heavily.

"Master (she always addressed me so in country fashion and dialect),
you know." "I?" "Yes." "No." "You do." "What nonsense." "Ain't she told
you?" "No." "Why she knows all about me, she caught me crying one day,
spoke kindly, it made me open my heart, and I told her all!--yet she
has never told you?" "Never, and if you have told her anything about
yourself that you had better have kept to yourself, you will regret it."
"I fear I shall." Then little by little, amidst tears and caresses,
she told me her history, and again did on future days, and I saw her
letters, rings, jewellery, silks, and other proofs, I knew the town
she lived in, know some of the people in it whom she mentioned, and was
satisfied with the truth of every part of her story. One gentleman she
named was to have married one of my sisters,--how strange!

CHAPTER XXI.

Preliminary.--Maid Mary's seduction.--Flight.--Desertion.--
Going to the post-office.--A halfpenny signal.--Against an
arm-chair.--The privy watched.--Nearly caught.--Mary
suspected.--Dismissed.--In lodgings.--Service again.--My
cousin sir.--Letters lost.--Mary disappears.--Seven years
afterwards.--Sequel.

The daughter of a small inn-keeper at the town of B.. t. n, she was at
a public hall. A young gentleman danced with her, afterwards paid
attentions to her, and induced her to run off with him. "Oh! I was just
as bad as him, poor fellow! When he got me into the room I felt sure
what he was after, knew it was wrong, knew he would want me, and that I
should let him. I wanted to let him do it, to be all to him, I did not
want it done to me for myself, not that I recollect, I dare say I might,
but don't recollect _that_; but I wanted him to do with me what he
liked, anything he liked, anything he wanted to do me. I would have let
him do anything that would make him happy, and seem as if I belonged to
him entirely, and he to me for ever."

"And he did it?" "Yes. I stopped out all night and next day, and then
went home frightened. I was father's favorite, he had been hunting for
me like mad all over the town, and letting people know I was not at
home. He hit me,--there was such a row!--my sister spat at me, and
called me a whore. I never slept all night, and hadn't slept the night
before, what with his a pulling me about and doing it, and my fear of
being found out. I was ill, and father kept me locked up in my room a
week, because I would not