n to my perfect hatred and aversion to him, I looked on this
railing, as my security against his renewing his most odious caress.

Yet, plain as Mrs. Brown's views were now come out, I had not the
heart, or spirit to open my eyes to them: still I could not part with
my dependence on that beldam, so much did I think myself hers, soul and
body: or rather, I sought to deceive myself with the continuation of my
good opinion of her, and choose to wait the worst at her hands, sooner
than be turned out to starve in the streets, without a penny of money or
a friend to apply to these fears were my folly.

While this confusion of ideas was passing in my head, and I sat
pensively by the fire, with my eyes brimming with tears, my neck still
bare, and my cap fallen off in the struggle, so that my hair was in the
disorder you may guess, the villain's lust began, I suppose, to be again
in flow, at the sight of all that bloom of youth which presented itself
to his view, a bloom yet unenjoyed, and of course not yet indifferent to
him.

After some pause, he asked me with a tone of voice mightily softer,
whether I would make it up with him before the old lady returned, and
all should be well; he would restore me to his affections, at the
same time offering to kiss me and feel my breasts. But now my extreme
aversion, my fears, my indignation, all acting upon me, gave me a spirit
not natural to me, so that breaking loose from him, I ran to the bell
and rang it, with such violence and effect as to bring up the maid to
know what was the matter, or whether the gentleman wanted anything; and
before he could proceed to greater extremities, she bounced into the
room, and seeing me stretched on the floor, my hair all dishevelled, my
nose gushing out blood, which did not a little tragedize the scene, and
my odious persecutor still intent of pushing his brutal point, unmoved
by all my cries and distress, she was herself confounded and did not
know what to do.

As much, however, as Martha might be prepared and hardened to
transactions of this sort, all womanhood must have been out of her heart
could she have seen this unmoved. Besides that, on the face of things,
she imagined that matters had gone greater lengths than they really had,
and that the courtesy of the house had been actually consummated on me,
and flung: me into the condition I was in: in this notion she instantly
took my part, and advised the gentleman to go down and leave me to
reco