accompany her, she should have fine clothes. Elizabeth
refused, and the woman taking a knife from a dresser, cut open her
stays, and removed them. The woman and the other people present then
hustled her up stairs into a wretched garret, and locked the door. She
found here a miserable straw-bed, a large black pitcher nearly full of
water, and twenty-four pieces of bread, seeming as if a quartern-loaf
had been cut in so many pieces. Her story went on to say, that she
remained in this place for four weeks, eating so much of the bread and
drinking a little water daily, till both were exhausted. She then
succeeded in making her escape, by removing a board which was nailed
across a window. 'First,' she said, 'I got my head out, and kept fast
hold of the wall, and got my body out; after that, I turned myself
round, and jumped into a little narrow place by a lane, with a field
beside it. Having nothing on but 'an old sort of a bedgown and a
handkerchief, that were in this hay-loft, and lay in a grate in the
chimney,' she managed to travel twelve miles through an unknown
country to her mother's house, not daring, as she said, to call at any
place by the way, lest she should again fall into the hands of her
persecutors.

If Elizabeth's absence created excitement, her reappearance in the
plight she was in, and with such a story to tell, increased it
tenfold. She was an attractive-looking girl; and seeing the sympathy
she excited, had no objection to assent to the theory formed by her
friends, that the people in whose hands she had fallen had the basest
designs upon her; that they had resolved to conquer her virtue by
imprisonment and starvation; and that she had magnanimously and
patiently resisted all their efforts. The story was hawked about
everywhere. It was spoken of in every tavern and at every
dinner-table. The indignation of many respectable citizens was roused.
They were parents, and had daughters of their own, who might be made
the victims of the diabolical crew from which this poor girl had
escaped. Many of them resolved to rally round her--avenge her wrongs,
and punish the perpetrators. Elizabeth found herself one of the most
important people in London. She received many presents, and
considerable funds were raised to prosecute the inquiry. In these
circumstances, she was bound of course to assist her friends by
remembering every little incident that could lead them to the place of
her sufferings. She believed that it