ed by the weight of my now almost senseless granny, and, as I
have before mentioned, she was a very corpulent woman. Had I been in
any other position I should not have suffered so much; but I had
unfortunately fallen flat on my back, and was now lying with my face
upwards, pressed upon by the broadest part of the old woman's body; my
nose was flattened, and my breath completely stopped. How long my
granny might have remained there groaning I cannot tell; probably, as I
was somewhat a spoiled child before this, it might have ended in her
completely finishing me; but she was roused up from her state of half
syncope by a vigorous attack from my teeth, which, in the agony of
suffocation, I used with preternatural force of jaw from one so young.
I bit right through everything she had on, and as my senses were fast
departing, my teeth actually met with my convulsive efforts. My granny,
roused by the extreme pain, rolled over on her side, and then it was
that my mother and aunt, who supposed that I had made my escape from the
room, discovered me lifeless, and black in the face. They ran to me,
but I still held on with my teeth, nor could I be separated from my now
screaming relative, until the admission of fresh air, and a plentiful
sprinkling of cold water brought me to my senses, when I was laid on the
sofa utterly exhausted. It certainly was a narrow escape, and it may be
said that the "biter was nearly bit." As for my granny, she recovered
her fright and her legs, but she did not recover her temper; she could
not sit down without a pillow on the chair for many days, and, although
little was said to me in consequence of the danger I had incurred, yet
there was an evident abhorrence of me on the part of the old woman, a
quiet manner about my mother, and a want of her usual hilarity on the
part of my aunt, which were to me a foreboding of something unpleasant.
A few days brought to light what was the result of various whisperings
and consultations. It was on a fine Monday morning, that Ben made his
appearance at an unusually early hour; my cap was put on my head, my
cloak over my shoulders; Ben took me by the hand, having a covered
basket in the other, and I was led away like a lamb to the butcher. As
I went out there was a tear in the eyes of my aunt Milly, a melancholy
over the countenance of my mother, and a twinkling expression of
satisfaction in my grandmother's eyes, which even her spectacles could
not conceal fro