We talked over former affairs, and she brought many scenes of my early youth strongly to recollection. On inquiry, she told me she had apprenticed her son to a printer; that till this period she had fed, clothed, and educated him by her own industry; and that he was now likely to be no longer burthensome to her, being an apt and industrious boy, and already capable of supplying himself with clothes by his over-work.
I farther learnt, from her discourse, that she lived with a young lady, whom she affectionately loved; and there was something mysterious occasionally in her phrases, that led me to imagine her mistress had been unfortunate. 'She had been a kind mistress to her; she loved her in her heart. Poor young lady! she did not deserve the mishaps she had met with; and it was a shame that some men should be so base as they were: but, though all the world should turn their back on her, she would not be so wicked. Poor women were born to be misused, by false-hearted men; and, if they had no pity for one another, what must become of them?'
I asked if she had lived with the lady long? She answered, that first and last she had known her ever since she left Mr. Elford's service.
'What! Was she of our county?'
'Yea.'
'Was I acquainted with her?'
Mary hesitated, and my curiosity was rouzed—'What was the lady's name?'
'Miss Lydia Wilmot.'
'Wilmot? Wilmot? Surely, not Miss Wilmot, the niece of the bishop of ——?'
'No, no,' said Mary, ''a's not his niece, 'a has better blood in her veins; thof mayhap 'a may have had her failings. God help us! who is without 'em? A bishop? Lord ha' mercy on us! No Christian soul could have believed there was so much wickedness in the world!'