimes.
+And, at the same time, I may begin to reckon the beginning of my
+misfortunes, which were in embryo, but were very soon brought forth, and
+hurried me on to the greatest distress.
+
+As I was sitting one day talking to Amy in our parlour, and the street
+door being left open by one of the servants, I saw my daughter pass by
+the window, and without any ceremony she came to the parlour door, and
+opening of it, came boldly in. I was terribly amazed, and asked her who
+she wanted, as if I had not known her, but Amy's courage was quite lost,
+and she swooned away. "Your servant, my lady," says she; "I thought I
+should never have had the happiness to see you _tete-a-tete_, till your
+agent, the Quaker, in Haydon Yard, in the Minories, carelessly left a
+direction for me in her own window; however, she is a good woman, for
+she released me out of a jail in which, I believe, that base wretch"
+(pointing to Amy, who was coming to herself) "caused me to be confined."
+As soon as Amy recovered, she flew at her like a devil, and between them
+there was so much noise as alarmed the servants, who all came to see
+what was the matter. Amy had pulled down one of my husband's swords,
+drawn it, and was just going to run her through the body, as the
+servants came in, who not knowing anything of the matter, some of them
+secured Amy, others held the girl, and the rest were busy about me, to
+prevent my fainting away, which was more than they could do, for I fell
+into strong fits, and in the interim they turned the girl out of the
+house, who was fully bent on revenge.
+
+My lord, as I now called him, was gone out a-hunting. I was satisfied he
+knew nothing of it, as yet, and when Amy and I were thoroughly come to
+ourselves, we thought it most advisable to find the girl out, and give
+her a handsome sum of money to keep her quiet. So Amy went out, but in
+all her searching could hear nothing of her; this made me very uneasy. I
+guessed she would contrive to see my lord before he came home, and so it
+proved, as you shall presently hear.
+
+When night came on, that I expected his return, I wondered I did not see
+him. Amy sat up in my chamber with me, and was as much concerned as was
+possible. Well, he did not come in all that night, but the next morning,
+about ten o'clock, he rapped at the door, with the girl along with him.
+When it was opened, he went into the great parlour, and bid Thomas go
+call down his lady. This was the crisis. I now summoned up all my
+resolution, and took Amy down with me, to see if we could not baffle the
+girl, who, to an inch, was her mother's own child.
+
+It will be necessary here to give a short account of our debate, because
+on it all my future misery depended, and it made me lose my husband's
+love, and own my daughter; who would not rest there, but told my lord
+how many brothers and sisters she had.
+
+When we entered the room, my lord was walking very gravely about it, but
+with his brows knit, and a wild confusion in his face, as if all the
+malice and revenge of a Dutchman had joined to put me out of countenance
+before I spoke a word.
+
+"Pray, madam," says he, "do you know this young woman? I expect a speedy
+and positive answer, without the least equivocation."
+
+"Really, my lord," replied I, "to give you an answer as quick as you
+desire, I declare I do not."
+
+"Do not!" said he, "what do you mean by that? She tells me that you are
+her mother, and that her father ran away from you, and left two sons,
+and two daughters besides herself, who were all sent to their relations
+for provision, after which you ran away with a jeweller to Paris. Do you
+know anything of this? answer me quickly."
+
+"My lord," said the girl, "there is Mrs. Amy, who was my mother's
+servant at the time (as she told me herself about three months ago),
+knows very well I am the person I pretend to be, and caused me to be
+thrown into jail for debts I knew nothing of, because I should not find
+out my mother to make myself known to her before she left England."
+
+After this she told my lord everything she knew of me, even in the
+character of Roxana, and described my dress so well, that he knew it to
+be mine.
+
+[Illustration: ROXANA IS CONFRONTED WITH HER DAUGHTER
+
+"_Pray, madam," says he, "do you know this young woman?_"]
+
+When she had quite gone through her long relation, "Well, madam,"
+says he, "now let me see if I cannot tell how far she has told the truth
+in relation to you. When I first became acquainted with you, it was on
+the sale of those jewels, in which I stood so much your friend, at a
+time that you were in the greatest distress, your substance being in the
+hands of the Jew; you then passed for a jeweller's widow; this agrees
+with her saying you ran away with a jeweller. In the next place, you
+would not consent to marry me about twelve years ago; I suppose then
+your real husband was living, for nothing else could tally with your
+condescension to me in everything except marriage. Since that time, your
+refusing to come to Holland in the vessel I had provided for you, under
+a distant prospect of your being with child, though in reality it was
+your having a child too much, as the captain told me of, when I, being
+ignorant of the case, did not understand him. Now," continued he, "she
+says that you are the identical Lady Roxana which made so much noise in
+the world, and has even described the robe and head-dress you wore on
+that occasion, and in that I know she is right; for, to my own
+knowledge, you have that very dress by you now; I having seen you
+dressed in it at our lodging at the Quaker's. From all these
+circumstances," says he, "I may be assured that you have imposed grossly
+upon me, and instead of being a woman of honour as I took you for, I
+find that you have been an abandoned wretch, and had nothing to
+recommend you but a sum of money and a fair countenance, joined to a
+false unrelenting heart."
+
+These words of my lord's struck such a damp upon my spirits, as made me
+unable to speak in my turn. But at last, I spoke as follows: "My lord, I
+have most patiently stood to hear all it was possible for you to allege
+against me, which has no other proof than imagination. That I was the
+wife of a brewer, I have no reason now to deny, neither had I any
+occasion before to acknowledge it. I brought him a handsome fortune,
+which, joined to his, made us appear in a light far superior to our
+neighbours. I had also five children by him, two sons and three
+daughters, and had my husband been as wise as rich, we might have lived
+happily together now. But it was not so, for he minded nothing but
+sporting, in almost every branch; and closely following of it soon run
+out all his substance, and then left me in an unhappy, helpless
+condition. I did not send my children to my relations till the greatest
+necessity drove me, and after that, hearing my husband was dead, I
+married the jeweller, who was afterwards murdered. If I had owned how
+many children I had, the jeweller would not have married me, and the way
+of life I was in would not keep my family, so I was forced to deny them
+in order to get them bread. Neither can I say that I have either heard
+or known anything of my children since, excepting that I heard they were
+all taken care of; and this was the very reason I would not marry you,
+when you offered it some years since, for these children lay seriously
+at my heart, and as I did not want money, my inclination was to come to
+England, and not entail five children upon you the day of marriage."
+
+"Pray, madam," said my lord, interrupting me, "I do not find that you
+kept up to your resolutions when you got there; you were so far from
+doing your duty as a parent, that you even neglected the civility of
+acquaintances, for they would have asked after them, but your whole
+scheme has been to conceal yourself as much as possible, and even when
+you were found out, denied yourself, as witness the case of your
+daughter here. As to the character of Lady Roxana, which you so nicely
+managed," said he, "did that become a woman that had five children,
+whose necessity had obliged you to leave them, to live in a continual
+scene of pageantry and riot, I could almost say debauchery? Look into
+your conduct, and see if you deserve to have the title or the estate you
+now so happily enjoy."
+
+After this speech, he walked about the room in a confused manner for
+some minutes, and then addressed himself to Amy. "Pray, Mrs. Amy," says
+he, "give me your judgment in this case, for although I know you are as
+much as possible in your lady's interest, yet I cannot think you have so
+little charity as to think she acted like a woman of worth and
+discretion. Do you really think, as you knew all of them from infants,
+that this young woman is your lady's daughter?"
+
+Amy, who always had spirits enough about her, said at once she believed
+the girl was my daughter. "And truly," says she, "I think your man
+Thomas is her eldest son, for the tale he tells of his birth and
+education suits exactly with our then circumstances."
+
+"Why, indeed," said my lord, "I believe so too, for I now recollect that
+when we first took him into our service at Dover, he told me he was the
+son of a brewer in London; that his father had run away from his mother,
+and left her in a distressed condition with five children, of which he
+was second child, or eldest son."
+
+Thomas was then called into the parlour, and asked what he knew of his
+family; he repeated all as above, concerning his father's running away
+and leaving me; but said that he had often asked and inquired after
+them, but without any success, and concluded, that he believed his
+brothers and sisters were distributed in several places, and that his
+mother died in the greatest distress, and was buried by the parish.
+
+"Indeed," said my lord, "it is my opinion that Thomas is one of your
+sons; do not you think the same?" addressing himself to me.
