he dispatched the
girl to fetch, and desired her to leave me till her return. In her
absence she changed our clothes: then keeping me to personate the
child she was nursing, she sent away the daughter of sir Edward to be
brought up in her own poor cottage.

When my mother sent away the girl, she affirmed she had not the least
intention of committing this bad action; but after she was left alone
with us, she looked on me, and then on the little lady-babe, and she
wept over me to think she was obliged to leave me to the charge of
a careless girl, debarred from my own natural food, while she was
nursing another person's child.

The laced cap and the fine cambric robe of the little Harriot were
lying on the table ready to be put on: in these she dressed me, only
just to see how pretty her own dear baby would look in missy's fine
clothes. When she saw me thus adorned, she said to me, "O, my dear
Ann, you look as like missy as any thing can be. I am sure my lady
herself, if she were well enough to see you, would not know the
difference." She said these words aloud, and while she was speaking,
a wicked thought came into her head--How easy it would be to change
these children! On which she hastily dressed Harriot in my coarse
raiment. She had no sooner finished the transformation of miss Lesley
into the poor Ann Withers, than the girl returned, and carried her
away, without the least suspicion that it was not the same infant that
she had brought thither.

It was wonderful that no one discovered that I was not the same child.
Every fresh face that came into the room, filled the nurse with
terror. The servants still continued to pay their compliments to the
baby in the same form as usual, saying, How like it is to its papa!
Nor did sir Edward himself perceive the difference, his lady's illness
probably engrossing all his attention at the time; though indeed
gentlemen seldom take much notice of very young children.

When lady Harriot began to recover, and the nurse saw me in her arms
caressed as her own child, all fears of detection were over; but the
pangs of remorse then seized her: as the dear sick lady hung with
tears of fondness over me, she thought she should have died with
sorrow for having so cruelly deceived her.

When I was a year old Mrs. Withers was discharged; and because she had
been observed to nurse me with uncommon care and affection, and was
seen to shed many tears at parting from me; to reward her fidelity