r and
tenderness, excepting that, ever called a bastard, a bastard appeared to
me an object of the greatest compassion in creation.

"I communicated this dreadful circumstance to my master, who was almost
equally alarmed at the intelligence; for he feared his wife, and public
censure at the meeting. After some weeks of deliberation had elapsed, I
in continual fear that my altered shape would be noticed, my master gave
me a medicine in a phial, which he desired me to take, telling me,
without any circumlocution, for what purpose it was designed. I burst
into tears, I thought it was killing myself--yet was such a self as I
worth preserving? He cursed me for a fool, and left me to my own
reflections. I could not resolve to take this infernal potion; but I
wrapped it up in an old gown, and hid it in a corner of my box.

"Nobody yet suspected me, because they had been accustomed to view me as
a creature of another species. But the threatening storm at last broke
over my devoted head--never shall I forget it! One Sunday evening when I
was left, as usual, to take care of the house, my master came home
intoxicated, and I became the prey of his brutal appetite. His extreme
intoxication made him forget his customary caution, and my mistress
entered and found us in a situation that could not have been more hateful
to her than me. Her husband was 'pot-valiant,' he feared her not at the
moment, nor had he then much reason, for she instantly turned the whole
force of her anger another way. She tore off my cap, scratched, kicked,
and buffetted me, till she had exhausted her strength, declaring, as she
rested her arm, 'that I had wheedled her husband from her.--But, could
any thing better be expected from a wretch, whom she had taken into her
house out of pure charity?' What a torrent of abuse rushed out? till,
almost breathless, she concluded with saying, 'that I was born a
strumpet; it ran in my blood, and nothing good could come to those who
harboured me.'

"My situation was, of course, discovered, and she declared that I should
not stay another night under the same roof with an honest family. I was
therefore pushed out of doors, and my trumpery thrown after me, when it
had been contemptuously examined in the passage, lest I should have
stolen any thing.

"Behold me then in the street, utterly destitute! Whither could I creep
for shelter? To my father's roof I had no claim, when not pursued by
shame--now I shrunk back as from de