My poor mother continued very ill for many weeks:  no medicine would remove the extreme dejection of spirits she laboured under.  Sir Edward sent for the clergyman of the parish to give her religious consolation.  Every day he came to visit her, and he would always take miss Lesley and me into the room with him.  I think, miss Villiers, your father must be just such another man as Dr. Wheelding, our worthy rector; just so I think he would have soothed the troubled conscience of my repentant mother.  How feelingly, how kindly he used to talk of mercy and forgiveness!

My heart was softened by my own misfortunes, and the sight of my penitent suffering mother.  I felt that she was now my only parent; I strove, earnestly strove, to love her; yet ever when I looked in her face, she would seem to me to be the very identical person whom I should have once thought sufficiently honoured by a slight inclination of the head, and a civil How do you do, Mrs. Withers?  One day, as miss Lesley was hanging over her, with her accustomed fondness, Dr. Wheelding reading in a prayer-book, and, as I thought, not at that moment regarding us, I threw myself on my knees and silently prayed that I too might be able to love my mother.

Dr. Wheelding had been observing me:  he took me into the garden, and drew from me the subject of my petition.  “Your prayers, my good young lady,” said he, “I hope are heard; sure I am they have caused me to adopt a resolution, which, as it will enable you to see your mother frequently, will, I hope, greatly assist your pious wishes.

“I will take your mother home with me to superintend my family.  Under my roof doubtless sir Edward will often permit you to see her.  Perform your duty towards her as well as you possibly can.—­Affection is the growth of time.  With such good wishes in your young heart, do not despair that in due time it will assuredly spring up.”

With the approbation of sir Edward and lady Harriot, my mother was removed in a few days to Dr. Wheelding’s house:  there she soon recovered—­there she at present resides.  She tells me she loves me almost as well as she did when I was a baby, and we both wept at parting when I came to school.

Here perhaps I ought to conclude my story, which I fear has been a tedious one:  permit me however to say a few words concerning the time which elapsed since the discovery of my birth until my arrival here.

It was on the fifth day of ——­ that I was known to be Ann Withers, and the daughter of my supposed nurse.  The company who were witness to my disgrace departed in a few days, and I felt relieved from some part of the mortification I hourly experienced.  For every fresh instance even of kindness or attention I experienced went to my heart, that I should be forced to feel thankful for it.

Circumstanced as I was, surely I had nothing justly to complain of.  The conduct of sir Edward and lady Harriot was kind in the extreme; still preserving every appearance of a parental tenderness for me, but ah!  I might no longer call them by the dear names of father and mother.—­Formerly when speaking of them, I used, proud of their titles, to delight to say, “Sir Edward or lady Harriot did this, or this;” now I would give worlds to say, “My father or my mother.”