The next morning, after breakfast was over, my father ordered the carriage, and we drove to Covent Garden to pay a visit to Mrs. Williams and her family. When we arrived at the Garden I led the way to the shop, and found her and her two daughters busy in setting out the fruit and flowers. I asked her the price of some of them, and though she answered me as a stranger, yet I saw that she looked at me very earnestly, but her daughter Jane, having observed me, whispered to her mother:
'I am sure that is the little girl that we took in who was in such distress; I am positive it was her.'
Mrs. Williams again looked at me very intently. I smiled, and said:
'Yes, Mrs. Williams, I am that poor child that you were so kind as to take in and feed and clothe.'
'Bless your sweet face,' said she, 'and so you are; and have you found your friends, and is your father living?'
'Yes, my good friend,' replied my father, 'I am that happy father, and can never be sufficiently grateful to you for befriending my poor child when she was almost dying of cold and hunger.'
Mrs. Williams made many exclamations of joy and surprise at the happy change that had taken place in my situation. We all entered the shop, and, seating ourselves as well as we could, my father gave her a slight detail of the circumstances that had brought me to his knowledge. We stayed with her nearly an hour, and, before leaving the shop, my father obliged her to accept of bank-notes to the amount of a hundred pounds. We then returned to the carriage, and my father ordered the coachman to drive to D—— Street in the borough.
'For,' said he, 'we will now go and make our acknowledgment to Mr. Smith and his wife, for I think it is as proper to reprove them for their barbarity as to reward those who have treated you with kindness.'
When we arrived at the street I pointed out the house, but it was now in a different business. We entered the shop, and on inquiring for Smiths, were told that they had been gone away for some time, for that the husband had given himself up to drinking, and the wife to gambling till they were involved in debt to everybody that would trust them; and at last they had moved away in the night without paying anyone, and it was not known where they were gone to.'
'It is very well,' said my father, 'these people by their bad management and ill conduct have brought a punishment upon themselves. I shall not seek for them any further. It is not my wish to reproach those who are fallen into distress, and that, I think, is likely to be their present state.'