t life of a most wretched kind to account for, some if it in this
world as well as in another.

We came away the fifth day; and my landlord, because he saw me uneasy,
mounted himself, his son, and three honest country fellows with good
firearms, and, without telling us of it, followed the coach, and would
see us safe into Dunstable. We could do no less than treat them very
handsomely at Dunstable, which cost my spouse about ten or twelve
shillings, and something he gave the men for their time too, but my
landlord would take nothing for himself.

This was the most happy contrivance for me that could have fallen out;
for had I come to London unmarried, I must either have come to him for
the first night's entertainment, or have discovered to him that I had
not one acquaintance in the whole city of London that could receive a
poor bride for the first night's lodging with her spouse. But now,
being an old married woman, I made no scruple of going directly home
with him, and there I took possession at once of a house well
furnished, and a husband in very good circumstances, so that I had a
prospect of a very happy life, if I knew how to manage it; and I had
leisure to consider of the real value of the life I was likely to live.
How different it was to be from the loose ungoverned part I had acted
before, and how much happier a life of virtue and sobriety is, than
that which we call a life of pleasure.

Oh had this particular scene of life lasted, or had I learned from that
time I enjoyed it, to have tasted the true sweetness of it, and had I
not fallen into that poverty which is the sure bane of virtue, how
happy had I been, not only here, but perhaps for ever! for while I
lived thus, I was really a penitent for all my life past. I looked
back on it with abhorrence, and might truly be said to hate myself for
it. I often reflected how my lover at the Bath, struck at the hand of
God, repented and abandoned me, and refused to see me any more, though
he loved me to an extreme; but I, prompted by that worst of devils,
poverty, returned to the vile practice, and made the advantage of what
they call a handsome face to be the relief to my necessities, and
beauty be a pimp to vice.

Now I seemed landed in a safe harbour, after the stormy voyage of life
past was at an end, and I began to be thankful for my deliverance. I
sat many an hour by myself, and wept over the remembrance of past
follies, and the dreadful extravagances