wretched prisoner; she delivered these letters with her own hand, and
underwent a thousand mortifying repulses, the most shocking circumstances
of which she concealed from her husband. She performed all the menial
offices in her own little family, which was maintained by pawning her
apparel; and both the husband and wife, in some measure, sweetened their
cares by prattling and toying with their charming little boy, on whom
they doated with an enthusiasm of fondness. Yet even this pleasure was
mingled with the most tender and melancholy regret. I have seen the
mother hang over him, with the most affecting expression of this kind in
her aspect, the tears contending with the smiles upon her countenance,
while she exclaimed, 'Alas! my poor prisoner, little did your mother once
think she should be obliged to nurse you in a jail.' The captain's
paternal love was dashed with impatience; he would snatch up the boy in a
transport of grief, press him to his breast, devour him as it were with
kisses, throw up his eyes to heaven in the most emphatic silence, then
convey the child hastily to his mother's arms, pull his hat over his
eyes, stalk out into the common walk, and, finding himself alone, break
out into tears and lamentation.

"Ah! little did this unhappy couple know what further griefs awaited
them! The smallpox broke out in the prison, and poor Tommy Clewline was
infected. As the eruption appeared unfavourable, you may conceive the
consternation with which they were overwhelmed. Their distress was
rendered inconceivable by indigence; for by this time they were so
destitute, that they could neither pay for common attendance, nor procure
proper advice. I did on that occasion what I thought my duty towards my
fellow-creatures. I wrote to a physician of my acquaintance, who was
humane enough to visit the poor little patient; I engaged a careful
woman-prisoner as a nurse, and Mr. Norton supplied them with money and
necessaries. These helps were barely sufficient to preserve them from