nt.

Say, repeated Polly, was it your lady that made the first advances, or
was it you, you creature----

If the lady had so much honour, bawled the mother, excuse me, so--Excuse
me, Sir, [confound the old wretch! she had like to have said son!]--If
the lady has so much honour, as we have supposed, she will appear to
vindicate a poor servant, misled, as she has been, by such large
promises!--But I hope, Sir, you will do them both justice: I hope you
will!--Good lack!--Good lack! clapping her hands together, to grant her
every thing she could ask--to indulge her in her unworthy hatred to my
poor innocent house!--to let her go to Hampstead, though your honour told
us, you could get no condescension from her; no, not the least--O Sir, O
Sir--I hope--I hope--if your lady will not come out--I hope you will find
a way to hear this cause in her presence. I value not my doors on such
an occasion as this. Justice I ever loved. I desire you will come to
the bottom of it in clearance to me. I'll be sworn I had no privity in
this black corruption.

Just then we heard the lady's door, unbar, unlock, unbolt----

Now, Sir!

Now, Mr. Lovelace!

Now, Sir! from every encouraging mouth!----

But, O Jack! Jack! Jack! I can write no more!

***

If you must have it all, you must!

Now, Belford, see us all sitting in judgment, resolved to punish the fair
bribress--I, and the mother, the hitherto dreaded mother, the nieces
Sally, Polly, the traitress Dorcas, and Mabell, a guard, as it were, over
Dorcas, that she might not run away, and hide herself:--all
pre-determined, and of necessity pre-determined, from the journey I was
going to take, and my precarious situation with her--and hear her unbolt,
unlock, unbar, the door; then, as it proved afterwards, put the key into
the lock on the outside, lock the door, and put it in her pocket--Will. I
knew, below, who would give me notice, if, while we were all above, she
should mistake her way, and go down stairs, instead of coming into the
dining-room: the street-door also doubly secured, and every shutter to the
windows round the house fastened, that no noise or screaming should be
heard--[such was the brutal preparation]--and then hear her step towards
us, and instantly see her enter among us, confiding in her own innocence;
and with a majesty in her person and manner, that is natural to her; but
which then shone out in all its glory!--Every tongue silent, every eye
awed, every