ion in the house; every thing
was seized that we possessed. Our splendid furniture, and even our
wearing apparel, all my beautiful ball-dresses, my trinkets, and, my
toys, were taken away by my father's merciless creditors. The week in
which this happened was such a scene of hurry, confusion and misery,
that I will not attempt to describe it.

At the end of a week I found that my father and mother had gone out
very early in the morning. Mr. Hartley took me home to his own house,
and I expected to find them there; but, oh, what anguish did I feel,
when I heard him tell Mrs. Hartley they had quitted England, and that
he had brought me home to live with them! In tears and sullen silence
I passed the first day of my entrance into this despised house. Maria
was from home. All the day I sate in a corner of the room, grieving
for the departure of my parents; and if for a moment I forgot that
sorrow, I tormented myself with imagining the many ways which Maria
might invent, to make me feel in return the slights and airs of
superiority which I had given myself over her. Her mother began
the prelude to what I expected, for I heard her freely censure the
imprudence of my parents. She spoke in whispers; yet, though I could
not hear every word, I made out the tenor of her discourse. She was
very anxious, lest her husband should be involved in the ruin of our
house. He was the chief clerk in my father's counting-house; towards
evening he came in and quieted her fears, by the welcome news that he
had obtained a more lucrative situation than the one he had lost.

At eight in the evening Mrs. Hartley said to me, "Miss Wilmot, it is
time for you to be in bed, my dear;" and ordered the servant to shew
me up stairs, adding, that she supposed she must assist me to undress,
but that when Maria came home, she must teach me to wait on myself.
The apartment in which I was to sleep was at the top of the house.
The walls were white-washed, and the roof was sloping. There was only
one window in the room, a small casement, through which the bright
moon shone, and it seemed to me the most melancholy sight I had ever
beheld. In broken and disturbed slumbers I passed the night. When
I awoke in the morning, she whom I most dreaded to see, Maria, who
I supposed had envied my former state, and who I now felt certain
would exult over my present mortifying reverse of fortune, stood by
my bedside. She awakened me from a dream, in which I thought she was
or