at pain to get it out; for when she
came first in, my husband was in the room. However, Amy going up to
undress her, I soon made an excuse to follow her, and coming into the
room, "What the d--l is the matter, Amy?" says I; "I am sure you have
some bad news." "News," says Amy aloud; "ay, so I have; I think the d--l
is in that young wench. She'll ruin us all and herself too; there's no
quieting her." So she went on and told me all the particulars; but sure
nothing was so astonished as I was when she told me that the girl knew I
was married, that she knew my husband's name, and would endeavour to
find me out. I thought I should have sunk down at the very words. In the
middle of all my amazement, Amy starts up and runs about the room like a
distracted body. "I must put an end to it, that I will; I can't bear
it--I must murder her, I'll kill the b----;" and swears by her Maker, in
the most serious tone in the world, and then repeated it over three or
four times, walking to and again in the room. "I will, in short, I will
kill her, if there was not another wench in the world."

"Prithee hold thy tongue, Amy," says I; "why, thou art mad." "Ay, so I
am," says she, "stark mad; but I'll be the death of her for all that,
and then I shall be sober again." "But you sha'n't," says I, "you
sha'n't hurt a hair of her head; why, you ought to be hanged for what
you have done already, for having resolved on it is doing it; as to the
guilt of the fact you are a murderer already, as much as if you had done
it already."

"I know that," says Amy, "and it can be no worse; I'll put you out of
your pain, and her too; she shall never challenge you for her mother in
this world, whatever she may in the next." "Well, well," says I, "be
quiet, and do not talk thus, I can't bear it." So she grew a little
soberer after a while.

I must acknowledge, the notion of being discovered carried with it so
many frightful ideas, and hurried my thoughts so much, that I was scarce
myself any more than Amy, so dreadful a thing is a load of guilt upon
the mind.

And yet when Amy began the second time to talk thus abominably of
killing the poor child, of murdering her, and swore by her Maker that
she would, so that I began to see that she was in earnest, I was farther
terrified a great deal, and it helped to bring me to myself again in
other cases.

We laid our heads together then to see if it was possible to discover by
what means she had learned to talk so,