at being no shop for the selling of
anything, and as to carrying them to the door to look at them, the
maids made their impudent mocks upon that, and spent their wit upon it
very much; told the Court I had looked at them sufficiently, and
approved them very well, for I had packed them up under my clothes, and
was a-going with them.

In short, I was found guilty of felony, but acquitted of the burglary,
which was but small comfort to me, the first bringing me to a sentence
of death, and the last would have done no more. The next day I was
carried down to receive the dreadful sentence, and when they came to
ask me what I had to say why sentence should not pass, I stood mute a
while, but somebody that stood behind me prompted me aloud to speak to
the judges, for that they could represent things favourably for me.
This encouraged me to speak, and I told them I had nothing to say to
stop the sentence, but that I had much to say to bespeak the mercy of
the Court; that I hoped they would allow something in such a case for
the circumstances of it; that I had broken no doors, had carried
nothing off; that nobody had lost anything; that the person whose goods
they were was pleased to say he desired mercy might be shown (which
indeed he very honestly did); that, at the worst, it was the first
offence, and that I had never been before any court of justice before;
and, in a word, I spoke with more courage that I thought I could have
done, and in such a moving tone, and though with tears, yet not so many
tears as to obstruct my speech, that I could see it moved others to
tears that heard me.

The judges sat grave and mute, gave me an easy hearing, and time to say
all that I would, but, saying neither Yes nor No to it, pronounced the
sentence of death upon me, a sentence that was to me like death itself,
which, after it was read, confounded me. I had no more spirit left in
me, I had no tongue to speak, or eyes to look up either to God or man.

My poor governess was utterly disconsolate, and she that was my
comforter before, wanted comfort now herself; and sometimes mourning,
sometimes raging, was as much out of herself, as to all outward
appearance, as any mad woman in Bedlam. Nor was she only disconsolate
as to me, but she was struck with horror at the sense of her own wicked
life, and began to look back upon it with a taste quite different from
mine, for she was penitent to the highest degree for her sins, as well
as sorrowful