+
+"From the circumstances that have been related, my lord," said I, "I now
+believe that these are both my children; but you would have thought me a
+mad woman to have countenanced and taken this young woman in as my
+child, without a thorough assurance of it; for that would have been
+running myself to a certain expense and trouble, without the least
+glimpse of real satisfaction."
+
+"Pray," said my lord to my daughter, "let me know what is become of
+your brothers and sisters; give me the best account of them that you
+can."
+
+"My lord," replied she, "agreeably to your commands, I will inform you
+to the best of my knowledge; and to begin with myself, who am the eldest
+of the five. I was put to a sister of my father's with my youngest
+brother, who, by mere dint of industry, gave us maintenance and
+education, suitable to her circumstances; and she, with my uncle's
+consent, let me go to service when I was advanced in years; and among
+the variety of places I lived at, Lady Roxana's was one."
+
+"Yes," said Thomas, "I knew her there, when I was a valet at my Lord
+D----'s, the next door; it was there I became acquainted with her; and
+she, by the consent of the gentlewoman," pointing to Amy, "let me see
+the Lady Roxana's fine vestment, which she danced in at the grand ball."
+
+"Well," continued my daughter, "after I left this place, I was at
+several others before I became acquainted with Mrs. Amy a second time (I
+knew her before as Roxana's woman), who told me one day some things
+relating to my mother, and from thence I concluded if she was not my
+mother herself (as I at first thought she was), she must be employed by
+her; for no stranger could profess so much friendship, where there was
+no likelihood of any return, after being so many years asunder.
+
+"After this, I made it my business to find your lady out if possible,
+and was twice in her company, once on board the ship you were to have
+come to Holland in, and once at the Quaker's house in the Minories,
+London; but as I gave her broad hints of whom I took her for, and my
+lady did not think proper to own me, I began to think I was mistaken,
+till your voyage to Holland was put off. Soon after, I was flung into
+Whitechapel jail for a false debt, but, through the recommendation of
+the jailer's wife to the annual charity of the good Lady Roberts, of
+Mile End, I was discharged. Whereupon I posted away, seeking my mother
+all down the Kent Road as far as Dover and Deal, at which last place not
+finding her, I came in a coaster to London, and landing in Southwark,
+was immediately arrested, and confined in the Marshalsea prison, where I
+remained some time, deprived of every means to let any person without
+the prison know my deplorable state and condition, till my chum, a young
+woman, my bedfellow, who was also confined for debt, was, by a
+gentleman, discharged. This young woman of her own free will, went, my
+lord, to your lodgings in the Minories, and acquainted your landlady,
+the Quaker, where I was, and for what sum I was confined, who
+immediately sent and paid the pretended debt, and so I was a second time
+discharged. Upon which, going to the Quaker's to return her my thanks
+soon after a letter from your lady to her, with a direction in it where
+to find you, falling into my hands, I set out the next morning for the
+Hague; and I humbly hope your pardon, my lord, for the liberty I have
+taken; and you may be assured, that whatever circumstances of life I
+happen to be in, I will be no disgrace to your lordship or family."
+
+"Well," said my husband, "what can you say of your mother's second
+child, who, I hear, was a son?"
+
+"My lord," said I, "it is in my power to tell you, that Thomas there is
+the son you mention; their circumstances are the same, with this
+difference, that she was brought up under the care of a good aunt, and
+the boy forced to run away from a bad one, and shift for his bread ever
+since; so if she is my daughter, he is my son, and to oblige you, my
+lord, I own her, and to please myself I will own him, and they two are
+brother and sister." I had no sooner done speaking, than Thomas fell
+down before me, and asked my blessing, after which, he addressed himself
+to my lord as follows:
+
+"My lord," said he, "out of your abundant goodness you took me into your
+service at Dover. I told you then the circumstances I was in, which will
+save your lordship much time by preventing a repetition; but, if your
+lordship pleases, it shall be carefully penned down, for such a variety
+of incidents has happened to me in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland,
+Holland, France, and the Isle of Man, in which I have travelled for
+about eighteen years past, as may prove an agreeable amusement to you,
+when you are cloyed with better company; for as I have never been
+anything above a common servant, so my stories shall only consist of
+facts, and such as are seldom to be met with, as they are all in low
+life."
+
+"Well, Thomas," said my lord, "take your own time to do it, and I will
+reward you for your trouble."
+
+"Now, madam," said my lord to my daughter, "if you please to proceed."
+"My lord," continued she, "my mother's third child, which was a
+daughter, lived with the relation I did, and got a place to wait upon a
+young lady whose father and mother were going to settle at Boulogne, in
+France; she went with them, and having stayed at this gentleman's (who
+was a French merchant) two years, was married to a man with the consent
+of the family she lived in; and her master, by way of fortune, got him
+to be master of a French and Holland coaster, and this was the very
+person whose ship you hired to come to Holland in; the captain's wife
+was my own sister, consequently my lady's second daughter; as to my
+youngest sister, she lived with the uncle and aunt Thomas ran away from,
+and died of the smallpox soon after. My youngest brother was put out
+apprentice to a carpenter, where he improved in his business, till a
+gentlewoman came to his master and mistress (which I take by the
+description they gave me, to be Mrs. Amy), who had him put out to an
+education fit for a merchant, and then sent him to the Indies, where he
+is now settled, and in a fair way to get a large estate. This, my lord,
+is the whole account I can at present give of them, and although it may
+seem very strange, I assure you, it is all the just truth."
+
+When she had finished her discourse, my lord turned to me, and said,
+that since I that was her mother had neglected doing my duty, though
+sought so much after, he would take it upon himself to see both the girl
+and Thomas provided for, without any advising or letting me know
+anything about them; and added, with a malicious sneer, "I must take
+care of the child I have had by you too, or it will have but an
+indifferent parent to trust to in case of my decease."
+
+This finished the discourse, and my lord withdrew into his study, in a
+humour that I am unable to describe, and left me, Amy, Thomas, and my
+daughter Susanna, as I must now call her, in the parlour together. We
+sat staring at each other some time, till at last Amy said, "I suppose,
+my lady, you have no farther business with your new daughter; she has
+told her story, and may now dispose of herself to the best advantage she
+can." "No," said I, "I have nothing to say to her, only that she shall
+never be admitted into my presence again." The poor girl burst out into
+tears, and said, "Pray, my lady, excuse me, for I am certain that were
+you in my circumstances, you would have done the very action I have, and
+would expect a pardon for committing the offence."
+
+After this, I said to Thomas, "Keep what has been said to yourself, and
+I shall speak to you by-and-by;" and then I withdrew, and went upstairs
+to my closet, leaving Amy with Susanna, who soon dismissed her, and
+followed me.
+
+When Amy came to me, "Now, my lady," says she, "what do you think of
+this morning's work? I believe my lord is not so angry as we were
+fearful of." "You are mistaken in your lord, Amy," said I, "and are not
+so well acquainted with the deep and premeditated revenge of Dutchmen as
+I am, and although it may not be my husband's temper, yet I dread it as
+much, but shall see more at dinner time."
+
+Soon after this, my husband called Thomas, and bid him order the cloth
+for his dinner to be laid in his study, and bid him tell his mother that
+he would dine by himself. When I heard this, I was more shocked than I
+had been yet. "Now his anger begins to work, Amy," said I, "how must I
+act?" "I do not know," answered she, "but I will go into the study, and
+try what can be done, and, as a faithful mediator, will try to bring you
+together." She was not long before she returned, and bursting into
+tears, "I know not what to do," says she, "for your husband is in a deep
+study, and when I told him you desired him to dine with you in the
+parlour as usual, he only said, 'Mrs. Amy, go to your lady, tell her to
+dine when and where she pleases, and pray obey her as your lady; but let
+her know from me that she has lost the tenderness I had for her as a
+wife, by the little thought she had of her children.'"
+
+Nothing could have shocked me more than the delivery of this message by
+Amy. I, almost bathed in tears, went to him myself; found him in a
+melancholy posture reading in Milton's "Paradise Regained." He looked at
+me very sternly when I entered his study, told me he had nothing to say
+to me at that time, and if I had a mind not to disturb him, I must leave
+him for the present. "My lord," said I, "supposing all that has been
+said by this girl was truth, what reason have you to be in this
+unforgiving humour? What have I done to you to deserve this usage? Have
+you found any fault with me since I had the happiness of being married
+to you? Did you ever find me in any company that you did not approve of?
+Have you any reason to think that I have wasted any of your substance?
