Well, Madam, your’s is a hard lot.  I pity you at my heart!

Thank you, Dorcas!—­I am unhappy, that I did not think before, that I might have confided in thy pity, and in thy sex!

I pitied you, Madam, often and often:  but you were always, as I thought, diffident of me.  And then I doubted not but you were married; and I thought his honour was unkindly used by you.  So that I thought it my duty to wish well to his honour, rather than to what I thought to be your humours, Madam.  Would to Heaven that I had known before that you were not married!—­Such a lady! such a fortune! to be so sadly betrayed;——­

Ah, Dorcas!  I was basely drawn in!  My youth—­my ignorance of the world —­and I have some things to reproach myself with when I look back.

Lord, Madam, what deceitful creatures are these men!—­Neither oaths, nor vows—­I am sure!  I am sure! [and then with her apron she gave her eyes half a dozen hearty rubs] I may curse the time that I came into this house!

Here was accounting for her bold eyes!  And was it not better for Dorcas to give up a house which her lady could not think worse of than she did, in order to gain the reputation of sincerity, than by offering to vindicate it, to make her proffered services suspected.

Poor Dorcas!—­Bless me! how little do we, who have lived all our time in the country, know of this wicked town!

Had I been able to write, cried the veteran wench, I should certainly have given some other near relations I have in Wales a little inkling of matters; and they would have saved me from——­from——­from——­

Her sobs were enough.  The apprehensions of women on such subjects are ever aforehand with speech.

And then, sobbing on, she lifted her apron to her face again.  She showed me how.

Poor Dorcas!—­Again wiping her own charming eyes.

All love, all compassion, is this dear creature to every one in affliction but me.

And would not an aunt protect her kinswoman?—­Abominable wretch!

I can’t—­I can’t—­I can’t—­say, my aunt was privy to it.  She gave me good advice.  She knew not for a great while that I was—­that I was—­that I was—­ugh!—­ugh!—­ugh!—­

No more, no more, good Dorcas—­What a world do we live in!—­What a house am I in!—­But come, don’t weep, (though she herself could not forbear:) my being betrayed into it, though to my own ruin, may be a happy event for thee:  and, if I live, it shall.

I thank you, my good lady, blubbering.  I am sorry, very sorry, you have had so hard a lot.  But it may be the saving of my soul, if I can get to your ladyship’s house.  Had I but known that your ladyship was not married, I would have eat my own flesh, before——­before——­before——­

Dorcas sobbed and wept.  The lady sighed and wept also.

But now, Jack, for a serious reflection upon the premises.

How will the good folks account for it, that Satan has such faithful instruments, and that the bond of wickedness is a stronger bond than the ties of virtue; as if it were the nature of the human mind to be villanous?  For here, had Dorcas been good, and been tempted as she was tempted to any thing evil, I make no doubt but she would have yielded to the temptation.