the #5 a year to her for my little boy as long as I was able, but
at last was obliged to put a stop to it. However, I had written
a letter to her, wherein I had told her that my circumstances
were reduced very low; that I had lost my husband, and that I
was not able to do it any longer, and so begged that the poor
child might not suffer too much for its mother’s misfortunes.
I now made her a visit, and I found that she drove something
of the old trade still, but that she was not in such flourishing
circumstances as before; for she had been sued by a certain
gentleman who had had his daughter stolen from him, and who,
it seems, she had helped to convey away; and it was very
narrowly that she escaped the gallows. The expense also had
ravaged her, and she was become very poor; her house was
but meanly furnished, and she was not in such repute for her
practice as before; however, she stood upon her legs, as they
say, and a she was a stirring, bustling woman, and had some
stock left, she was turned pawnbroker, and lived pretty well.
She received me very civilly, and with her usual obliging
manner told me she would not have the less respect for me for
my being reduced; that she had taken care my boy was very
well looked after, though I could not pay for him, and that the
woman that had him was easy, so that I needed not to trouble
myself about him till I might be better able to do it effectually.
I told her that I had not much money left, but that I had some
things that were money’s worth, if she could tell me how I
might turn them into money. She asked me what it was I had.
I pulled out the string of gold beads, and told her it was one
of my husband’s presents to me; then I showed her the two
parcels of silk, which I told her I had from Ireland, and brought
up to town with me; and the little diamond ring. As to the
small parcel of plate and spoons, I had found means to dispose
of them myself before; and as for the childbed-linen I had, she
offered me to take it herself, believing it to have been my own.
She told me that she was turned pawnbroker, and that she
would sell those things for me as pawn to her; and so she sent
presently for proper agents that bought them, being in her
hands, without any scruple, and gave good prices too.
I now began to think this necessary woman might help me a
little in my low condition to some business, for I would gladly
have turned my hand to any honest employment if I could have
got it. But here she was deficient; honest business did not
come within her reach. If I had been younger, perhaps she
might have helped me to a spark, but my thoughts were off
that kind of livelihood, as being quite out of the way after fifty,
which was my case, and so I told her.
She invited me at last to come, and be at her house till I could
find something to do, and it should cost me very little, and this
I gladly accepted of. And now living a little easier, I entered
into some measures to have my little son by my last husband
taken off; and this she made easy too, reserving a payment
only of #5 a year, if I could pay it. This was such a help to me,
that for a good while I left off the wicked trade that I had so
newlytaken up; and gladly I would have got my bread by the
help of my needle if I could have got work, but that was very
hard to do for one that had no manner of acquaintance in the
world.
However, at last I got some quilting work for ladies’ beds,
petticoats, and the like; and this I liked very well, and worked