+If you have none of these things to allege against me, for heaven's sake
+do not let us now make our lives unhappy, for my having had legitimate
+children by a lawful husband, at a time that you think it no crime to
+have had a natural son by me, which I had the most reason to repent of."
+
+I spoke the latter part of these words with a small air of authority,
+that he might think me the less guilty; but, I believe, he only looked
+on what I had said as a piece of heroism; for he soon after delivered
+himself in the following speech: "Madam, do you not think that you have
+used me in a very deceitful manner? If you think that I have not had
+that usage, I will, in a few words, prove the contrary. When first I
+knew you, soon after the jeweller's death at Paris, you never mentioned,
+in all that intricate affair I was engaged in for you, so much as your
+having any children; that, as your circumstances then were, could have
+done you no harm, but, on the contrary, it would have moved the
+compassion of your bitter enemy the Jew, if he had any. Afterwards, when
+I first saw you in London, and began to treat with you about marriage,
+your children, which, to all prudent women, are the first things
+provided for, were so far neglected as not to be spoken of, though mine
+were mentioned to you; and as our fortunes were very considerable, yours
+might very well have been put into the opposite scale with them. Another
+great piece of your injustice was when I offered to settle your own
+fortune upon yourself, you would not consent to it; I do not look on
+that piece of condescension out of love to me, but a thorough hatred you
+had to your own flesh and blood; and lastly, your not owning your
+daughter, though she strongly hinted who she was to you when she was
+twice in your company, and even followed you from place to place while
+you were in England. Now, if you can reconcile this piece of inhumanity
+with yourself, pray try what you can say to me about your never telling
+me the life you led in Pall Mall, in the character of Roxana? You
+scrupled to be happily married to me, and soon after came to England,
+and was a reputed whore to any nobleman that would come up to your
+price, and lived with one a considerable time, and was taken by several
+people to be his lawful wife. If any gentleman should ask me what I have
+taken to my bed, what must I answer? I must say an inhuman false-hearted
+whore, one that had not tenderness enough to own her own children, and
+has too little virtue, in my mind, to make a good wife.
+
+"I own I would," says he, "have settled your own estate upon you with
+great satisfaction, but I will not do it now; you may retire to your
+chamber, and when I have any occasion to speak with you, I will send a
+messenger to you; so, my undeserving lady countess, you may walk out of
+the room."
+
+I was going to reply to all this, but instead of hearing me, he began to
+speak against the Quaker, who, he supposed, knew all the intrigues of my
+life; but I cleared her innocence, by solemnly declaring it was a
+thorough reformation of my past life that carried me to live at the
+Quaker's house, who knew nothing of me before I went to live with her,
+and that she was, I believed, a virtuous woman.
+
+I went away prodigiously chagrined. I knew not what course to take; I
+found expostulation signified nothing, and all my hopes depended on what
+I might say to him after we were gone to bed at night. I sent in for
+Amy, and having told her our discourse, she said she knew not what to
+think of him, but hoped it would, by great submission, wear off by
+degrees. I could eat but little dinner, and Amy was more sorrowful than
+hungry, and after we had dined, we walked by ourselves in the garden,
+to know what we had best pursue. As we were walking about, Thomas came
+to us, and told us that the young woman who had caused all the words,
+had been at the door, and delivered a letter to my lord's footman, who
+had carried it upstairs, and that she was ordered to go to his lordship
+in his study, which struck me with a fresh and sensible grief. I told
+Thomas, as he was to be her brother, to learn what my lord had said to
+her, if he could, as she came down; on which he went into the house to
+obey his order.
+
+He was not gone in above a quarter of an hour before he came to me
+again, and told me she was gone, and that my lord had given her a purse
+of twenty guineas, with orders to live retired, let nobody know who or
+what she was, and come to him again in about a month's time. I was very
+much satisfied to hear this, and was in hopes of its proving a happy
+omen; and I was better pleased about two hours after, when Thomas came
+to me to let me know that my lord had given him thirty guineas, and bid
+him take off his livery, and new clothe himself, for he intended to make
+him his first clerk, and put him in the way of making his fortune. I now
+thought it was impossible for me to be poor, and was inwardly rejoiced
+that my children (meaning Thomas and Susanna) were in the high road to
+grow rich.
+
+As Amy and I had dined by ourselves, my lord kept his study all the day,
+and at night, after supper, Isabel came and told me that my lord's man
+had received orders to make his bed in the crimson room, which name it
+received from the colour of the bed and furniture, and was reserved
+against the coming of strangers, or sickness. When she had delivered her
+message she withdrew, and I told Amy it would be to no purpose to go to
+him again, but I would have her lie in a small bed, which I ordered
+immediately to be carried into my chamber. Before we went to bed, I went
+to his lordship to know why he would make us both look so little among
+our own servants, as to part, bed and board, so suddenly. He only said,
+"My Lady Roxana knows the airs of quality too well to be informed that a
+scandal among nobility does not consist in parting of beds; if you
+cannot lie by yourself, you may send a letter to my Lord ----, whom you
+lived with as a mistress in London; perhaps he may want a bedfellow as
+well as you, and come to you at once; you are too well acquainted with
+him to stand upon ceremony."
+
+I left him, with my heart full of malice, grief, shame, and revenge. I
+did not want a good will to do any mischief; but I wanted an unlimited
+power to put all my wicked thoughts in execution.
+
+Amy and I lay in our chamber, and the next morning at breakfast we were
+talking of what the servants (for there were thirteen of them in all,
+viz., two coachmen, four footmen, a groom, and postillion, two women
+cooks, two housemaids, and a laundry-maid, besides Isabel, who was my
+waiting-maid, and Amy, who acted as housekeeper) could say of the
+disturbance that was in the family. "Pho!" said Amy, "never trouble your
+head about that, for family quarrels are so common in noblemen's houses,
+both here and in England, that there are more families parted, both in
+bed and board, than live lovingly together. It can be no surprise to the
+servants, and if your neighbours should hear it, they will only think
+you are imitating the air of nobility, and have more of that blood in
+you than you appeared to have when you and your lord lived happily
+together."
+
+The time, I own, went very sluggishly on. I had no company but Amy and
+Isabel, and it was given out among the servants of noblemen and gentry
+that I was very much indisposed, for I thought it a very improper time
+either to receive or pay visits.
+
+In this manner I lived till the month was up that my daughter was to
+come again to my lord, for although I went morning, noon, and night,
+into his apartment to see him, I seldom had a quarter of an hour's
+discourse with him, and oftentimes one of his valets would be sent to
+tell me his lord was busy, a little before the time I usually went,
+which I found was to prevent my going in to him, but this was only when
+he was in an ill humour, as his man called it.
+
+Whether my lord used to make himself uneasy for want of mine or other
+company, I cannot tell, but the servants complained every day, as I
+heard by Amy, that his lordship ate little or nothing, and would
+sometimes shed tears when he sat down by himself to breakfast, dinner,
+or supper; and, indeed, I began to think that he looked very thin, his
+countenance grew pale, and that he had every other sign of a grieved or
+broken heart.
+
+My daughter came to him one Monday morning, and stayed with him in his
+study near two hours. I wondered at the reason of it, but could guess at
+nothing certain; and at last she went away, but I fixed myself so as to
+see her as she passed by me, and she appeared to have a countenance full
+of satisfaction.
+
+In the evening, when I went in as usual, he spoke to me in a freer style
+than he had done since our breach. "Well, madam" (for he had not used
+the words "my lady" at any time after my daughter's coming to our
+house), said he, "I think I have provided for your daughter." "As how,
+my lord, pray will you let me know?" said I. "Yes," replied he, "as I
+have reason to think you will be sorry to hear of her welfare in any
+shape, I will tell you. A gentleman who is going factor for the Dutch
+East India Company, on the coast of Malabar, I have recommended her to;
+and he, on my character and promise of a good fortune, will marry her
+very soon, for the Company's ships sail in about twelve days; so, in a
+fortnight, like a great many mothers as there are nowadays, you may
+rejoice at having got rid of one of your children, though you neither
+know where, how, or to whom."
+
+Although I was very glad my lord spoke to me at all, and more especially
+so at my daughter's going to be married, and settling in the Indies, yet
+his words left so sharp a sting behind them as was exceeding troublesome
+to me to wear off. I did not dare venture to make any further inquiries,
+but was very glad of what I heard, and soon bidding my lord goodnight,
+went and found Amy, who was reading a play in the chamber.
