y good Quaker to me.

When I had her, I durst ask her no questions, nor hardly knew which end
of the business to begin to talk of; but of her own accord she told me
that the girl had been three or four times haunting her for news from
me; and that she had been so troublesome that she had been obliged to
show herself a little angry with her; and at last told her plainly that
she need give herself no trouble in searching after me by her means, for
she (the Quaker) would not tell her if she knew; upon which she
refrained awhile. But, on the other hand, she told me it was not safe
for me to send my own coach for her to come in, for she had some reason
to believe that she (my daughter) watched her door night and day; nay,
and watched her too every time she went in and out; for she was so bent
upon a discovery that she spared no pains, and she believed she had
taken a lodging very near their house for that purpose.

I could hardly give her a hearing of all this for my eagerness to ask
for Amy; but I was confounded when she told me she had heard nothing of
her. It is impossible to express the anxious thoughts that rolled about
in my mind, and continually perplexed me about her; particularly I
reproached myself with my rashness in turning away so faithful a
creature that for so many years had not only been a servant but an
agent; and not only an agent, but a friend, and a faithful friend too.

Then I considered too that Amy knew all the secret history of my life;
had been in all the intrigues of it, and been a party in both evil and
good; and at best there was no policy in it; that as it was very
ungenerous and unkind to run things to such an extremity with her, and
for an occasion, too, in which all the fault she was guilty of was owing
to her excessive care for my safety, so it must be only her steady
kindness to me, and an excess of generous friendship for me, that should
keep her from ill-using me in return for it; which ill-using me was
enough in her power, and might be my utter undoing.

These thoughts perplexed me exceedingly, and what course to take I
really did not know. I began, indeed, to give Amy quite over, for she
had now been gone above a fortnight, and as she had taken away all her
clothes, and her money too, which was not a little, and so had no
occasion of that kind to come any more, so she had not left any word
where she was gone, or to which part of the world I might send to hear
of her.

And I was trou