gone no farther, Amy had richly deserved what she had; for never was a maid so true to a mistress

But I was quite of another side, nay, and my judgment was right, but my circumstances were my temptation; the terrors behind me looked blacker than the terrors before me; and the dreadful argument of wanting bread, and being run into the horrible distresses I was in before, mastered all my resolution, and I gave myself up as above.

The rest of the evening was spent very agreeably to me; he was perfectly good humoured, and was at that time merry; then he made Amy dance with him, and I told him I would put Amy to bed to him. Amy said, with all her heart, she never had been a bride in her life; in short, he made the girl so merry that had he not been to lie with me the same night I believe he would have played the fool with Amy for half an hour, and the girl would no more have refused him than I intended to do; yet before I had always found her a very modest wench as any I ever saw in all my life; but, in short, the mirth of that night, and a few more such afterwards, ruined the girl's modesty for ever, as shall appear by and by in its place.

So far does fooling and toying sometimes go, that I know nothing a young woman has to be more cautious of; so far had this innocent girl gone in jesting between her and I, and in talking that she would let him lie with her, if he would but be kinder to me, that at last she let him lie with her in earnest; and so empty was I now of all principle, that I encouraged the doing it almost before my face.

I say but too justly that I was empty of principle, because as above I had yielded to him, not as deluded to believe it lawful, but as overcome by his kindness, and terrified at the fear of my own misery if he should leave me. So, with my eyes open, and with my conscience, as I may say, awake, I sinned, knowing it to be a sin, but having no power to resist. When this had thus made a hole in my heart, and I was come to such a height as to transgress against the light of my own conscience, I was then fit for any wickedness, and conscience left off speaking when it found it could not be heard.

But, to return to our story. Having consented as above to his proposal, we had not much more to do. He gave me my writings, and the bond for my maintenance during his life, and for five hundred pounds after his death. And so far was he from abating his affection to me afterwards, that two years after we were thus, as he called it, married, he made his will, and gave me a thousand pounds more, and all my household stuff, plate, &c., which was considerable too.

Amy put us to bed, and my new friend, I cannot call him husband, was so well pleased with Amy for her fidelity and kindness to me, that he paid her all the arrears of her wages that I owed her, and gave her five guineas over; and had it

We lived, surely, the most agreeable life, the grand exception only excepted, that ever two lived together. He was the most obliging gen. tlemanly man, and the most tender of me, that ever woman gave herself up to: nor was there ever the least interruption to our mutual kindness, no, not to the last day of his life. But I must bring Amy's disaster in at once, that I may have done with her.

Amy was dressing me one morning, for now I had two maids, and Amy was my chambermaid. "Dear madam," says Amy, "what, ain't you with !' child yet?"-" No, Amy," says 1, "nor any sign of it."

"Law, madam," says Amy, "what have you been doing? Why, you have been married a year and a half. I warrant you, master would have got me with child twice in that time."—"It may be so, Amy," says I, "let him try, can't you?""6 No," says Amy, "you'll forbid it now; before I told you he should with all my heart; but I won't now, now he's all your own.' "0," says I," Amy, I'll freely give you my consent. It will be nothing at all to me. Nay, I will put you to bed to him myself one night or other, if you are willing."-"No, madam, no," says Amy, "not now he's yours.'

"Why, you fool you," says I, "don't I tell you I'll put you to bed to him myself."-" Nay, nay," says Amy, "if you put me to bed to him, that is another case. I believe I shall not rise again very soon."-" I'll venture that, Amy," says I.

After supper that night, and before we were risen from the table, I said to him, Amy being by, "Hark ye, Mr- -, do you know that you are to lie with Amy to-night?"" No, not ↳ says he; but turns to Amy, "Is it so, Amy?' says he." No, Sir," says she. Nay, don't say no, you fool. Did not I promise to put you to bed to him?" But the girl said "No," stil, and it passed off.

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At night, when we came to go to bed, Amy came into the chamber to undress me, and her master slipped into bed first; then I began, and told him all that Amy had said about my not being with child, and of her being with child twice in that time. Ay, Mrs Amy," says he, "I believe so too: come hither, and we will try.” But Amy did not go. Go, you fool," says L "can't you? I'll freely give you both leave." But Amy would not go. Nay, you whore," says I, "but you said, if I would put you to bed, you would with all your heart." And with that, I sat her down, pulled off her stockings and shoes, and all her clothes, piece by piece, and led her to the bed to him. Here," says I, "try what you can do with your maid Amy." She pulled back a little, would not let me pull off her clothes at

that is to say, the charge, the expense, the travail, &c.

