At the usual hour, Jemima brought her breakfast, and a tender note from Darnford.  She ran her eye hastily over it, and her heart calmly hoarded up the rapture a fresh assurance of affection, affection such as she wished to inspire, gave her, without diverting her mind a moment from its design.  While Jemima waited to take away the breakfast, Maria alluded to the reflections, that had haunted her during the night to the exclusion of sleep.  She spoke with energy of Jemima’s unmerited sufferings, and of the fate of a number of deserted females, placed within the sweep of a whirlwind, from which it was next to impossible to escape.  Perceiving the effect her conversation produced on the countenance of her guard, she grasped the arm of Jemima with that irresistible warmth which defies repulse, exclaiming—­“With your heart, and such dreadful experience, can you lend your aid to deprive my babe of a mother’s tenderness, a mother’s care?  In the name of God, assist me to snatch her from destruction!  Let me but give her an education—­let me but prepare her body and mind to encounter the ills which await her sex, and I will teach her to consider you as her second mother, and herself as the prop of your age.  Yes, Jemima, look at me—­observe me closely, and read my very soul; you merit a better fate;” she held out her hand with a firm gesture of assurance; “and I will procure it for you, as a testimony of my esteem, as well as of my gratitude.”

Jemima had not power to resist this persuasive torrent; and, owning that the house in which she was confined, was situated on the banks of the Thames, only a few miles from London, and not on the sea-coast, as Darnford had supposed, she promised to invent some excuse for her absence, and go herself to trace the situation, and enquire concerning the health, of this abandoned daughter.  Her manner implied an intention to do something more, but she seemed unwilling to impart her design; and Maria, glad to have obtained the main point, thought it best to leave her to the workings of her own mind; convinced that she had the power of interesting her still more in favour of herself and child, by a simple recital of facts.

In the evening, Jemima informed the impatient mother, that on the morrow she should hasten to town before the family hour of rising, and received all the information necessary, as a clue to her search.  The “Good night!” Maria uttered was peculiarly solemn and affectionate.  Glad expectation sparkled in her eye; and, for the first time since her detention, she pronounced the name of her child with pleasureable fondness; and, with all the garrulity of a nurse, described her first smile when she recognized her mother.  Recollecting herself, a still kinder “Adieu!” with a “God bless you!”—­that seemed to include a maternal benediction, dismissed Jemima.