was born, and I
mourned heartily for the disaster of the family, and I always said, if
ever I was worth anything in the world, I would take the child for my
own, and I'll be as good as my word now, though I did not then foresee
that it would be with me as it has been since." And so Amy told him a
long story how she was troubled for me, and what she would give to hear
whether I was dead or alive, and what circumstances I was in; that if
she could but find me, if I was ever so poor, she would take care of me,
and make a gentlewoman of me again.

He told her that, as to the child's mother, she had been reduced to the
last extremity, and was obliged (as he supposed she knew) to send the
children all among her husband's friends; and if it had not been for
him, they had all been sent to the parish; but that he obliged the other
relations to share the charge among them; that he had taken two, whereof
he had lost the eldest, who died of the smallpox, but that he had been
as careful of this as of his own, and had made very little difference in
their breeding up, only that when he came to put him out he thought it
was best for the boy to put him to a trade which he might set up in
without a stock, for otherwise his time would be lost; and that as to
his mother, he had never been able to hear one word of her, no, not
though he had made the utmost inquiry after her; that there went a
report that she had drowned herself, but that he could never meet with
anybody that could give him a certain account of it.

Amy counterfeited a cry for her poor mistress; told him she would give
anything in the world to see her, if she was alive; and a great deal
more such-like talk they had about that; then they returned to speak of
the boy.

He inquired of her why she did not seek after the child before, that he
might have been brought up from a younger age, suitable to what she
designed to do for him.

She told him she had been out of England, and was but newly returned
from the East Indies. That she had been out of England, and was but
newly returned, was true, but the latter was false, and was put in to
blind him, and provide against farther inquiries; for it was not a
strange thing for young women to go away poor to the East Indies, and
come home vastly rich. So she went on with directions about him, and
both agreed in this, that the boy should by no means be told what was
intended for him, but only that he should be taken home again to his