The next year I made him amends, and brought him a son, to his great satisfaction; it was a charming child, and did very well. After this, my husband, as he called himself, came to me one evening, and told me he had a very difficult thing happened to him, which he knew not what to do in, or how to resolve about, unless I would make him easy; this was, that he must go over to France for about two months.

"Well, my dear," says I, "and how shall I make you easy?"

to think we should take up our constant resi dence there, which I was not very averse to, it being my native country, and I spoke the language perfectly well, so that we took a good house in Paris, and lived very well there; and I sent for Amy to come over to me, for I lived gallantly, and my gentleman was two or three times going to keep me a coach, but I declined it, especially at Paris; but as they have those conveniences by the day there, at a certain rate, I had an equipage provided for me whenever I pleased, and I lived here in very good figure, and might have lived higher if I pleased. But in the middle of all this felicity, a dread

I told him the last part was so kind that I could not decline the first part, unless he would give me leave to add, that if it was not putting him to an extraordinary expense, I would go over along with him.

He was so pleased with this offer that he told me he would give me full satisfaction for it, and accept of it too; so he took me to London with him the next day, and there he made his will, and shewed it to me, and sealed it before proper witnesses, and then gave it to me to keep. In this will he gave me a thousand pounds to a person that we both knew very well, in trust, to pay it, with the interest from the time of his decease, to me or my assigns; then he willed the payinent of my jointure, as he called it, viz., his bond of a hundred pounds after his death; also he gave me all my household stuff, plate, &c.

This was a most engaging thing for a man to do to one under my circumstances; and it would have been hard, as I told him, to deny him anything, or to refuse to go with him any where. So we settled everything as well as we could, left Amy in the house, and for his other business, which was in jewels, he had two men he entrusted, whom he had good security for, who managed for him, and corresponded with him.

Things being thus concerted, we went away to France, arrived safe at Calais, and by easy journies came in eight days more to Paris, where we lodged in the house of an English merchant of his acquaintance, and were very courteously entertained.

all my affairs, and threw me back into the same state of life that I was in before; with this one happy exception, however, that whereas before I was poor, even to misery, now I was not only provided for, but very rich.

My gentleman had the name in Paris for a very rich man, and, indeed, he was so, though not so immensely rich as people imagined; but that which was fatal to him, was, he generally carried a shagreen case in his pocket, especially when he went to court, or the houses of any of the princes of the blood, in which he had jewels of very great value.

It happened one day, that being to go to Ver sailles to wait upon the Prince of he came up into my chamber in the morning, and laid out his jewel case, because he was not going to show any jewels, but to get a foreign bill accepted, | which he had received from Amsterdam; so when he gave me the case, he said, "My dear, I think I need not carry this with me, because it may be I may not come back till night, and it is toe much to venture." I returned, "Then, my dear, you shall not go." Why?" says he. "Because, as they are too much for you, so you are too much for me to venture, and you shall not go, unless you will promise me not to stay so as to come back in the night."

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I hope there's no danger," said he, "seeing I have nothing about me of any value; and therefore, lest I should, take that too," says he, and gives me his gold watch, and a rich diamond, which he had in a ring, and always wore on his finger.

"Well, but my dear," says I, "you make me more uneasy now than before: if you apprehend no danger, why do you use this caution? and if you apprehend there is danger, why do you go at all?"

"There is no danger," says he, "if I do not stay late, and I do not design to do so." "Well, but promise me then that you will not," says I, "or else I cannot let you go."

We made this journey much longer than we intended, and my gentleman sent for one of his managers in London to come over to Paris with some diamonds, and sent him back to London again to fetch more; then other business fell into his hands so unexpectedly, that I began

a small diamond ring, worth about ten or twelve pistoles, which he put upon his finger, in the room of the rich one he usually wore.

I still pressed him not to stay late, and he said he would not. "But if I am kept late," says he. 'beyond my expectation, I will stay all night, and come next morning." This seemed a very good

caution; but still my mind was very uneasy about him, and I told him so, and entreated him not to go; I told him I did not know what might be the reason, but that I had a strange terror upon my mind about his going, and that, if he did go, I was persuaded some harm would attend him; he smiled, and returned, Well, my dear, if it should be so, you are now richly provided for, all that I have here I give to you." And with that he takes up the casket or case," Here,” says he, hold your hand, there is a good estate for you in this case; if anything happens to me it is all your own, I give it you for yourself;" and with that he put the casket, the fine ring, and his gold watch al! into my hands, and the key of his scrutoire besides, adding, "And in my scrutoire there is some money, it is all your own."

