The wretches could not help wishing to me for the opportunity of making such a purchase for their own wear.  How I cursed them! and, in my heart, thee!—­But too probable, thought I, that this vile Sally Martin may hope, [though thou art incapable of it,] that her Lovelace, as she has the assurance, behind thy back, to call thee, may present her with some of the poor lady’s spoils!

Will not Mrs. Sinclair, proceeded she, think my clothes a security, till they can be sold?  They are very good clothes.  A suit or two but just put on, as it were; never worn.  They cost much more than it demanded of me.  My father loved to see me fine.—­All shall go.  But let me have the particulars of her demand.  I suppose I must pay for my destroyer [that was her well-adapted word!] and his servants, as well as for myself.  I am content to do so—­I am above wishing that any body, who could thus act, should be so much as expostulated with, as to the justice and equity of this payment.  If I have but enough to pay the demand, I shall be satisfied; and will leave the baseness of such an action as this, as ana aggravation of a guilt which I thought could not be aggravated.

I own, Lovelace, I have malice in this particularity, in order to sting thee on the heart.  And, let me ask thee, what now thou can’st think of thy barbarity, thy unprecedented barbarity, in having reduced a person of her rank, fortune, talents, and virtue, so low?

The wretched women, it must be owned, act but in their profession:  a profession thou hast been the principal means of reducing these two to act in.  And they know what thy designs have been, and how far prosecuted.  It is, in their opinions, using her gently, that they have forborne to bring her to the woman so justly odious to her:  and that they have not threatened her with the introducing to her strange men:  nor yet brought into her company their spirit-breakers, and humbling-drones, (fellows not allowed to carry stings,) to trace and force her back to their detested house; and, when there, into all their measures.

Till I came, they thought thou wouldst not be displeased at any thing she suffered, that could help to mortify her into a state of shame and disgrace; and bring her to comply with thy views, when thou shouldst come to release her from these wretches, as from a greater evil than cohabiting with thee.

When thou considerest these things, thou wilt make no difficulty of believing, that this their own account of their behaviour to this admirable woman has been far short of their insults:  and the less, when I tell thee, that, all together, their usage had such effect upon her, that they left her in violent hysterics; ordering an apothecary to be sent for, if she should continue in them, and be worse; and particularly (as they had done from the first) that they kept out of her way any edged or pointed instrument; especially a pen-knife; which, pretending to mend a pen, they said, she might ask for.