These are very sad ones.

The fitter for me!

You may be very happy yet, Miss, if you will.
I hope I shall.

If you refuse to eat or drink, we will give bail, and take you with us.

Then I will try to eat and drink. Anything but go with you.

Will you not send to your new lodgings? The people will be frighted.

So they will, if I send. So they will, if they know where I am.

But have you no things to send for from thence?

There is what will pay for their lodgings and trouble: I shall not lessen their security.

But perhaps letters or messages may be left for you there.

I have very few friends; and to those I have, I will spare the mortification of knowing what has befallen me.

We are surprised at your indifference, Miss Harlowe. Will you not write to any of your friends?

No.

Why, you don't think of tarrying here always?

I shall not live always.

Do you think you are to stay here as long as you live? That's as it shall please God, and those who have brought me hither.

Should you like to be at liberty?

I am miserable!—what is liberty to the miserable, but to be more miserable !

How miserable, Miss?—You may make yourself as happy as you please.

I hope you are both happy.

We are.

May you be more and more happy!

But we wish you to be so too.

I never shall be of your opinion, I believe, as to what happiness is.

What do you take our opinion of happiness to be?

To live at Mrs. Sinclair's.

Perhaps, said Sally, we were once as squeamish and narrow-minded as you.

How came it over with you?

Because we saw the ridiculousness of prudery.

Do you come hither to persuade me to hate prudery, as you call it, as much as you do?

We came to offer our service to you.

It is out of your power to serve me.

Perhaps not.

It is not in my inclination to trouble you.

You may be worse offered.

Perhaps I may.

You are mighty short, Miss.

As I wish your visit to be, ladies.

They owned to me, that they cracked their fans, and laughed.

Adieu, perverse beauty!

Your servant, ladies.
Adieu, haughty airs!
You see me humbled

As you deserve, Miss Harlowe. Pride will have a fall.

Better fall, with what you call pride, than stand with

meanness.

Who does!

I had once a better opinion of you, Miss Horton !— indeed you should not insult the miserable.

Neither should the miserable, said Sally, insult people for their civility.

I should be sorry if I did.

Mrs. Sinclair shall attend you by-and-by, to know if you have any commands for her.

I have no wish for any liberty, but that of refusing to see her, and one more person.

What we came for, was to know if you had any proposals to make for your enlargement?

Then, it seems, the officer put in. You have very good friends, madam, I understand. Is it not better that you make it up? Charges will run high. A hundred and fifty guineas are easier paid than two hundred. Let these ladies bail you, and go along with them; or write to your friends to make it up.

Sally said, there is a gentleman who saw you taken, and was so much moved for you, Miss Harlowe, that he would gladly advance the money for you, and leave you to pay it when you can.

See, Lovelace, what cursed devils these are! This is the way, we know, that many an innocent heart is thrown upon keeping, and then upon the town. But for these wretches thus to go to work with such an angel as this!— How glad would have been the devilish Sally, to have had the least handle to report to thee a listening ear, or patient spirit, upon this hint!

Sir, said she, with high indignation, to the officer, did not you say last night, that it was as much your business · to protect me from the insults of others, as from escaping? -Cannot I be permitted to see whom I please; and to refuse admittance to those I like not ?

Your creditors, madam, will expect to see you.
Not, if I declare I will not treat with them.
Then, madam, you will be sent to prison.

Prison, friend!—What dost thou call thy house!
Not a prison, madam.

Why these iron-barred windows then? Why these double locks, and bolts all on the outside, none on the in ?

And down she dropped into her chair, and they could not get another word from her. She threw her handker

chief over her face, as once before, which was soon wet with tears; and grievously, they own, she sobbed.

Gentle treatment, Lovelace !-Perhaps thou, as well as these wretches, wilt think it so!

Sally then ordered a dinner, and said, they would soon be back again, and see that she eat and drank, as a good Christian should, comporting herself to her condition, and making the best of it.

After the women had left her, she complained of her head and her heart; and seemed terrified with apprehensions of being carried once more to Sinclair's.

Refusing anything for breakfast, Mrs. Rowland came up to her, and told her (as these wretches owned they had ordered her, for fear she should starve herself) that she must and should have tea, and bread and butter and that, as she had friends who could support her, if she wrote to them, it was a wrong thing, both for herself and them, to starve herself thus.

If it be for your own sakes, said she, that is another thing let coffee, or tea, or chocolate, or what you will, be got and put down a chicken to my account every day, if you please, and eat it yourselves. I will taste it, if I can. I would do nothing to hinder you. I have friends will pay you liberally, when they know I am gone.

They wondered, they told her, at her strange composure in such distresses.

They were nothing, she said, to what she had suffered already from the vilest of all men. The disgrace of seizing her in the street; multitudes of people about her; shocking imputations wounding her ears; had indeed been very affecting to her. But that was over.-Everything soon would! And she should be still more composed,. were it not for the apprehensions of seeing one man, and one woman; and being tricked or forced back to the vilest house in the world.

Then were it not better to give way to the two gentle

women's offer to bail her?-They could tell her, it was a very kind proffer; and what was not to be met with every day.

She believed so.

The ladies might, possibly, dispense with her going back to the house to which she had such an antipathy. Then the compassionate gentleman, who was inclined to make up with her creditors on her own bond-it was strange to them she hearkened not to so generous a proposal.

it

Did the two ladies tell you who the gentleman was?— Or, did they say any more on that subject?

:

Yes, they did and hinted to me, said the woman, that you had nothing to do, but to receive a visit from the gentleman, and the money, they believed, would be laid down on your own bond or note.

She was startled.

I charge you, said she, as you will answer it one day to my friends, that you bring no gentleman into my company. I charge you don't. If you do, you know not what may be the consequence.

:

They apprehended no bad consequence, they said, in doing their duty and if she knew not her own good, her friends would thank them for taking any innocent steps to serve her, though against her will.

Don't push me upon extremities, man!-Don't make me desperate, woman!-I have no small difficulty, notwithstanding the seeming composure you just now took notice of, to bear, as I ought to bear, the evils I suffer. But if you bring a man or men to me, be the pretence what it will

She stopped there, and looked so earnestly, and so wildly, they said, that they did not know but she would do some harm to herself, if they disobeyed her; and that would be a sad thing in their house, and might be their ruin. They therefore promised, that no man should be brought to her, but by her own consent.