ile wretches.

'This account I thought myself obliged to give, that you might the less
wonder at seeing a young creature rushing through your shop, into your
back apartment, all trembling and out of breath; an ordinary garb over my
own; craving lodging and protection; only giving my bare word, that you
should be handsomely paid: all my effects contained in a
pocket-handkerchief.

'My sudden absence, for three days and nights together when arrested,
must still further surprise you: and although this gentleman, who,
perhaps, knows more of the darker part of my story, than I do myself, has
informed you (as you, Mrs. Lovick, tell me) that I am only an unhappy,
not a guilty creature; yet I think it incumbent upon me not to suffer
honest minds to be in doubt about my character.

'You must know, then, that I have been, in one instance (I had like to
have said but in one instance; but that was a capital one) an undutiful
child to the most indulgent of parents: for what some people call cruelty
in them, is owing but to the excess of their love, and to their
disappointment, having had reason to expect better from me.

'I was visited (at first, with my friends connivance) by a man of birth
and fortune, but of worse principles, as it proved, than I believed any
man could have. My brother, a very headstrong young man, was absent at
that time; and, when he returned, (from an old grudge, and knowing the
gentleman, it is plain, better than I knew him) entirely disapproved of
his visits: and, having a great sway in our family, brought other
gentlemen to address me: and at last (several having been rejected) he
introduced one extremely disagreeable: in every indifferent person's eyes
disagreeable. I could not love him. They all joined to compel me to
have him; a rencounter between the gentleman my friends were set against,
and my brother, having confirmed them all his enemies.

'To be short; I was confined, and treated so very hardly, that, in a rash
fit, I appointed to go off with the man they hated. A wicked intention,
you'll say! but I was greatly provoked. Nevertheless, I repented, and
resolved not to go off with him: yet I did not mistrust his honour to me
neither; nor his love; because nobody thought me unworthy of the latter,
and my fortune was not to be despised. But foolishly (wickedly and
contrivingly, as my friends still think, with a design, as they imagine,
to abandon them) giving him a private meeting, I was trick