"O madam," says Amy, "I'd do anything to get you out of this sad condition; as to honesty, I think honesty out of the question when starving is the case-are not we almost starved to death ?"

"I am indeed," said I, "and thou art for my sake; but to be a whore, Amy!" and there I stopped.

"Dear madam," says Amy, "if I will starve for your sake, I will be a whore, or anything, for your sake-why, I would die for you, if I were put to it."

"Why, that's an excess of affection, Amy," said 1, "I never met with before; I wish I may be ever in a condition to make you some returns suitable. But however, Amy, you shall not be a whore to him, to oblige him to be kind to me;no, Amy, nor I won't be a whore to him, if he would give me much more than he is able to give me, or do for me.

"Why, madam," says Amy, "I don't say I will go and ask him; but I say, if he should promise to do so and so for you, and the condition was such that he would not serve you unless I would let him lie with me, he should lie with me as often as he would rather than you should not have his assistance. But this is but talk, madam; I don't see any need of such discourse, and you are of opinion that there will be no need of it." "Indeed so I am, Amy; but," said I, "if there were, I tell you again, I'd die before I would consent, or before you should consent for my sake."

Hitherto I had not only preserved the virtue itself, but the virtuous inclination and resolution; and had I kept myself there, I had been happy, though I had perished of mere hunger; for without question, a woman ought rather to die than to prostitute her virtue and honour, let the temptation be what it will.

But to return to my story: he walked about the garden, which was, indeed, all in disorder, and overrun with weeds, because I had not been able to hire a gardener to do anything to it, no not so much as to dig up ground enough to sow a few turnips and carrots for family use. After he had viewed it, he came in, and sent Amy to fetch a poor man, a gardener, that used to help our man-servant, and carried him into the garden, and ordered him to do several things in it, to put it into a little order; and this took him up near an hour.

By this time I had dressed me as well as I could, for though I had good linen left still, yet I had but a poor head-dress, and no knots, but old fragments; no necklace, no ear-rings; all those things were gone long ago for mere bread. However, I was tight and clean, and in better plight than he had seen me in a great while, and he looked extremely pleased to see me so; for he said I looked so disconsolate and so afflicted before, that it grieved him to see me; and he bid me pluck up a good heart, for he hoped to put me in a condition to live in the world, and be beholden to nobody.

I told him that was impossible, for I must be beholden to him or it, for all the friends I had in the world would not or could not do so much for me as that he spoke of. "Well, widow," says he, so he called me, and so indeed I was, in the worst

sense that desolate word could be used in, "if you are beholden to me, you shall be beholden to nobody else.'

By this time dinner was ready, and Amy came in to lay the cloth, and indeed it was happy there was none to dine but he and I, for I had but six plates left in the house, and but two dishes; however, he knew how things were, and bid me make no scruple about bringing out what I had. He hoped to see me in a better plight. He did not come, he said, to be entertained, but to entertain me, and comfort and encourage me. Thus he went on, speaking so cheerfully to me, and such cheerful things, that it was a cordial to my very soul to hear him speak.

Well, we went to dinner: I am sure I had not eaten a good meal hardly in a twelvemonth, at least-not of such a joint of meat as the loin of veal was I ate, indeed, very heartily, and so did he, and made me drink three or four glasses of wine. In short, my spirits were lifted up to a degree I had not been used to, and I was not only cheerful but merry, and so he pressed me to be. I told him I had a great deal of reason to be merry, seeing he had been so kind to me, and had given me hopes of recovering me from the worst circumstances that ever woman of any sort of fortune was sunk into; that he could not believe but what he had said to me was like life from the dead; that it was like recovering one sick from the brink of the grave; how I should ever make him a return in any way suitable, was what I had not yet had time to think of; I could only say that I should never forget it while I had life, and should be always ready to acknowledge it.

He said that was all he desired of me, that his utmost reward would be the satisfaction of having rescued me from misery; that he found he was obliging one that knew what gratitude meant; that he would make it his business to make me completely easy, first or last, if it lay in his power; and in the meantime, he bid me consider of anything that I thought he might do for me, for my advantage, and in order to make me perfectly easy.

After we had talked thus, he bid me be cheerful. "Come," says he, "lay aside these melancholy things, and let us be merry." Amy waited at the table, and she smiled and laughed, and was so merry she could hardly contain it, for the girl loved me to an excess hardly to be described; and it was such an unexpected thing to hear any one talk to her mistress, that the wench was beside herself almost, and as soon as dinner was over, Amy went up stairs, and put on her best clothes too, and came down dressed like a gentlewoman.

We sat together talking of a thousand things, of what had been, and what was to be, all the rest of the day, and in the evening he took his leave of me, with a thousand expressions of kindness and tenderness, and true affection to me, but offered not the least of what my maid Amy had suggested.

