he would have been better then! Though it seems he told Mrs. Jervis, he
had an eye upon me in his mother's life-time; and he intended to let me
know as much, by the bye, he told her! Here is shamelessness for you!
Sure the world must be near at an end! for all the gentlemen about are as
bad as he almost, as far as I can hear!--And see the fruits of such bad
examples! There is 'Squire Martin in the grove, has had three lyings-in,
it seems, in his house, in three months past; one by himself; and one by
his coachman; and one by his woodman; and yet he has turned none of them
away. Indeed, how can he, when they but follow his own vile example?
There is he, and two or three more such as he, within ten miles of us,
who keep company, and hunt with our fine master, truly; and I suppose he
is never the better for their examples. But, Heaven bless me, say I, and
send me out of this wicked house!

But, dear father and mother, what sort of creatures must the womenkind
be, do you think, to give way to such wickedness? Why, this it is that
makes every one be thought of alike: And, alack-a-day! what a world we
live in! for it is grown more a wonder that the men are resisted, than
that the women comply. This, I suppose, makes me such a sauce-box, and
bold-face, and a creature, and all because I won't be a sauce-box and
bold-face indeed.

But I am sorry for these things; one don't know what arts and stratagems
men may devise to gain their vile ends; and so I will think as well as I
can of these poor undone creatures, and pity them. For you see, by my
sad story, and narrow escapes, what hardships poor maidens go through,
whose lot it is to go out to service, especially to houses where there is
not the fear of God, and good rule kept by the heads of the family.

You see I am quite grown grave and serious; indeed it becomes the present