easy; and indeed the maid’s behaviour spoke for itself, for a
modester, quieter, soberer girl never came into anybody’s family,
and I found her so afterwards.
As soon as I was well enough to go abroad, I went with the
maid to see the house, and to see the apartment I was to have;
and everything was so handsome and so clean and well, that,
in short, I had nothing to say, but was wonderfully pleased
and satisfied with what I had met with, which, considering
the melancholy circumstances I was in, was far beyond what
I looked for.
It might be expected that I should give some account of the
nature of the wicked practices of this woman, in whose hands
I was now fallen; but it would be too much encouragement to
the vice, to let the world see what easy measures were here
taken to rid the women’s unwelcome burthen of a child
clandestinely gotten. This grave matron had several sorts of
practice, and this was one particular, that if a child was born,
though not in her house (for she had occasion to be called to
many private labours), she had people at hand, who for a piece
of money would take the child off their hands, and off from
the hands of the parish too; and those children, as she said,
were honestly provided for and taken care of. What should
become of them all, considering so many, as by her account
she was concerned with, I cannot conceive.
I had many times discourses upon that subject with her; but
she was full of this argument, that she save the life of many an
innocent lamb, as she called them, which would otherwise
perhaps have been murdered; and of many women who, made
desperate by the misfortune, would otherwise be tempted to
destroy their children, and bring themselves to the gallows. I
granted her that this was true, and a very commendable thing,
provided the poor children fell into good hands afterwards,
and were not abused, starved, and neglected by the nurses
that bred them up. She answered, that she always took care
of that, and had no nurses in her business but what were very
good, honest people, and such as might be depended upon.
I could say nothing to the contrary, and so was obliged to say,
‘Madam, I do not question you do your part honestly, but what
those people do afterwards is the main question’; and she
stopped my mouth again with saying that she took the utmost
care about it.
The only thing I found in all her conversation on these subjects
that gave me any distaste, was, that one time in discouraging
about my being far gone with child, and the time I expected
to come, she said something that looked as if she could help
me off with my burthen sooner, if I was willing; or, in English,
that she could give me something to make me miscarry, if I
had a desire to put an end to my troubles that way; but I soon
let her see that I abhorred the thoughts of it; and, to do her
justice, she put it off so cleverly, that I could not say she really
intended it, or whether she only mentioned the practice as a
horrible thing; for she couched her words so well, and took my
meaning so quickly, that she gave her negative before I could
explain myself.
To bring this part into as narrow a compass as possible, I quitted
my lodging at St. Jones’s and went to my new governess, for
so they called her in the house, and there I was indeed treated
with so much courtesy, so carefully looked to, so handsomely
provided, and everything so well, that I was surprised at it, and
could not at first see what advantage my governess made of it;
but I found afterwards that she professed to make no profit of
lodgers’ diet, nor indeed could she get much by it, but that
her profit lay in the other articles of her management, and she
made enough that way, I assure you; for ’tis scarce credible
what practice she had, as well abroad as at home, and yet all