not
even the pleasure of being enticed into vice.

"I shall not," interrupted Jemima, "lead your imagination into all the
scenes of wretchedness and depravity, which I was condemned to view; or
mark the different stages of my debasing misery. Fate dragged me through
the very kennels of society: I was still a slave, a bastard, a common
property. Become familiar with vice, for I wish to conceal nothing from
you, I picked the pockets of the drunkards who abused me; and proved by
my conduct, that I deserved the epithets, with which they loaded me at
moments when distrust ought to cease.

"Detesting my nightly occupation, though valuing, if I may so use the
word, my independence, which only consisted in choosing the street in
which I should wander, or the roof, when I had money, in which I should
hide my head, I was some time before I could prevail on myself to accept
of a place in a house of ill fame, to which a girl, with whom I had
accidentally conversed in the street, had recommended me. I had been
hunted almost into a fever, by the watchmen of the quarter of the town I
frequented; one, whom I had unwittingly offended, giving the word to
the whole pack. You can scarcely conceive the tyranny exercised by these
wretches: considering themselves as the instruments of the very laws
they violate, the pretext which steels their conscience, hardens their
heart. Not content with receiving from us, outlaws of society (let
other women talk of favours) a brutal gratification gratuitously as a
privilege of office, they extort a tithe of prostitution, and harrass
with threats the poor creatures whose occupation affords not the means
to silence the growl of avarice. To escape from this persecution, I once
more entered into servitude.

"A life of comparative regularity restored my health; and--do not
start--my manners were improved, in a situation where vice sought to
render itself alluring, and taste was cultivated to fashion the person,
if not to refine the mind. Besides, the common civility of speech,
contrasted with the gross vulgarity to which I had been accustomed, was
something like the polish of civilization. I was not shut out from all
intercourse of humanity. Still I was galled by the yoke of service, and
my mistress often flying into violent fits of passion, made me dread
a sudden dismission, which I understood was always the case. I was
therefore prevailed on, though I felt a horror of men, to accept the
offer of a gentle