tle valuable
movables they had the next week.

They were received with great courtesy and kindness, and the old woman,
from an acquaintance of three weeks, assured them that they were no less
dear to her than if they had been her own daughters. This treatment
continued until they were in the height of a salivation, and then they
were acquainted with usage of another sort. This distemper was very
expensive, their course of physic very troublesome, it required much
attendance, they were strangers to her, and so by degrees the old woman
got from them most of the trinkets they brought with them. So that when
they were come a little to themselves, and nourishing food was proper to
restore them to perfect soundness, they had no way left to procure it
but by pawning or selling their clothes, which being quickly done and
the money spent, nakedness and poverty became their companions.

Thus plunged in misery, they were exposed to the daily insults of the
bawd, who treated them with great cruelty now she had them absolutely in
her power. Alice was so very uneasy under it, that having one night got
a few clean things about her, she resolved to venture out in a thin
linen gown, to see what might be done to free them from these
difficulties. She had not got lower than Southampton Street, in the
Strand, before a gentleman well dressed, though much in liquor, invited
her to go with him to his chambers. He carried her as far as Essex
Street, and then turning down to the Temple, brought her into rooms up
two pair of stairs, richly furnished. She saw nobody that he had to
attend him, but everything seemed in very exact order, and so without
further ceremony to bed they went. His weight of liquor soon forced him
to sleep, but Alice, whose head was full of the miseries she had so long
gone through, arose, put on her clothes and searching his pockets, found
a gold watch, nineteen guineas and a large gold medal. She was so much
surprised with the richness of this booty, and yet this being her first
fact, so confounded within herself, that she knew not well what to do.
At last, with great difficulty she forced open the chamber door, which
he had locked (and laid the key where she could not find it). Next she
came to the outer doors of the chambers, in which the key was, and so
there was no difficulty in getting out; but then finding it impossible
to shut the door after her without locking it, she even did so, and
carried away the key.

She