+
+I waited with the greatest impatience for this marriage; and when I
+found the day was fixed, I made bold to ask my lord if I should not be
+present in his chamber when the ceremony was performed. This favor was
+also denied me. I then asked my lord's chaplain to speak to him on that
+head, but he was deaf to his importunities, and bade him tell me that I
+very well knew his mind. The wedding was performed on a Wednesday
+evening, in my lord's presence, and he permitted nobody to be there but
+a sister of the bridegroom's, and Thomas (now my lord's secretary or
+chief clerk), who was brother to the bride, and who gave her away. They
+all supped together after the ceremony was over in the great
+dining-room, where the fortune was paid, which was L2000 (as I heard
+from Thomas afterwards), and the bonds for the performance of the
+marriage were redelivered.
+
+Next morning my lord asked me if I was willing to see my daughter before
+she sailed to the Indies. "My lord," said I, "as the seeing of her was
+the occasion of this great breach that has happened between us, so if
+your lordship will let me have a sight of her and a reconciliation with
+you at the same time, there is nothing can be more desirable to me, or
+would more contribute to my happiness during the rest of my life."
+
+"No, madam," says he, "I would have you see your daughter, to be
+reconciled to her, and give her your blessing (if a blessing can proceed
+from you) at parting; but our reconciliation will never be completed
+till one of us comes near the verge of life, if then; for I am a man
+that am never reconciled without ample amends, which is a thing that is
+not in your power to give, without you can alter the course of nature
+and recall time."
+
+On hearing him declare himself so open, I told him that my curse instead
+of my blessing would pursue my daughter for being the author of all the
+mischiefs that had happened between us. "No, madam," said he, "if you
+had looked upon her as a daughter heretofore, I should have had no
+occasion to have had any breach with you. The whole fault lies at your
+own door; for whatever your griefs may inwardly be, I would have you
+recollect they were of your own choosing."
+
+I found I was going to give way to a very violent passion, which would
+perhaps be the worse for me, so I left the room and went up to my own
+chamber, not without venting bitter reproaches both against my daughter
+and her unknown husband.
+
+However, the day she was to go on shipboard, she breakfasted with my
+lord, and as soon as it was over, and my lord was gone into his study to
+fetch something out, I followed him there, and asked him if he would
+give me leave to present a gold repeating watch to my daughter before
+she went away. I thought he seemed somewhat pleased with this piece of
+condescension in me, though it was done more to gain his goodwill than
+to express any value I had for her. He told me that he did not know who
+I could better make such a present to, and I might give it to her if I
+pleased. Accordingly I went and got it out of my cabinet in a moment,
+and bringing it to my lord, desired he would give it her from me. He
+asked me if I would not give it her myself. I told him no; I wished her
+very well, but had nothing to say to her till I was restored to his
+lordship's bed and board.
+
+About two hours after all this, the coach was ordered to the door, and
+my daughter and her new husband, the husband's sister, and my son
+Thomas, all went into it, in order to go to the house of a rich uncle of
+the bridegroom's, where they were to dine before they went on board, and
+my lord went there in a sedan about an hour after. And having eaten
+their dinner, which on this occasion was the most elegant, they all went
+on board the Indiaman, where my lord and my son Thomas stayed till the
+ship's crew was hauling in their anchors to sail, and then came home
+together in the coach, and it being late in the evening, he told Thomas
+he should sup with him that night, after which they went to bed in
+their several apartments.
+
+Next morning when I went to see my lord as usual, he told me that as he
+had handsomely provided for my daughter, and sent her to the Indies with
+a man of merit and fortune, he sincerely wished her great prosperity.
+"And," he added, "to let you see, madam, that I should never have parted
+from my first engagements of love to you, had you not laid yourself so
+open to censure for your misconduct, my next care shall be to provide
+for your son Thomas in a handsome manner, before I concern myself with
+my son by you."
+
+This was the subject of our discourse, with which I was very well
+pleased. I only wished my daughter had been married and sent to the
+Indies before I had married myself; but I began to hope that the worst
+would be over when Thomas was provided for too, and the son my lord had
+by me, who was now at the university, was at home; which I would have
+brought to pass could my will be obeyed, but I was not to enjoy that
+happiness.
+
+My lord and I lived with a secret discontent of each other for near a
+twelvemonth before I saw any provision made for my son Thomas, and then
+I found my lord bought him a very large plantation in Virginia, and was
+furnishing him to go there in a handsome manner; he also gave him four
+quarter parts in four large trading West India vessels, in which he
+boarded a great quantity of merchandise to traffic with when he came to
+the end of his journey, so that he was a very rich man before he (what
+we call) came into the world.
+
+The last article that was to be managed, was to engage my son to a wife
+before he left Holland; and it happened that the gentleman who was the
+seller of the plantation my husband bought, had been a Virginia planter
+in that colony a great many years; but his life growing on the decline,
+and his health very dubious, he had come to Holland with an intent to
+sell his plantation, and then had resolved to send for his wife, son,
+and daughter, to come to him with the return of the next ships. This
+gentleman had brought over with him the pictures of all his family,
+which he was showing to my lord at the same time he was paying for the
+effects; and on seeing the daughter's picture, which appeared to him
+very beautiful, my lord inquired if she was married. "No, my lord," says
+the planter, "but I believe I shall dispose of her soon after she comes
+to me." "How old is your daughter?" said my lord. "Why, my lord,"
+replied the planter, "she is twenty-two years of age." Then my lord
+asked my son if he should like that young lady for a wife. "Nothing, my
+lord," said Thomas, "could lay a greater obligation upon me than your
+lordship's providing me with a wife."
+
+"Now, sir," said my lord to the planter, "what do you say to a match
+between this young gentleman and your daughter? Their ages are
+agreeable, and if you can, or will, give her more fortune than he has,
+his shall be augmented. You partly know his substance, by the money I
+have now paid you."
+
+This generous proposal of my lord's pleased the planter to a great
+degree, and he declared to my lord that he thought nothing could be a
+greater favour done him, for two reasons; one of which was, that he was
+certain the young gentleman was as good as he appeared, because he had
+taken for his plantation so large a sum of money as none but a gentleman
+could pay. The next reason was, that this marriage, to be performed as
+soon as my son arrived there, would be a great satisfaction to his wife,
+whose favourite the daughter was. "For," added he, "my wife will not
+only have the pleasure of seeing her daughter settled on what was our
+own hereditary estate, but also see her married to a man of substance,
+without the danger of crossing the seas to be matched to a person equal
+to herself."
+
+"Pray, sir," said my lord, "let me hear what fortune you are willing to
+give with your daughter; you have but two children, and I know you must
+be rich." "Why, my lord," replied the planter, "there is no denying
+that; but you must remember I have a son as well as a daughter to
+provide for, and he I intend to turn into the mercantile way as soon as
+he arrives safe from Virginia. I have, my lord," continued he, "a very
+large stock-in-trade there, as warehouses of tobacco, &c., lodged in the
+custom-houses of the ports, to the value of L7000, to which I will add
+L3000 in money, and I hope you will look upon that as a very competent
+estate; and when the young gentleman's fortune is joined to that, I
+believe he will be the richest man in the whole American colonies of his
+age."
+
+It was then considered between my lord and Thomas, that no woman with a
+quarter of that fortune would venture herself over to the West Indies
+with a man that had ten times as much; so it being hinted to the planter
+that my lord had agreed to the proposals, they promised to meet the next
+morning to settle the affair.
+
+In the evening, my lord, with Thomas in his company, hinted the above
+discourse to me. I was frightened almost out of my wits to think what a
+large sum of money had been laid out for my son, but kept what I thought
+to myself. It was agreed that my son was to marry the old planter's
+daughter, and a lawyer was sent for, with instructions to draw up all
+the writings for the marriage-settlement, &c., and the next morning a
+messenger came from the planter with a note to my lord, letting him
+know, if it was not inconvenient, he would wait on his lordship to
+breakfast. He came soon after with a Dutch merchant of great estate, who
+was our neighbour at The Hague, where they settled every point in
+question, and the articles were all drawn up and signed by the several
+parties the next day before dinner.
