“I had a great affection for my nurse, old Mary, for whom I used often to work, to spare her eyes.  Mary had a younger sister, married to a sailor, while she was suckling me; for my mother only suckled my eldest brother, which might be the cause of her extraordinary partiality.  Peggy, Mary’s sister, lived with her, till her husband, becoming a mate in a West-Indian trader, got a little before-hand in the world.  He wrote to his wife from the first port in the Channel, after his most successful voyage, to request her to come to London to meet him; he even wished her to determine on living there for the future, to save him the trouble of coming to her the moment he came on shore; and to turn a penny by keeping a green-stall.  It was too much to set out on a journey the moment he had finished a voyage, and fifty miles by land, was worse than a thousand leagues by sea.

“She packed up her alls, and came to London—­but did not meet honest Daniel.  A common misfortune prevented her, and the poor are bound to suffer for the good of their country—­he was pressed in the river—­and never came on shore.

“Peggy was miserable in London, not knowing, as she said, ’the face of any living soul.’  Besides, her imagination had been employed, anticipating a month or six weeks’ happiness with her husband.  Daniel was to have gone with her to Sadler’s Wells, and Westminster Abbey, and to many sights, which he knew she never heard of in the country.  Peggy too was thrifty, and how could she manage to put his plan in execution alone?  He had acquaintance; but she did not know the very name of their places of abode.  His letters were made up of—­How do you does, and God bless yous,—­information was reserved for the hour of meeting.

“She too had her portion of information, near at heart.  Molly and Jacky were grown such little darlings, she was almost angry that daddy did not see their tricks.  She had not half the pleasure she should have had from their prattle, could she have recounted to him each night the pretty speeches of the day.  Some stories, however, were stored up—­and Jacky could say papa with such a sweet voice, it must delight his heart.  Yet when she came, and found no Daniel to greet her, when Jacky called papa, she wept, bidding ’God bless his innocent soul, that did not know what sorrow was.’—­But more sorrow was in store for Peggy, innocent as she was.—­Daniel was killed in the first engagement, and then the papa was agony, sounding to the heart.

“She had lived sparingly on his wages, while there was any hope of his return; but, that gone, she returned with a breaking heart to the country, to a little market town, nearly three miles from our village.  She did not like to go to service, to be snubbed about, after being her own mistress.  To put her children out to nurse was impossible:  how far would her wages go? and to send them to her husband’s parish, a distant one, was to lose her husband twice over.