O, I have rings and other valuables. Indeed I have but four guineas, and two of them I found lately wrapt up in a bit of lace, designed for a charitable use. But now, alas! charity begins at home!—But I have one dear friend left, if she be living, as I hope in God she is! to whom I can be obliged, if I want. O Dorcas! I must ere now have heard from her, if I had had fair play.
Well, Madam, your’s is a hard lot. I pity you at my heart!
Thank you, Dorcas!—I am unhappy, that I did not think before, that I might have confided in thy pity, and in thy sex!
I pitied you, Madam, often and often: but you were always, as I thought, diffident of me. And then I doubted not but you were married; and I thought his honour was unkindly used by you. So that I thought it my duty to wish well to his honour, rather than to what I thought to be your humours, Madam. Would to Heaven that I had known before that you were not married!—Such a lady! such a fortune! to be so sadly betrayed;——
Ah, Dorcas! I was basely drawn in! My youth—my ignorance of the world—and I have some things to reproach myself with when I look back.
Lord, Madam, what deceitful creatures are these men!—Neither oaths, nor vows—I am sure! I am sure! [and then with her apron she gave her eyes half a dozen hearty rubs] I may curse the time that I came into this house!
Here was accounting for her bold eyes! And was it not better for Dorcas to give up a house which her lady could not think worse of than she did, in order to gain the reputation of sincerity, than by offering to vindicate it, to make her proffered services suspected.
Poor Dorcas!—Bless me! how little do we, who have lived all our time in the country, know of this wicked town!
Had I been able to write, cried the veteran wench, I should certainly have given some other near relations I have in Wales a little inkling of matters; and they would have saved me from——from——from——
Her sobs were enough. The apprehensions of women on such subjects are ever aforehand with speech.