avagantly fond; and it was a part of my employment,
to assist to spoil her, by humouring all her whims, and bearing all her
caprices. Feeling her own consequence, before she could speak, she had
learned the art of tormenting me, and if I ever dared to resist, I
received blows, laid on with no compunctious hand, or was sent to bed
dinnerless, as well as supperless. I said that it was a part of my daily
labour to attend this child, with the servility of a slave; still it was
but a part. I was sent out in all seasons, and from place to place, to
carry burdens far above my strength, without being allowed to draw near
the fire, or ever being cheered by encouragement or kindness. No wonder
then, treated like a creature of another species, that I began to envy,
and at length to hate, the darling of the house. Yet, I perfectly
remember, that it was the caresses, and kind expressions of my
step-mother, which first excited my jealous discontent. Once, I cannot
forget it, when she was calling in vain her wayward child to kiss her, I
ran to her, saying, 'I will kiss you, ma'am!' and how did my heart, which
was in my mouth, sink, what was my debasement of soul, when pushed away
with--'I do not want you, pert thing!' Another day, when a new gown had
excited the highest good humour, and she uttered the appropriate _dear_,
addressed unexpectedly to me, I thought I could never do enough to please
her; I was all alacrity, and rose proportionably in my own estimation.

"As her daughter grew up, she was pampered with cakes and fruit, while I
was, literally speaking, fed with the refuse of the table, with her
leavings. A liquorish tooth is, I believe, common to children, and I used
to steal any thing sweet, that I could catch up with a chance of
concealment. When detected, she was not content to chastize me herself at
the moment, but, on my father's return in the evening (he was a shopman),
the principal discourse was to recount my faults, and attribute them to
the wicked disposition which I had brought into the world with me,
inherited from my mother. He did not fail to leave the marks of his
resentment on my body, and then solaced himself by playing with my
sister.--I could have murdered her at those moments. To save myself from
these unmerciful corrections, I resorted to falshood, and the untruths
which I sturdily maintained, were brought in judgment against me, to
support my tyrant's inhuman charge of my natural propensity to vice.
Seein