which, I must beg leave to observe, that she never
before would drink out of any other cup, than one which
she called her own, different from this, and which
I drank out of on that and most other mornings.
It has been farther said, that Dame Emmet, a charwoman,
was likewise hurt by drinking tea at my father’s
house: be pleased to remember, Reader, that I
mixed it but in one cup, and then threw it away.
Susan said, she drank out of the cup and was ill, what
then could hurt this woman, who to my knowledge was
not at our house that day? Mr. Nicholas, an apothecary,
attended this old woman in the first sickness they
talk of, which, by Susan, I understood was a weakness
common to her, viz. fainting fits and purging;
and I know, that she had had fainting fits many times
before. When I heard she was ill, I ordered Susan
to send her whey, broth, or any thing that she thought
would be proper for her. She had long served the
family, would joke and divert me, and I loved her
extremely. Nor can my enemies themselves (let
them paint me how they please) deny that from my heart
I pitied the poor. I never felt more pleasure,
than when I fed the hungry, cloathed the naked, and
supplied the wants of those in distress. Had
God blessed me with a more plentiful fortune, I should
have exerted myself in this more; and I flatter myself,
that the poor and indigent of our town will do me
justice in this particular, and own that I was not
wanting in my duty towards them. But to proceed
in my account: I would not fix on any other charwoman;
and Susan said, that Dame Emmet would, she thought,
by my goodness, soon get strength to work again.
I told her, was it ever so long I would stay for her.
I mixed the powder, as was said before, on the Sunday,
and on the Tuesday wrote to Mr. Cranstoun, that it
would not mix in tea, and that I would not try it
any more, lest my father should find it out. This
has been brought against me by many: but let any
one consider, if the discovery of such a procedure
as this, would not have excited anger, and consequently
have been followed by resentment in my father.
This might have occasioned a total separation of me
from Mr. Cranstoun, a thing I at that time dreaded
more than even death itself. In answer to this
letter, I had one from him to assure me the powder
was innocent, and to beg I would give it in gruel,
or something thicker than tea. Many more letters
to the same effect I received, before I would give
it again; but most fatally, on the 5th August, I gave
it to my poor father, innocent of the effects it afterwards
produced, God knows; not so stupid as to believe it
would have that desired, to make him kind to us; but
in obedience to Mr. Cranstoun, who ever seemed superstitions
to the last degree, and had, as I thought, and have
declared before, all the just notions of the necessity
of my father’s life for him, me, and ours.
On the Monday the 5th, as has been said, I mixed the
powder in his gruel, and at night it was in a half-pint