amily.

What will you do for clothes, Madam? I doubt you'll be able to take any
away with you, but what you'll have on.

O, no matter for clothes, if I can but get out of this house.

What will you do for money, Madam? I have heard his honour express his
concern, that he could not prevail upon you to be obliged to him, though
he apprehended that you must be short of money.

O, I have rings and other valuables. Indeed I have but four guineas, and
two of them I found lately wrapt up in a bit of lace, designed for a
charitable use. But now, alas! charity begins at home!--But I have one
dear friend left, if she be living, as I hope in God she is! to whom I
can be obliged, if I want. O Dorcas! I must ere now have heard from her,
if I had had fair play.

Well, Madam, your's is a hard lot. I pity you at my heart!

Thank you, Dorcas!--I am unhappy, that I did not think before, that I might
have confided in thy pity, and in thy sex!

I pitied you, Madam, often and often: but you were always, as I thought,
diffident of me. And then I doubted not but you were married; and I
thought his honour was unkindly used by you. So that I thought it my
duty to wish well to his honour, rather than to what I thought to be your
humours, Madam. Would to Heaven that I had known before that you were
not married!--Such a lady! such a fortune! to be so sadly betrayed;----

Ah, Dorcas! I was basely drawn in! My youth--my ignorance of the world
--and I have some things to reproach myself with when I look back.

Lord, Madam, what deceitful creatures are these men!--Neither oaths, nor
vows--I am sure! I am sure! [and then with her apron she gave her eyes
half a dozen hearty rubs] I may curse the time that I came into this
house!

Here was accounting for her bold eyes! And was it not better for Dorcas
to give up a house which her lady could not think worse of than she did,
in order to gain the reputation of sincerity, than by offering to
vindicate it, to make her proffered services suspected.

Poor Dorcas!--Bless me! how little do we, who have lived all our time in
the country, know of this wicked town!

Had I been able to write, cried the veteran wench, I should certainly
have given some other near relations I have in Wales a little inkling of
matters; and they would have saved me from----from----from----

Her sobs were enough. The apprehensions of women on such subjects are
ever aforehand with speech.

And then, sobbing on