+
+There was nothing now remaining but my son's departure to his new
+plantation in Virginia. Great despatch was made that he might be ready
+to sail in one of his own ships, and take the advantage of an English
+convoy, which was almost ready to sail. My lord sent several valuable
+presents to my son's lady, as did her father; and as I was at liberty in
+this case to do as I would, and knowing my lord had a very great value
+for my son, I thought that the richer my presents were, the more he
+would esteem me (but there was nothing in it, the enmity he took against
+me had taken root in his heart); so I sent her a curious set of china,
+the very best I could buy, with a silver tea-kettle and lamp, tea-pot,
+sugar-dish, cream-pot, teaspoons, &c., and as my lord had sent a golden
+repeater, I added to it a golden equipage, with my lord's picture
+hanging to it, finely painted; (This was another thing I did purposely
+to please him, but it would not do.) A few days after, he came to take
+his leave of me, by my lord's order, and at my parting with him I shed
+abundance of tears, to think I was then in an almost strange place, no
+child that could then come near me, and under so severe a displeasure of
+my lord, that I had very little hopes of ever being friends with him
+again.
+
+My life did not mend after my son was gone; all I could do would not
+persuade my lord to have any free conversation with me. And at this
+juncture it was that the foolish jade Amy, who was now advanced in
+years, was catched in a conversation with one of my lord's men, which
+was not to her credit; for, it coming to his ears, she was turned out of
+the house by my lord's orders, and was never suffered to come into it
+again during his lifetime, and I did not dare to speak a word in her
+favour for fear he should retort upon me, "Like mistress, like maid."
+
+I could hear nothing of Amy for the first three months after she had
+left me, till one day, as I was looking out of a dining-room window, I
+saw her pass by, but I did not dare ask her to come in, for fear my lord
+should hear of her being there, which would have been adding fuel to the
+fire; however, she, looking up at the house, saw me. I made a motion to
+her to stay a little about the door, and in the meantime I wrote a note,
+and dropped it out of the window, in which I told her how I had lived in
+her absence, and desired her to write me a letter, and carry it the next
+day to my sempstress's house, who would take care to deliver it to me
+herself.
+
+I told Isabel that she should let me know when the milliner came again,
+for I had some complaints to her about getting up my best suit of
+Brussels lace nightclothes. On the Saturday following, just after I had
+dined, Isabel came into my apartment. "My lady," says she, "the milliner
+is in the parlour; will you be pleased to have her sent upstairs, or
+will your ladyship be pleased to go down to her?" "Why, send her up,
+Isabel," said I, "she is as able to come to me as I am to go to her; I
+will see her here."
+
+When the milliner came into my chamber, I sent Isabel to my
+dressing-room to fetch a small parcel of fine linen which lay there, and
+in the interim she gave me Amy's letter, which I put into my pocket,
+and, having pretended to be angry about my linen, I gave her the small
+bundle Isabel brought, and bid her be sure to do them better for the
+future.
+
+She promised me she would, and went about her business; and when she was
+gone, I opened Amy's letter, and having read it, found it was to the
+following purpose, viz., that she had opened a coffee-house, and
+furnished the upper part of it to let out in lodgings; that she kept two
+maids and a man, but that the trade of it did not answer as she had
+reason to expect; she was willing to leave it off, and retire into the
+country to settle for the rest of her life, but was continually harassed
+by such disturbance in her conscience as made her unfit to resolve upon
+anything, and wished there was a possibility for her to see me, that she
+might open her mind with the same freedom as formerly, and have my
+advice upon some particular affairs; and such-like discourse.
+
+It was a pretty while before I heard from Amy again, and when I did, the
+letter was in much the same strain as the former, excepting that things
+were coming more to a crisis; for she told me in it that her money was
+so out, that is, lent as ready money to traders, and trusted for liquors
+in her house, that if she did not go away this quarter, she should be
+obliged to run away the next. I very much lamented her unfortunate case,
+but that could be no assistance to her, as I had it not now in my power
+to see her when I would, or give her what I pleased, as it had always
+used to be; so all I could do was to wish her well, and leave her to
+take care of herself.
+
+About this time it was that I perceived my lord began to look very pale
+and meagre, and I had a notion he was going into a consumption, but did
+not dare tell him so, for fear he should say I was daily looking for his
+death, and was now overjoyed that I saw a shadow of it; nevertheless, he
+soon after began to find himself in a very bad state of health, for he
+said to me one morning, that my care would not last long, for he
+believed he was seized by a distemper it was impossible for him to get
+over. "My lord," said I, "you do not do me justice in imagining anything
+concerning me that does not tend to your own happiness, for if your body
+is out of order, my mind suffers for it." Indeed, had he died then,
+without making a will, it might have been well for me; but he was not so
+near death as that; and, what was worse, the distemper, which proved a
+consumption (which was occasioned chiefly by much study, watchings,
+melancholy thoughts, wilful and obstinate neglect of taking care of his
+body, and such like things), held him nine weeks and three days after
+this, before it carried him off.
+
+He now took country lodgings, most delightfully situated both for air
+and prospect, and had a maid and man to attend him. I begged on my knees
+to go with him, but could not get that favour granted; for, if I could,
+it might have been the means of restoring me to his favour, but our
+breach was too wide to be thoroughly reconciled, though I used all the
+endearing ways I had ever had occasion for to creep into his favour.
+
+Before he went out of town he locked and sealed up every room in the
+house, excepting my bedchamber, dressing-room, one parlour, and all the
+offices and rooms belonging to the servants; and, as he had now all my
+substance in his power, I was in a very poor state for a countess, and
+began to wish, with great sincerity, that I had never seen him, after I
+had lived so happy a life as I did at the Quaker's. For notwithstanding
+our estates joined together, when we were first married, amounted to
+L3376 per annum, and near L18,000 ready money, besides jewels, plate,
+goods, &c., of a considerable value, yet we had lived in a very high
+manner since our taking the title of earl and countess upon us; setting
+up a great house, and had a number of servants; our equipage, such as
+coach, chariot, horses, and their attendants; a handsome fortune my lord
+had given to my daughter, and a very noble one to my son, whom he loved
+very well, not for his being my son, but for the courteous behaviour of
+him in never aspiring to anything above a valet after he knew who he
+was, till my lord made him his secretary or clerk. Besides all these
+expenses, my lord, having flung himself into the trade to the Indies,
+both East and West, had sustained many great and uncommon losses,
+occasioned by his merchandise being mostly shipped in English bottoms;
+and that nation having declared war against the crown of Spain, he was
+one of the first and greatest sufferers by that power; so that, on the
+whole, our estate, which was as above, dwindled to about L1000 per
+annum, and our home stock, viz., about L17,000, was entirely gone. This,
+I believe, was another great mortification to his lordship, and one of
+the main things that did help to hasten his end; for he was observed,
+both by me and all his servants, to be more cast down at hearing of his
+losses, that were almost daily sent to him, than he was at what had
+happened between him and me.
+
+Nothing could give more uneasiness than the damage our estate sustained
+by this traffic. He looked upon it as a mere misfortune that no person
+could avoid; but I, besides that, thought it was a judgment upon me, to
+punish me in the loss of all my ill-got gain. But when I found that his
+own fortune began to dwindle as well as mine, I was almost ready to
+think it was possible his lordship might have been as wicked a liver as
+I had, and the same vengeance as had been poured upon me for my repeated
+crimes might also be a punishment for him.
+
+As his lordship was in a bad state of health, and had removed to a
+country lodging, his study and counting-house, as well as his other
+rooms, were locked and sealed up; all business was laid aside, excepting
+such letters as came to him were carried to his lordship to be opened,
+read, and answered. I also went to see him morning and evening, but he
+would not suffer me to stay with him a single night. I might have had
+another room in the same house, but was not willing the people who kept
+it should know that there was a misunderstanding between us; so I
+contented myself to be a constant visitor, but could not persuade him to
+forgive me the denying of my daughter, and acting the part of Roxana,
+because I had kept those two things an inviolable secret from him and
+everybody else but Amy, and it was carelessness in her conduct at last
+that was the foundation of all my future misery.
+
+As my lord's weakness increased, so his ill temper, rather than
+diminish, increased also. I could do nothing to please him, and began to
+think that he was only pettish because he found it was his turn to go
+out of the world first. A gentleman that lived near him, as well as his
+chaplain, persuaded him to have a physician, to know in what state his
+health was; and by all I could learn, the doctor told him to settle his
+worldly affairs as soon as he conveniently could. "For," says he,
+"although your death is not certain, still your life is very
+precarious."
+
+The first thing he did after this was to send for the son he had by me
+from the university. He came the week afterwards, and the tutor with
+him, to take care of his pupil. The next day after my lord came home,
+and sending for six eminent men that lived at The Hague he made his
+will, and signed it in the presence of them all; and they, with the
+chaplain, were appointed the executors of it, and guardians of my son.
