it on her, for that I was very much out of order;
and in the end of the discourse I bade her insinuate to them that she
was afraid I should not be able to get ready to go the voyage as soon as
the captain would be obliged to go, and that perhaps we might put it off
to his next voyage. I did not let the Quaker into any other reason for
it than that I was indisposed; and not knowing what other face to put
upon that part, I made her believe that I thought I was a-breeding.

It was easy to put that into her head, and she of course hinted to the
captain's lady that she found me so very ill that she was afraid I would
miscarry, and then, to be sure, I could not think of going.

She went, and she managed that part very dexterously, as I knew she
would, though she knew not a word of the grand reason of my
indisposition; but I was all sunk and dead-hearted again when she told
me she could not understand the meaning of one thing in her visit,
namely, that the young woman, as she called her, that was with the
captain's lady, and who she called sister, was most impertinently
inquisitive into things; as who I was? how long I had been in England?
where I had lived? and the like; and that, above all the rest, she
inquired if I did not live once at the other end of the town.

"I thought her inquiries so out of the way," says the honest Quaker,
"that I gave her not the least satisfaction; but as I saw by thy answers
on board the ship, when she talked of thee, that thou didst not incline
to let her be acquainted with thee, so I was resolved that she should
not be much the wiser for me; and when she asked me if thou ever
lived'st here or there, I always said, No, but that thou wast a Dutch
lady, and was going home again to thy family, and lived abroad."

I thanked her very heartily for that part, and indeed she served me in
it more than I let her know she did: in a word, she thwarted the girl so
cleverly, that if she had known the whole affair she could not have
done it better.

But, I must acknowledge, all this put me upon the rack again, and I was
quite discouraged, not at all doubting but that the jade had a right
scent of things, and that she knew and remembered my face, but had
artfully concealed her knowledge of me till she might perhaps do it more
to my disadvantage. I told all this to Amy, for she was all the relief I
had. The poor soul (Amy) was ready to hang herself, that, as she said,
she had been the occasion of it all; an