bout twenty-one years of age,
splendidly built, stout of form, and with big breasts and haunches. Her
face was lovely, her eyes almost the most beautiful hazel I ever saw,
its expression dove-like, her complexion as clear and bright as a rose.
She looked as if she ate three meals a day, shit regularly, slept eight
hours, and was fucked nightly, and was in brief a most lovely creature,
and the picture of health. She had a mouth filled with lovely teeth, one
of which was missing, and showed its absence when she laughed, it was
the only defect visible about her. Another handsome woman whom I have
had since, had also lost two front-teeth, which showed in a similar
manner, but that lady always smiled, and rarely laughed, so as to avoid
showing the defect. False teeth were a rarity in those days, and quite
beyond the means of poor people.

She had been with us about three months. There was mystery about her,
like a former servant of my mother's, she scarcely ever wanted to go
out. At times we heard her singing, at others sobbing, and it used to be
remarked that she was moping. I thought my wife knew more about her than
she said, but to her I spoke as little as possible about anything. Mary
was an indifferent but willing servant, was said to have come from the
country, to have been living with an aunt a short time in London, and
that ours was her first place. She was with us pretty well worked and
scolded, but not by me.

I had been struck by her beauty and her ways, which were winning,
friendly, and unlike a servant's, yet without being presuming, and I was
as kind to her, both in manner and word as I dared to be; but I had
been annoyed and suspected for speaking kindly to servants, and to avoid
strife was cold, even harsh to them in manner. Mary was witness of
the sullen domestic misery in which I lived. I had seen a pained,
sympathetic glance at me at times when she heard our wrangles, and was
confident that she pitied me.

Nevertheless I had no sensual intentions towards her, holding it as
fitting carefully to respect my home, whatever I did out of it. I might
have thought about her hidden charms and probably had had that tingling
in my prick which a pretty woman often gives a man however virtuous he
may be. But it went no further.

My last clap may have made me abstinent, or want of money had, or
perhaps other motives which beset a man who wished a different order of
things in his home affected me, for I know that for