+
+As I was in a great concern at his making his will unknown to me, and
+before we were friends, I thought of it in too serious a manner not to
+speak about it. I did not know where to apply first, but after mature
+consideration sent for the chaplain, and he coming to me, I desired he
+would give me the best intelligence he could about it. "My lady," said
+he, "you cannot be so unacquainted with the duty of my function, and the
+trust my lord has reposed in me, but you must know I shall go beyond my
+trust in relating anything of that nature to you; all that I can say on
+that head is, that I would have you make friends with my lord as soon as
+you possibly can, and get him to make another will, or else take the
+best care of yourself as lies in your power; for, I assure you, if his
+lordship dies, you are but poorly provided for."
+
+These last words of the chaplain's most terribly alarmed me. I knew not
+what to do; and, at last, as if I was to be guided by nothing but the
+furies, I went to his chamber, and after inquiring how he did, and
+hearing that he was far from well, I told him I had heard he had made
+his will. "Yes," said he, "I have; and what then?" "Why, my lord,"
+replied I, "I thought it would not have been derogatory to both our
+honours for you to have mentioned it to me before you did it, and have
+let me known in what manner you intended to settle your estate. This
+would have been but acting like a man to his wife, even if you had
+married me without a fortune; but as you received so handsomely with me,
+you ought to have considered it as my substance, as well as your own,
+that you were going to dispose of."
+
+My lord looked somewhat staggered at what I had said, and pausing a
+little while, answered, that he thought, and also looked upon it as a
+granted opinion, that after a man married a woman, all that she was in
+possession of was his, excepting he had made a prior writing or
+settlement to her of any part or all she was then possessed of.
+"Besides, my lady," added he, "I have married both your children, and
+given them very noble fortunes, especially your son. I have also had
+great losses in trade, both by sea and land, since you delivered your
+fortune to me, and even at this time, notwithstanding the appearance we
+make in the world, I am not worth a third of what I was when we came to
+settle in Holland; and then, here is our own son shall be provided for
+in a handsome manner by me; for I am thoroughly convinced there will be
+but little care taken of him if I leave anything in your power for that
+purpose: witness Thomas and Susanna."
+
+"My lord," said I, "I am not come into your chamber to know what care
+you have taken of our child. I do not doubt but you have acted like a
+father by it. What I would be informed in is, what I am to depend upon
+in case of your decease; which I, however, hope may be a great many
+years off yet." "You need not concern yourself about that," said he;
+"your son will take care that you shall not want; but yet, I will tell
+you, too," said he, "that it may prevent your wishing for my death. I
+have, in my will, left all I am possessed of in the world to my son,
+excepting L1500; out of that there is L500 for you, L500 among my
+executors, and the other L500 is to bury me, pay my funeral expenses,
+and what is overplus I have ordered to be equally divided among my
+servants."
+
+When I had heard him pronounce these words, I stared like one that was
+frightened out of his senses. "Five hundred pounds for me!" says I;
+"pray, what do you mean? What! am I, that brought you so handsome a
+fortune, to be under the curb of my son, and ask him for every penny I
+want? No, sir," said I, "I will not accept it. I expect to be left in
+full possession of one-half of your fortune, that I may live the
+remainder of my life like your wife." "Madam," replied my lord, "you may
+expect what you please. If you can make it appear since I found you out
+to be a jilt that I have looked upon you as my wife, everything shall be
+altered and settled just as you desire, which might then be called your
+will; but as the case now stands, the will is mine, and so it shall
+remain."
+
+I thought I should have sunk when I had heard him make this solemn and
+premeditated declaration. I raved like a mad woman, and, at the end of
+my discourse, told him that I did not value what could happen to me,
+even if I was forced to beg my bread, for I would stand the test of my
+own character; and as I could get nothing by being an honest woman, so
+I should not scruple to declare that "the son you have left what you
+have to is a bastard you had by me several years before we were
+married."
+
+"Oh," says he, "madam, do you think you can frighten me? no, not in the
+least; for if you ever mention anything of it, the title, as well as all
+the estate, will go to another branch of my family, and you will then be
+left to starve in good earnest, without having the least glimpse of hope
+to better your fortune; for," added he, "it is not very probable that
+you will be courted for a wife by any man of substance at these years;
+so if you have a mind to make yourself easy in your present
+circumstances, you must rest contented with what I have left you, and
+not prove yourself a whore to ruin your child, in whose power it will be
+to provide for you in a handsome manner, provided you behave yourself
+with that respect to him and me as you ought to do; for if any words
+arise about what I have done, I shall make a fresh will, and, as the
+laws of this nation will give me liberty, cut you off with a shilling."
+
+My own unhappiness, and his strong and lasting resentment, had kept me
+at high words, and flowing in tears, for some time; and as I was
+unwilling anybody should see me in that unhappy condition, I stayed
+coolly talking to him, till our son, who had been to several gentlemen's
+houses about my lord's business, came home to tell his father the
+success he had met with abroad. He brought in with him bank-notes to
+the amount of L12,000, which he had received of some merchants he held a
+correspondence with; at which my lord was well pleased, for he was
+pretty near out of money at this juncture. After our son had delivered
+the accounts and bills, and had withdrawn, I asked my lord, in a calm
+tone, to give me the satisfaction of knowing in what manner the losses
+he had complained to have suffered consisted. "You must consider, my
+lord," said I, "that according to what you have been pleased to inform
+me of, we are upwards of L2000 per annum, besides about L17,000 ready
+money, poorer than we were when we first came to settle in Holland."
+
+"You talk," replied my lord, "in a very odd manner. Do not you know that
+I had children of my own by a former wife? and of these I have taken so
+much care as to provide with very handsome fortunes, which are settled
+irrevocably upon them. I have, Providence be thanked, given each of them
+L5000, and that is laid in East India stock, sufficient to keep them
+genteelly, above the frowns of fortune, and free from the fear of want.
+This, joined to the money I mentioned to you before, as losses at sea,
+deaths, and bankruptcies, your children's fortunes, which are larger
+than my own children's, the buying the estate we live on, and several
+other things, which my receipts and notes will account for, as you may
+see after my decease. I have, to oblige you on this head, almost
+descended to particulars, which I never thought to have done; but as I
+have, rest yourself contented, and be well assured that I have not
+wilfully thrown any of your substance away."
+
+I could not tell what he meant by saying he had not wilfully thrown any
+of my substance away. These words puzzled me, for I found by his
+discourse I was to have but L500 of all I had brought him, at his
+decease, which I looked upon to be near at hand. I had but one thing
+that was any satisfaction to me, which was this: I was assured by him
+that he had not bestowed above the L15,000 he mentioned to me, on his
+children by his former wife; and, on an exact calculation, he made it
+appear that he had bestowed on my son Thomas alone near L13,000 in
+buying the plantation, shares in vessels, and merchandise, besides
+several valuable presents sent to his wife, both by him and me; and as
+for my daughter Susanna, she was very well married to a factor, with a
+fortune of L2000 (which was a great sum of money for a woman to have who
+was immediately to go to the East Indies), besides some handsome
+presents given to her both by him and me. In fact, her fortune was, in
+proportion, as large as her brother's, for there is but very few women
+in England or Holland with L2000 fortune that would venture to the coast
+of Malabar, even to have married an Indian king, much more to have gone
+over with a person that no one could tell what reception he might meet
+with, or might be recalled at the pleasure of the Company upon the least
+distaste taken by the merchants against him. Neither would I, though her
+own mother, hinder her voyage, for she had been the author of all the
+misfortunes that happened to me; and if my speaking a word would have
+saved her from the greatest torment, I believe I should have been quite
+silent. And I had but one reason to allege for the girl's going so
+hazardous a voyage, which is, she knew that the match was proposed by my
+lord, and if he had not thought it would have been advantageous for her,
+he would never have given L2000 to her husband as a fortune; and again,
+as my lord was the only friend she had in our family, she was cunning
+enough to know that the bare disobliging of him would have been her ruin
+for ever after; to which I may add, that it is possible, as she had made
+so much mischief about me, she was glad to get what she could and go out
+of the way, for fear my lord and I should be friends; which, if that had
+happened, she would have been told never to come to our house any more.
+
+As my lord's death began to be daily the discourse of the family, I
+thought that he might be more reconciled if I entered into the arguments
+again, pro and con, which we had together before. I did so, but all I
+could say was no satisfaction, till I importuned him on my knees, with a
+flood of tears. "Madam," said he, "what would you have me do?" "Do, my
+lord," said I, "only be so tender to my years and circumstances as to
+alter your will, or, at least, add a codicil to it; I desire nothing
+more, for I declare I had rather be a beggar, than live under my
+child's jurisdiction." To this he agreed with some reluctance, and he
+added a codicil to his will.