At his going away he took me in his arms, protesting an honest kindness to me; said a thousand kind things to me, which I cannot now recollect; and after kissing me twenty times or thereabouts, put a guinea into my hand, which he said was

for my present supply, and told me that he would see me again before it was out; he also gave Amy half-a-crown.

When he was gone, "Well, Amy," said I, “are you convinced now that he is an honest as well as a true friend, and that there has been nothing, not the least appearance of anything, of what you imagined in his behaviour."___" Yes," says Amy, "I am, but I admire at it; he is such a friend as the world sure has not abundance of to show."

"I am sure," says I, "he is such a friend as I have long wanted, and as I have as much need of as any creature in the world has, or ever had;" and, in short, I was so overcome with the comfort of it, that I sat down and cried for joy a good while, as I had formerly cried for sorrow. Amy and I went to bed that night (for Amy lay with me) pretty early, but lay chatting almost all night about it, and the girl was so transported that she got up two or three times in the night and danced about the room in her shift; in short, the girl was half distracted with the joy of it; a testimony still of her violent affection for her mistress, in which no servant ever went beyond her.

We heard no more of him for two days, but the third day he came again; then he told me, with the same kindness, that he had ordered me a supply of household goods for the furnishing the house; that in particular he had sent me back all the goods that he had seized for rent, which consisted, indeed, of the best of my former furniture; "and now," says he, "I'll tell you what I have in my head for you for your present supply, and that is," says he, "that the house being well furnished, you shall let it out to lodgings for the summer gentry, by which you will easily get a good comfortable subsistence, especially seeing you shall pay me no rent for two years, nor after neither, unless you can afford it."

This was the first view I had of living comfortably indeed, and it was a very probable way, I must confess, seeing we had very good conveniences, six rooms on a floor, and three stories high. While he was laying down the scheme of my management came a cart to the door with a load of goods, and an upholsterer's man to put them up; they were chiefly the furniture of two rooms which he had carried away for his two years' rent, with two fine cabinets, and some pier glasses out of the parlour, and several other valuable things.

These were all restored to their places, and he told me he gave them me freely as a satisfaction for the cruelty he had used me with before; and the furniture of one room being furnished and set up, he told me he would furnish one chamber for himself, and would come and be one of my lodgers, if I would give him leave.

dined together again of his own providing; and when the upholsterer's man was gone, after dinner, took me by the hand; "Come now, madam," says he, "you must show me your house," (for he had a mind to see everything over again). No, sir," said I, "but I'll go show you your house, if you please;" so we went up through all the rooms, and in the room which was appointed for himself, Amy was doing something; "Well, Amy," says he, I intend to lie with you to morrow night." " To-night, if you please, sir," says Amy, very innocently, "your room is quite ready." Well, Amy," says he, "I am glad you are so willing." "No," says Amy, I mean your chamber is ready to-night," and away she run out of the room ashamed enough; for the girl meant no harm, whatever she had said to me in private.

However he said no more then; but when Amy was gone he walked about the room and looked at everything, and taking me by the hand he kissed me, and spoke a great many kind affec tionate things to me indeed; as of his measures for my advantage, and what he would do to raise me again in the world; told me that my afflictions, and the conduct I had shown in bearing them to such an extremity, had so engaged him to me, that he valued me infinitely above all the women in the world; that though he was under such engagements that he could not marry me (his wife and he had been parted for some reasons, which make too long a story to intermix with mine), yet that he would be everything else that a woman could ask in a husband; and with that he kissed me again and took me in his arms, but offered not the least uncivil action to me, and told me he hoped I would not deny him all the favours he should ask, because he resolved to ask nothing of me but what was fit for a woman of virtue and modesty, for such he knew me to be, to yield.

I confess the terrible pressure of my former misery, the memory of which lay heavy upon my mind, and the surprising kindness with which he had delivered me, and withal, the expectations of what he might still do for me, were powerful things, and made me have scarce the power to deny him anything he would ask; however, I told him thus, with an air of tenderness too, that he had done so much for me, that I thought I ought to deny him nothing; only I hoped and depended upon him, that he would not take the advantage of the infinite obligations I was under to him to desire anything of me, the yielding to which would lay me lower in his esteem than I desired to be; that as I took him to be a man of honour, so I knew he could not like me the better for doing anything that was below a woman of honesty and good manners to do.

When all was done to his mind, as to placing the goods, he seemed very well pleased, and we

cessity before, nor ask anything, supposing he would stop his favours or withdraw his kindness, if he was denied; it was true, he said, he might tell me more freely his mind now than before, seeing I had let him see that I accepted bis

"Not ask you," says Amy, "depend upon it || he will ask you, and you will grant it too; I am sure my mistress is no fool; come, pray madam, let me go air you a clean shift; do not let him find you in foul linen the wedding night."

