home, nor go
to service. Mary remained there a couple of months, dressing plainly,
and only going to see him in his lodgings at night, or to meet him at
places where it would not be known. Then he went to India. Repeated
threats of his father, and his want of money would let him stay no
longer.

The father arranged that Mary should be paid fifteen shillings a week,
and they paid it for some time. She wanted to write to her lover, but
had mislaid his address, the agents said that their instructions were to
stop the weekly payment if she corresponded with him; but _he_ wrote to
her, _she_ replied, and then their payments ceased. Her lover then sent
her money; but his father found that out, and kept him penniless.
She was in London now alone, knowing not a person, again he sent her
trifling sums, but begged her to go out to service, or she would become
a gay woman (I have seen his letters). She used to go out, sit down on
a green close by, and cry all day. One day a middle-aged woman accosted
her, she told a little of her grief to her, it was something to tell her
grief, even to a stranger. The woman told some plausible story, and she
went to see her (I had the address). There the woman asked to see her
partly undressed, and told her that with such legs and breasts she might
have silk dresses and jewelry galore, in fact incited her to be a gay
woman. True to her lover, she did as he advised. The female with whom
she lived gave her a character as a servant, and with that she came into
our house.

The way in which the old bawd got to see her legs was amusing, I often
thought of it; not knowing a bawd's dodges then. She asked her if she
wanted to piddle, took her to a bed-room, and as in sitting down she
showed a little leg, the woman broke out into ecstacies, and asked her
to show more. Much flattered she did, and then came the old woman's
suggestions.

"From the time he left you till the other day, had you never been
poked?" "Never, by all that is good.--I would not have injured him,--I
was shocked when the old woman told me about getting money by my legs.
I hoped he would come back, and always thought he would. But he never
answers my letters now, although some money came for me the other day,
and I know it must be from him, although the writing is not his; even
when you threw me on the sofa that day, I thought I was wronging him for
a moment, till I forgot everything but you.

"But oh! I have had a weary life since