+
+This pleased me greatly, and gave me comfort, for I dreaded nothing so
+much, after all my high living, as being under any person, relation or
+stranger, and whether they exercised any power over me or not.
+
+I saw the lawyer come out of the chamber first, but was above asking him
+any questions; the next were the executors and chaplain. I asked the
+last how they came to have words. He did not answer me directly, but
+begged to know whose pleasure it was to have the codicil annexed. "It
+was mine, sir," replied I; "and it made me very uneasy before I could
+have the favour granted." He only replied by saying, "Ah! poor lady, the
+favour, as you are pleased to term it, is not calculated for any benefit
+to you; think the worst you can of it."
+
+I was terribly uneasy at what the chaplain had said, but I imagined to
+myself that I could not be worse off than I thought I should be before
+the codicil was annexed; and as he withdrew without saying any more, I
+was fain to rest satisfied with what I had heard, and that amounted to
+nothing.
+
+The next day after this the physicians that attended my lord told him it
+was time for him to settle his worldly affairs, and prepare himself for
+a hereafter. I now found all was over, and I had no other hopes of his
+life than the physicians' declaration of his being near his death. For
+it often happens that the gentlemen of the faculty give out that a man
+is near his death, to make the cure appear to be the effect of their
+great skill in distempers and medicine; as others, when they cannot find
+out the real disease, give out that a man's end is near, rather than
+discover their want of judgment; and this I thought might be the case
+with our doctors of physic.
+
+Our son was still kept from the university, and lodged at the house of
+one of his future guardians; but when he heard that his father was so
+near his end, he was very little out of his presence, for he dearly
+loved him. My lord sent the day before his death to lock and seal up all
+the doors in his dwelling house at The Hague; and the steward had
+orders, in case of my lord's decease, not to let anybody come in, not
+even his lady (who had for some time lodged in the same house with her
+lord), without an order from the executors.
+
+The keys of the doors were carried to him, and as he saw his death
+approach, he prepared for it, and, in fact, resigned up the keys of
+everything to the executors, and having bid them all a farewell, they
+were dismissed. The physicians waited; but as the verge of life
+approached, and it was out of their power to do him any service, he gave
+them a bill of L100 for the care they had taken of him, and dismissed
+them.
+
+I now went into the chamber, and kneeling by his bedside, kissed him
+with great earnestness, and begged of him, if ever I had disobliged him
+in any respect, to forgive me. He sighed, and said he most freely
+forgave me everything that I had reason to think I had offended him in;
+but he added, "If you had been so open in your conversation to me before
+our marriage as to discover your family and way of life, I know not but
+that I should have married you as I did. I might now have been in a good
+state of health, and you many years have lived with all the honours due
+to the Countess de Wintselsheim." These words drew tears from my eyes,
+and they being the last of any consequence he said, they had the greater
+impression upon me. He faintly bid me a long farewell, and said, as he
+had but a few moments to live, he hoped I would retire, and leave him
+with our son and chaplain. I withdrew into my own chamber, almost
+drowned in tears, and my son soon followed me out, leaving the chaplain
+with his father, offering up his prayers to Heaven for the receiving of
+his soul into the blessed mansions of eternal bliss.
+
+A few minutes after our son went into the chamber with me again, and
+received his father's last blessing. The chaplain now saw him departing,
+and was reading the prayer ordered by the Church for that occasion; and
+while he was doing it, my lord laid his head gently on the pillow, and
+turning on his left side, departed this life with all the calmness of a
+composed mind, without so much as a groan, in the fifty-seventh year of
+his age.
+
+As soon as he was dead an undertaker was sent for, by order of the
+executors, who met together immediately to open his will, and take care
+of all my son's effects. I was present when it was opened and read; but
+how terribly I was frightened at hearing the codicil repeated any person
+may imagine by the substance of it, which was to this effect; that if I
+had given me any more after his decease than the L500 he had left me,
+the L500 left to his executors, and the L1000 of my son's estate (which
+was now a year's interest), was to be given to such poor families at The
+Hague as were judged to be in the greatest want of it; not to be divided
+into equal sums, but every family to have according to their merit and
+necessity. But this was not all. My son was tied down much harder; for
+if it was known that he gave me any relief, let my condition be ever so
+bad, either by himself, by his order, or in any manner of way, device,
+or contrivance that he could think of, one-half of his estate, which was
+particularly mentioned, was to devolve to the executors for ever; and if
+they granted me ever so small a favour, that sum was to be equally
+divided among the several parishes where they lived, for the benefit of
+the poor.
+
+Any person would have been surprised to have seen how we all sat staring
+at each other; for though it was signed by all the executors, yet they
+did not know the substance of it till it was publicly read, excepting
+the chaplain; and he, as I mentioned before, had told me the codicil had
+better never have been added.
+
+I was now in a fine dilemma; had the title of a countess, with L500, and
+nothing else to subsist on but a very good wardrobe of clothes, which
+were not looked upon by my son and the executors to be my late lord's
+property, and which were worth, indeed, more than treble the sum I had
+left me.
+
+I immediately removed from the lodgings, and left them to bury the body
+when they thought proper, and retired to a lodging at a private
+gentleman's house, about a mile from The Hague. I was now resolved to
+find out Amy, being, as it were, at liberty; and accordingly went to the
+house where she had lived, and finding that empty, inquired for her
+among the neighbours, who gave various accounts of what had become of
+her; but one of them had a direction left at his house where she might
+be found. I went to the place and found the house shut up, and all the
+windows broken, the sign taken down, and the rails and benches pulled
+from before the door. I was quite ashamed to ask for her there, for it
+was a very scandalous neighbourhood, and I concluded that Amy had been
+brought to low circumstances, and had kept a house of ill-fame, and was
+either run away herself, or was forced to it by the officers of justice.
+However, as nobody knew me here, I went into a shop to buy some trifles,
+and asked who had lived in the opposite house (meaning Amy's). "Really,
+madam," says the woman, "I do not well know; but it was a woman who kept
+girls for gentlemen; she went on in that wickedness for some time, till
+a gentleman was robbed there of his watch and a diamond ring, on which
+the women were all taken up, and committed to the house of correction;
+but the young ones are now at liberty, and keep about the town." "Pray,"
+said I, "what may have become of the old beast that could be the ruin of
+those young creatures?" "Why, I do not well know," says she; "but I have
+heard that, as all her goods were seized upon, she was sent to the
+poorhouse; but it soon after appearing that she had the French disease
+to a violent degree, was removed to a hospital to be taken care of, but
+I believe she will never live to come out; and if she should be so
+fortunate, the gentleman that was robbed, finding that she was the
+guilty person, intends to prosecute her to the utmost rigour of the
+law."
+
+I was sadly surprised to hear this character of Amy; for I thought
+whatever house she might keep, that the heyday of her blood had been
+over. But I found that she had not been willing to be taken for an old
+woman, though near sixty years of age; and my not seeing or hearing from
+her for some time past was a confirmation of what had been told me.
+
+I went home sadly dejected, considering how I might hear of her. I had
+known her for a faithful servant to me, in all my bad and good fortune,
+and was sorry that at the last such a miserable end should overtake her,
+though she, as well as I, deserved it several years before.
+
+A few days after I went pretty near the place I had heard she was, and
+hired a poor woman to go and inquire how Amy ---- did, and whether she
+was likely to do well. The woman returned, and told me that the matron,
+or mistress, said, the person I inquired after died in a salivation two
+days before, and was buried the last night in the cemetery belonging to
+the hospital.
+
+I was very sorry to hear of Amy's unhappy and miserable death; for when
+she came first into my service she was really a sober girl, very witty
+and brisk, but never impudent, and her notions in general were good,
+till my forcing her, as it were, to have an intrigue with the jeweller.
+She had also lived with me between thirty and forty years, in the
+several stages of life as I had passed through; and as I had done
+nothing but what she was privy to, so she was the best person in the
+universal world to consult with and take advice from, as my
+circumstances now were.
+
+I returned to my lodgings much chagrined, and very disconsolate; for as
+I had for several years lived at the pinnacle of splendour and
+satisfaction, it was a prodigious heart-break to me now to fall from
+upwards of L3000 per annum to a poor L500 principal.
