which was on fire, and I did my endeavour to go, but by this time the
alarm of fire was so great, and so many engines playing, and the street
so thronged with people, that I could not get near the house whatever I
would do; so I came back again to my governess's, and taking the bundle
up into my chamber, I began to examine it. It is with horror that I
tell what a treasure I found there; 'tis enough to say, that besides
most of the family plate, which was considerable, I found a gold chain,
an old-fashioned thing, the locket of which was broken, so that I
suppose it had not been used some years, but the gold was not the worse
for that; also a little box of burying-rings, the lady's wedding-ring,
and some broken bits of old lockets of gold, a gold watch, and a purse
with about #24 value in old pieces of gold coin, and several other
things of value.

This was the greatest and the worst prize that ever I was concerned in;
for indeed, though, as I have said above, I was hardened now beyond the
power of all reflection in other cases, yet it really touched me to the
very soul when I looked into this treasure, to think of the poor
disconsolate gentlewoman who had lost so much by the fire besides; and
who would think, to be sure, that she had saved her plate and best
things; how she would be surprised and afflicted when she should find
that she had been deceived, and should find that the person that took
her children and her goods, had not come, as was pretended, from the
gentlewoman in the next street, but that the children had been put upon
her without her own knowledge.

I say, I confess the inhumanity of this action moved me very much, and
made me relent exceedingly, and tears stood in my eyes upon that
subject; but with all my sense of its being cruel and inhuman, I could
never find in my heart to make any restitution. The reflection wore
off, and I began quickly to forget the circumstances that attended the
taking them.

Nor was this all; for though by this job I was become considerably
richer than before, yet the resolution I had formerly taken, of leaving
off this horrid trade when I had gotten a little more, did not return,
but I must still get farther, and more; and the avarice joined so with
the success, that I had no more thought of coming to a timely
alteration of life, though without it I could expect no safety, no
tranquillity in the possession of what I had so wickedly gained; but a
little more, and a litt