"But that I know you to be a very honest girl, Amy," says I, "you would make me abhor you; why, you argue for the devil, as if you were one of his privy counsellors."

"It is no matter for that," says Amy," I say nothing but what I think; you own you love this gentleman, and he has given you sufficient testimony of his affection to you; your conditions are alike unhappy, and he is of opinion that he may take another woman, his first wife having broke her honour, and living from him: and that though the laws of the land will not allow him to marry formally, yet that he may take another woman into his arms, provided he keeps true to the other woman as a wife; nay, he says it is usual to do so, and allowed by the custom of the place, in several countries abroad; and, I must own, I am of the same mind; else it is in the power of a whore, after she has jilted and abandoned her husband, to confine him from the pleasure as well as convenience of a woman all the days of his life, which would be very unreasonable, and, as things go, not tolerable to all people; and the like on your side, madam."

Had I now had my senses about me, and had my reason not been overcome by the powerful attraction of so kind, so beneficent a friend; had I consulted conscience and virtue, I should have repelled this Amy, however faithful and honest to me in other things, as a viper and engine to the devil; I ought to have remembered, that neither he or I, either by the laws of God or man, could come together upon any other terms than that of notorious adultery. The ignorant jade's argument, that he had brought me out of the hands of the devil, by which she meant the devil of poverty and distress, should have been a powerful motive to me not to plunge myself into the jaws of hell, and into the power of the real devil, in recompense for the deliverance. I should have looked upon all the good this man had done for me to have been the particular work of the goodness of Heaven, and that goodness should have moved me to a return of duty and obedience; I should have received the mercy thankfully, and applied it soberly to the praise and honour of my Maker; whereas, by this wicked course, all the bounty and kindness of this gentleman became a snare to me, was a mere bait to the devil's hook; I received his kindness at the dear expense of body and soul, mortgaging faith, religion, conscience, and modesty, for (as I may call it) a morsel of bread; or if you will, ruined my soul from a principle of gratitude, and gave myself up to the devil, to shew myself grateful to my benefactor. I must do the gentleman that justice as to say, I verily believe that he did nothing but what he thought lawful; and I must do that justice upon myself as to say, I did what my own conscience convinced me, at the very time I did it, was horribly unlawful, scandalous, and abominable.

But poverty was my share; dreadful poverty! The misery I had been in was great, such as would make the heart tremble at the apprehen

sions of its return; and I might appeal to any that has had any experience of the world, whether one so entirely destitute as I was of all manner of help, or friends, either to support me or to assist me to support myself, could withstand the proposal, not that I plead this as a justification of my conduct, but that it may move the pity even of those that abhor the crime.

Besides this, I was young, handsome, and, with all the mortifications I had met with, was vain, and that not a little; and, as it was a new thing, so it was a pleasant thing to be courted, caressed, embraced, and high professions of affection made to me, by a man so agreeable and so able to do me good.

Add to this, that if I had ventured to disoblige this gentleman, I had no friend in the world to have recourse to; I had no prospect, no, not of a bit of bread; I had nothing before me but to fall back into the same misery that I had been in before.

Amy had but too much rhetoric in this cause, she represented all those things in their proper colours, she argued them all with her utmost skill, and at last the merry jade, when she came to dress me, said, "Look you, madam, if you will not consent, tell him you will do as Rachael did to Jacob, when she could have no children, put her maid to bed to him; tell him you cannot comply with him, but there is Amy, he may ask her the question, she has promised me she will not deny you."

"And would you have me say so, Amy?" said I. "No, madam, but I would really have you do so, besides, you are undone if you do not; and if my doing it would save you from being undone, as I said before, he shall, if he will; if he asks me I will not deny him, hang me if I do," says Amy.

Well, I know not what to do," says Ito Amy. "Do!" says Amy; "your choice is fair and plain; here you may have a handsome, charming gentleman, be rich, live pleasantly, and in plenty, or refuse him, and want a dinner, go in rags, live in tears, in short, beg and starve; you know this is the case, madam," says Amy," I wonder how you can say you know not what to do.

"Well, Amy," says 1, "the case is as you say, and I think verily I must yield to him; but then," said I, moved by conscience, " do not talk any more of your cant, of its being lawful that I ought to marry again, and such stuff as that; it is all nonsense," says I, Amy, there is nothing in it, let me hear no more of that, for if I yield, it is in vain to mince the matter; I am a whore, Amy, neither better nor worse, I assure you.

as I am."

"As to that, madam, you may depend," says

23

Amy, "he expects to have you for his bed-fellow to-night; I saw it plainly in his management all day, and at last he told you so too as plain, I think, as he could."—" Well, well, Amy," said I, "I do not know how to resist such a man that has done so much for me.""I do not know how you should," says Amy.