+
+A few days after this I went to see my son, the Earl of Wintselsheim. He
+received me in a very courteous (though far from a dutiful) manner. We
+talked together near an hour upon general things, but had no particular
+discourse about my late lord's effects, as I wanted to have. Among
+other things he told me that his guardians had advised him to go to the
+university for four years longer, when he would come of age, and his
+estate would be somewhat repaired; to which he said he had agreed; and
+for that purpose all the household goods and equipages were to be
+disposed of the next week, and the servants dismissed. I immediately
+asked if it would be looked upon as an encroachment upon his father's
+will if I took Isabel (who had been my waiting-maid ever since I came
+from England) to live with me. "No, my lady," very readily replied he;
+"as she will be dismissed from me, she is certainly at liberty and full
+freedom to do for herself as soon and in the best manner she possibly
+can." After this I stayed about a quarter of an hour with him, and then
+I sent for Isabel, to know if she would come and live with me on her
+dismission from her lord's. The girl readily consented, for I had always
+been a good mistress to her; and then I went to my own lodgings in my
+son's coach, which he had ordered to be got ready to carry me home.
+
+Isabel came, according to appointment, about ten days after, and told me
+the house was quite cleared both of men and movables, but said her lord
+(meaning my son) was not gone to the university as yet, but was at one
+of his guardians' houses, where he would stay about a month, and that he
+intended to make a visit before his departure, which he did, attended by
+my late chaplain; and I, being in handsome lodgings, received them with
+all the complaisance and love as was possible, telling them that time
+and circumstances having greatly varied with me, whatever they saw amiss
+I hoped they would be so good as to look over it at that time, by
+considering the unhappy situation of my affairs.
+
+After this visit was over, and I had myself and Isabel to provide for,
+handsome lodgings to keep (which were as expensive as they were fine),
+and nothing but my principal money to live on (I mean what I happened to
+have in my pocket at my lord's death, for I had not been paid my L500 as
+yet), I could not manage for a genteel maintenance as I had done some
+years before. I thought of divers things to lay my small sums out to
+advantage, but could fix on nothing; for it always happens that when
+people have but a trifle, they are very dubious in the disposal of it.
+
+Having been long resolving in my mind, I at last fixed on merchandise as
+the most genteel and profitable of anything else. Accordingly I went to
+a merchant who was intimate with my late lord, and letting him know how
+my circumstances were, he heartily condoled with me, and told me he
+could help me to a share in two ships--one was going a trading voyage to
+the coast of Africa, and the other a-privateering. I was now in a
+dilemma, and was willing to have a share in the trader, but was dubious
+of being concerned in the privateer; for I had heard strange stories
+told of the gentlemen concerned in that way of business. Nay, I had
+been told, but with what certainty I cannot aver, that there was a set
+of men who took upon them to issue ships, and as they always knew to
+what port they are bound, notice was sent to their correspondent abroad
+to order out their privateers on the coast the other sailed, and they
+knowing the loading, and the numbers of hands and guns were on board,
+soon made prizes of the vessels, and the profits were equally divided,
+after paying what was paid for their insurance, among them all.
+
+However, I at last resolved, by the merchant's advice, to have a share
+in the trader, and the next day he over-persuaded me to have a share in
+the privateer also. But that I may not lay out my money before I have
+it, it may not be amiss to observe that I went to the executors and
+received my L500 at an hour's notice, and then went to the merchant's to
+know what the shares would come to, and being told L1500, I was resolved
+to raise the money; so I went home, and, with my maid Isabel, in two
+days' time disposed of as many of my clothes as fetched me near L1100,
+which, joined to the above sum, I carried to the merchant's, where the
+writings were drawn, signed, sealed, and delivered to me in the presence
+of two witnesses, who went with me for that purpose. The ships were near
+ready for sailing; the trader was so well manned and armed, as well as
+the privateer, that the partners would not consent to insure them, and
+out they both sailed, though from different ports, and I depended on
+getting a good estate between them.
+
+When I was about this last ship a letter came from the count, my son,
+full of tender expressions of his duty to me, in which I was informed
+that he was going again to the university at Paris, where he should
+remain four years; after that he intended to make the tour of Europe,
+and then come and settle at The Hague. I returned him thanks in a letter
+for his compliment, wished him all happiness, and a safe return to
+Holland, and desired that he would write to me from time to time that I
+might hear of his welfare, which was all I could now expect of him. But
+this was the last time I heard from him, or he from me.
+
+In about a month's time the news came that the privateer (which sailed
+under British colours, and was divided into eight shares) had taken a
+ship, and was bringing it into the Texel, but that it accidentally
+foundered, and being chained to the privateer, had, in sinking, like to
+have lost that too. Two or three of the hands got on shore, and came to
+The Hague; but how terribly I was alarmed any one may judge, when I
+heard the ship the privateer had was the Newfoundland merchantman, as I
+had bought two shares in out of four. About two months after news was
+current about The Hague of a privateer or merchantman, one of them of
+the town, though not known which, having an engagement in the
+Mediterranean, in which action both the privateer and trader was lost.
+Soon after their names were publicly known, and, in the end, my partners
+heard that they were our ships, and unhappily sailing under false
+colours (a thing often practised in the time of war), and never having
+seen each other, had, at meeting, a very smart engagement, each fighting
+for life and honour, till two unfortunate shots; one of them, viz., the
+privateer, was sunk by a shot between wind and water, and the trader
+unhappily blown up by a ball falling in the powder-room. There were only
+two hands of the trader, and three of the privateer, that escaped, and
+they all fortunately met at one of the partners' houses, where they
+confirmed the truth of this melancholy story, and to me a fatal loss.
+
+What was to be done now? I had no money, and but few clothes left;
+there, was no hope of subsistence from my son or his guardians; they
+were tied down to be spectators of my misfortunes, without affording me
+any redress, even if they would.
+
+Isabel, though I was now reduced to the last penny, would live with me
+still, and, as I observed before and may now repeat, I was in a pretty
+situation to begin the world--upwards of sixty years of age, friendless,
+scanty of clothes, and but very little money.
+
+I proposed to Isabel to remove from lodgings and retire to Amsterdam,
+where I was not known, and might turn myself into some little way of
+business, and work for that bread now which had been too often
+squandered away upon very trifles. And upon consideration I found myself
+in a worse condition than I thought, for I had nothing to recommend me
+to Heaven, either in works or thoughts; had even banished from my mind
+all the cardinal and moral virtues, and had much more reason to hide
+myself from the sight of God, if possible, than I had to leave The
+Hague, that I might not be known of my fellow-creatures. And farther to
+hasten our removing to Amsterdam, I recollected I was involved in debt
+for money to purchase a share in the Newfoundland trader, which was
+lost, and my creditors daily threatened me with an arrest to make me pay
+them.
+
+I soon discharged my lodgings and went with Isabel to Amsterdam, where I
+thought, as I was advanced in years, to give up all I could raise in the
+world, and on the sale of everything I had to go into one of the
+Proveniers' houses, where I should be settled for life. But as I could
+not produce enough money for it, I turned it into a coffee-house near
+the Stadt-house, where I might have done well; but as soon as I was
+settled one of my Hague creditors arrested me for a debt of L75, and I
+not having a friend in the world of whom to raise the money, was, in a
+shameful condition, carried to the common jail, where poor Isabel
+followed me with showers of tears, and left me inconsolable for my great
+misfortunes. Here, without some very unforeseen accident, I shall never
+go out of it until I am carried to my grave, for which my much-offended
+God prepare me as soon as possible.
+
+_The continuation of the Life of Roxana, by Isabel Johnson, who had
+been her waiting-maid, from the time she was thrown into jail to
+the time of her death._
+
+After my lady, as it was my duty to call her, was thrown into jail for a
+debt she was unable to pay, she gave her mind wholly up to devotion.
+Whether it was from a thorough sense of her wretched state, or any other
+reason, I could never learn; but this I may say, that she was a sincere
+penitent, and in every action had all the behaviour of a Christian. By
+degrees all the things she had in the world were sold, and she began to
+find an inward decay upon her spirits. In this interval she repeated all
+the passages of her ill-spent life to me, and thoroughly repented of
+every bad action, especially the little value she had for her children,
+which were honestly born and bred. And having, as she believed, made her
+peace with God, she died with mere grief on the 2nd of July 1742, in the
+sixty-fifth year of her age, and was decently buried by me in the
+churchyard belonging to the Lutherans, in the city of Amsterdam.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2), by
+Daniel Defoe
+
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