I started at him as if I was frighted, for I thought all his face looked like a death's head; and then, immediately, I thought I perceived his head all bloody, and then his clothes looked bloody too, and immediately it all went off, and he looked as he really did; immediately I fell a-crying, and hung about him,-"My dear," said I, "I am frighted to death, you shall not go, depend upon it some mischief will befal you." I did not tell him how my vapourish fancy had represented him to me, that I thought was not proper; besides, he would only have laughed at me, and would have gone away with a jest about it; but I pressed him seriously not to go that day, or, if he did, to promise me to come home to Paris again by day-light. He looked a little graver then than he did before, told me he was not apprehensive of the least danger, but if there was, he would either take care to come in the day, or, as he said before, would stay all night.

But all these promises came to nothing, for he was set upon in the open day, and robbed by three men on horseback, masked, as he went; and one of them, who it seems rifled him while the rest stood to stop the coach, stabbed him in the body with a sword, so that he died immediately. He had a footman behind the coach, whom they knocked down with the stock, or butt-end of a carbine. They were supposed to kill him because of the disappointment they met with in not getting his case or casket of diamonds, which they knew he carried about him; and this was supposed, because, after they killed him, they made the coachman drive out of the road a long way over the heath, till they came to a convenient place, where they pulled him out of the coach and searched his clothes more narrowly than they could do while he was alive.

But they found nothing but his little ring, six pistoles, and the value of about seven livres in small moneys.

This was a dreadful blow to me, though I cannot say I was so surprised as I should otherwise have been, for all the while he was gone my mind was oppressed with the weight of my own thoughts, and I was so sure that I should never see him any more, that I think nothing could be like it. The impression was so strong, that I think nothing could make so deep a wound that was imaginary; and I was so dejected and disconsolate, that when I received the news of his disaster, there was no room for any extraordinary alteration in me. I cried all that day, eat nothing,

and only waited, as I might say, to receive the dismal news, which I had brought to me about five o'clock in the afternoon.

I was in a strange country, and though I had a pretty many acquaintances, had but very few friends that I could consult on this occasion. All possible inquiry was made after the rogues that had been thus barbarous, but nothing could be heard of them; nor was it possible that the footman could make any discovery of them by his description, for they knocked him down immediately, so that he knew nothing of what was done afterwards, The coachman was the only man that could say anything, and all his account amounted to no more than this, that one of them had soldier's clothes, but he could not remember the particulars of his mounting, so as to know what regiment he belonged to; and as to their faces, that he could know nothing of, because they had all of them masks on.

I had him buried as decently as the place would permit a protestant stranger to be buried, and made some of the scruples and difficulties on that account easy, by the help of money to a certain person, who went impudently to the curate of the parish of St Sulpitius, in Paris, and told him, that the gentleman that was killed was a catholic; that the thieves had taken from him a cross of gold, set with diamonds, worth 6,000 livres; that his widow was a catholic, and had sent by him 60 crowns to the church of for masses to be said for the repose of his soul. Upon all which, though not one word of it was true, he was buried with all the ceremonies of the Roman church.

I think I almost cried myself to death for him, for I abandoned myself to all the excesses of grief; and indeed I loved him to a degree inexpressible; and considering what kindness he had shown me at first, and how tenderly he had used me to the last, what could I do less?

Then the manner of his death was terrible and frightful to me, and, above all, the strange notices I had of it. I had never pretended to the secondsight, or anything of the kind, but certainly if any one ever had such a thing, I had it at this time, for I saw him as plainly in all those terrible shapes as above-first, as a skeleton, not dead only, but rotten and wasted; secondly, as killed, and his face bloody; and thirdly, his clothes bloody, and all within the space of one minute, or indeed of a very few moments.

These things amazed me, and I was a good while as one stupid; however, after some time I began to recover and look into my affairs. I had the satisfaction not to be left in distress or in danger of poverty. On the contrary, besides what he had put into my hands fairly in his lifetime, which amounted to a very considerable value, I found above 700 pistoles in gold in his scrutoire, of which he had given me the key; and I found foreign bills accepted for about 12,000 livres, so that, in a word, I found myself possessed of almost 10,000l. sterling in a very few days after the disaster.

The first thing I did upon this occasion was to send a letter to my maid, as I still called her, Amy, wherein I gave her an account of my dis. aster, how my husband, as she called him (for I never called him so) vas murdered; and as I did