in the Justice's book. Philip no sooner heard it but he
fell down in a swoon, and about half an hour was spent before they could
bring him again to himself. The young lady who had played him the trick,
immediately quitted the room, and he opening his eyes, and perceiving
her gone, pretended it was a sudden fit, and that he had been used to
them when a child.

Much as he had suffered by this ungrateful woman, he took the first
opportunity to go to a coffee-house within a door or two of her
mistress, in order to learn what had become of her. There was but one
person who had been trusted with his ever having visited her at all, and
they too, were ignorant that she had ever run away with him. Philip
therefore sent for his confidant, from whom he received information,
that after snivelling and crying for a hour or two, she took advantage
of being left alone in a parlour (although the door was locked), and
getting out at the window into the backyard, made a shift to scramble
over the top of the house of office into the court, and so made her
escape to the waterside, where her mistress found she had taken a pair
of oars. But though they followed her to Falcon Stairs, yet they were
not able to retrieve her. Philip at this news was exceedingly grieved,
and returned home again very disconsolate on this occasion.

Alice, in the meantime, lurked about in St. George's Fields till
evening, and then crossing the bridge, walked on towards St. James's.
However dirty and despicable her dress, yet as she had a very pretty
face and a very engaging manner of speaking at first sight, she drew in
a merchant's book-keeper, as she walked down Cornhill, to carry her to a
certain tavern at the corner of Bishopsgate Street; where, after a good
supper and a bottle or two of wine, she engaged him to take her to a
lodging, and by degrees to give her a great deal of fine clothes, in
return for which she flattered him so greatly that he grew as fond of
her and as much a fool as ever Philip had been.

In the meantime her sister, who was much of her disposition, had been
turned off by a young fellow she had run away with from Oxford, and in
a miserable condition had trotted up to town, in order to see whether
she could have better luck with another gallant. One night, as she was
strolling through Leadenhall Street in her vocation, she saw her sister
Alice and the book-keeper who kept her, walking home with a servant, and
a candle and lanthorn before t