This thought gave life to her diction, her soul flowed into it, and she
soon found the task of recollecting almost obliterated impressions
very interesting. She lived again in the revived emotions of youth,
and forgot her present in the retrospect of sorrows that had assumed an
unalterable character.

Though this employment lightened the weight of time, yet, never losing
sight of her main object, Maria did not allow any opportunity to slip
of winning on the affections of Jemima; for she discovered in her a
strength of mind, that excited her esteem, clouded as it was by the
misanthropy of despair.

An insulated being, from the misfortune of her birth, she despised and
preyed on the society by which she had been oppressed, and loved not her
fellow-creatures, because she had never been beloved. No mother had ever
fondled her, no father or brother had protected her from outrage; and
the man who had plunged her into infamy, and deserted her when she stood
in greatest need of support, deigned not to smooth with kindness the
road to ruin. Thus degraded, was she let loose on the world; and
virtue, never nurtured by affection, assumed the stern aspect of selfish
independence.

This general view of her life, Maria gathered from her exclamations and
dry remarks. Jemima indeed displayed a strange mixture of interest
and suspicion; for she would listen to her with earnestness, and then
suddenly interrupt the conversation, as if afraid of resigning, by
giving way to her sympathy, her dear-bought knowledge of the world.

Maria alluded to the possibility of an escape, and mentioned a