my reflections on that irreparable loss; but nothing
contributed more to reconcile me to it, than the notions that were
immediately put into my head, of going to London, and looking out for
a service, in which I was promised all assistance and advice from one
Esther Davis, a young woman that had beer down to see her friends, and
who, after the stay of a few days, was returned to her place.

As I had now nobody left alive in the village, who had concerned enough
about what should become of me, to start any objections to this scheme,
and the woman who took care of me after my parents' death, rather
encouraged me to pursue it, I soon came to a resolution of making this
launch into the wide world, by repairing to London, in order to seek my
fortune, a phrase which, by the bye, has ruined more adventurers of both
sexes, from the country, than ever it made or advanced.

Nor did Esther Davis a little comfort and inspirit me to venture with
her, by piquing my childish curiosity with the fine sights that were to
be seen in London: the Tombs, the Lions, the King, the Royal Family,
the fine Plays and Operas, and, in short, all the diversions which fell
within her sphere of life to come at; the detail of all which perfectly
turned the little head of me.

Nor can I remember, without laughing, the innocent admiration, not
without a spice of envy, with which we poor girls, whose church-going
clothes did not rise above dowlas shifts and stuff gowns, beplaced with
silver: all which we imagined grew in London, and entered for a great
deal into my determination of trying to come in for my share of them.

The idea however of having the company of a towns-woman with her, was
the trivial, and all the motives that engaged Esther to take charge of
me during my journey to town, where she told me, after the manner and
style, "as how several maids out of the country had made themselves and
all their kind for ever: that by preserving their virtue, some had
taken so with their masters, that they had married them, and kept them
coaches, and lived vastly grand and happy; and some, may-hap, came to be
Duchesses; luck was all, and why not I, as well as another?"; with other
almanacs to this purpose, which set me a tip-toe to begin this promising
journey, and to leave a place which, though my native one, contained no
relations that I had reason to regret, and was grown insupportable to
me, from the change of the tenderest usage into a cold air of char