Thus Amy and I canvassed the business between us; the jade prompted the crime, which I had but too much inclination to commnt, that is to say, not as a crime, for I had nothing of the vice in my constitution; my spirits were far from being high, my blood had no fire in it to kindle the flame of desire; but the kindness and good humour of the man, and the dread of my own circumstances, concurred to bring me to the point, and I even resolved, before he asked, to give up my virtue to him, whenever he should put it to the question.

In this I was a double offender, whatever he was, for I was resolved to commit the crime, knowing and owning it to be a crime; he, if it was true as he said, was fully persuaded it was lawful, and in that persuasion he took his measures, and used all the circumlocutions which I am going to speak of.

About two hours after he was gone, came a Leadenhall basket woman, with a load of good things for the mouth, the particulars are not to the purpose, and brought orders to get supper by eight o'clock; however, I did not intend to begin to dress anything till I saw him; and he gave me time enough, for he came before seven, so that Amy, who had got one to help her, had everything ready in time.

We sat down to supper about eight, and were indeed very merry; Amy made us some sport, for she was a girl of spirit and wit, and with her talk she made us laugh very often, and yet the jade managed her wit with all the good manners imaginable.

But to shorten the story; after supper he took me up into his chamber, where Amy had made a good fire, and there pulled out a great many papers, and spread them upon a little table, and then took me by the hand, and after kissing me very much, he entered into a discourse of his circumstances, and of mine, how they agreed in some things exactly, for example, that I was abandoned by a husband in the prime of my youth and vigour, and he by a wife in his middle age, how the end of marriage was destroyed by the treatment we had either of us received, and it would be very hard that we should be tied by the formality of the contract, where the essence of it was destroyed; I interrupted him, and told him there was a vast difference between our circumstances, and that in the most essential part, namely, that he was rich and I was poor, that he was above the world, and I infinitely below it; that his circumstances were very easy, mine miserable, and this was an inequality the most essential that could be imagined. "As to that, my dear," says he, "I have taken such measures as shall make an equality still," and with that he showed me a contract in writing, wherein he engaged himself to me to cohabit constantly with me, to provide for me in all respects as a wife; and repeating in the preamble a long account of the nature and reason of our living to

||gether, and an obligation in the penalty of 7,000%. never to abandon me; and at last showed me a bond for 500l., to be paid to me, or to my assigns, within three months after his death.

He read over these things to me, and then, in a most moving, affectionate manner, and in words not to be answered, he said, Now, my dear, is not this sufficient? can you object anything against it? If not, as I believe you will not, then let us debate this matter no longer." With that he pulled out a silk purse, which had threescore guineas in it, and threw it into my lap, and concluded all the rest of his discourse with kisses and protestations of his love, of which indeed I had abundant proof.

Pity human frailty, you that read of a woman reduced in her youth and prime to the utmost misery and distress, and raised again as above, by the unexpected and surprising bounty of a stranger; I say pity her if she was not able, after all these things, to make any more resistance.

However, I stood out a little longer still; I asked him how he could, with any show of reason, expect that I should come into a proposal of such consequence the very first time it was moved to me? and that I ought, if I consented to it, to capitulate with him, that he should never upbraid me with easiness, and consenting too soon. He said, no; but on the contrary he would take it as a mark of the greatest kindness I could shew him. Then he went on to give reasons why there was no occasion to use the ordinary ceremony of delay, or to wait a reasonable time of courtship, which was only to avoid scandal; but, as this was private, it had nothing of that nature in it; that he had been courting me some time, by the best of courtship, viz. doing acts of kindness to me; and that he had given testimonies of his sincere affection to me, by deeds, not by flattering trifles, and the usual courtship of words, which were often found to have very little meaning; that he took me not as a mistress, but as a wife, and protested it was clear to him he might lawfully do it, and that I was perfectly at liberty; and assured me, by all that was possible for an honest man to say, that he would treat me as a wife as long as he lived; in a word, he conquered all the little resistance I intended to make; he protested he loved me above all the world, and begged I would for once believe him; that he had never deceived me, and never would, but would make it his study to make my life comfortable and happy, and to make me forget the misery I had gone through. I stood still awhile and said nothing, but seeing him eager for my answer, I smiled, and looking up at him-" And must I then," said I, “ say yes, at first asking? must I depend upon your promise? why, then," says I, " upon the faith of that promise, and in the sense of that inexpressible kindness you have shown to me, you shall be obliged, and I am wholly yours to the end of my life; and with that I took his hand, which held me by the hand, and gave it a kiss.

And thus, in gratitude for the favours I re||ceived from a man, was all sense of religion and duty to God, all regard to virtue and honour, given up at once, and we were to call one another man and wife, who, in the sense of the laws, both of God and our country, were no more than two