stopped all of a sudden, and got off, panting, blowing, curs-
ing, and repeating "old and ugly!" for so I had very natur-
ally called him in the heat of my defence.

     The brute had, it seems, as I afterwards understood,
brought on, by his eagerness and struggle, the ultimate
period of his hot fit of lust, which his power was too short
liv'd to carry him through the full execution of; of which
my thighs and linen received the effusion.

     When it was over he bid me, with a tone of displeasure,
get up, saying that he would not do me the honour to think
of me any more . . . that the old bitch might look out for
another cully . . . that he would not be fool'd so by e'er
a country mock modesty in England . . . that he supposed I
had left my maidenhead with some hobnail in the country,
and was come to dispose of my skin-milk in town, with a
volley of the like abuse; which I listened to with more
pleasure than ever fond woman did to protestations of love
from her darling minion: for, incapable as I was of re-
ceiving any addition to my perfect hatred and aversion to
him, I look'd on this railing as my security against his
renewing his most odious caresses.

     Yet, plain as Mrs. Brown's views were now come out, I
had not the heart or spirit to open my eyes to them: still
I could not part with my dependence on that beldam, so
much did I think myself her's, soul and body: or rather, I
sought to deceive myself with the continuation of my good
opinion of her, and chose to wait the worst at her hands
sooner than be turn'd out to starve in the streets, with-
out a penny of money or a friend to apply to: these fears
were my folly.

     Whilst this confusion of ideas was passing in my head,
and I sat pensive by the fire, with my eyes brimming with 
tears, my neck still bare, and my cap fall'n off in the 
struggle, so that my hair was in the disorder you may guess,
the villain's lust began, I suppose, to be again in flow, at
the sight of all that bloom of youth which presented itself
to his view, a bloom yet unenjoy'd, and of course not yet
indifferent to him.

     After some pause, he ask'd me, with a tone of voice
mightily softened, whether I would make it up with him
before the old lady returned and all should be well; he
would restore me his affections, at the same time offering
to kiss me and feel my breasts.  But now my extreme aver-
sion, my fears, my indignation, all acting upon me, gave me
a spirit not natural to me, so that breaking loose from him,
I ran to the bell and rang it, before he was aware, with
such violence and effect as brought up the maid to know what
was the matter, or whether the gentleman wanted any thing;
and before he could proceed to greater extremities, she
bounc'd into the room, and seeing me stretch'd on the floor,
my hair all dishevell'd, my nose gushing out blood, which 
did not a little tragedize the scene, and my odious per-
secutor still intent of pushing his brutal point, unmoved by
all my cries and distress, she was herself confounded and
did not know what to say.

     As much, however, as Martha might be prepared and 
hardened to transactions of this sort, all womanhood must
have been out of her heart, could she have seen this un-
mov'd.  Besides that, on the face of things, she imagined
that matters had gone greater lengths than they really
had, and that the courtesy of the house had been actually
consummated on me, and flung me into the condition I was
in: in this notion she instantly took my part, and advis'd
the gentleman to go down and leave me to recover myself,
and "that all would be soon over with me . . . that when
Mrs. Brown and Phoebe, who were gone out, were return'd,
they would take order for every thing to his satisfaction
. . . that nothing would be lost by a little patience with
the poor tender thing . . . that for her part she was . . .
frighten'd . . . she could not tell what to say to such
doings . . . but that she would stay by me till my mistress
came home."  As the wench said all this in a resolute tone,
and the monster himself began to perceive that things would
not mend by his staying, he took his hat and went out of 
the room, murmuring, and pleating his brows like an old ape,
so that I was delivered from the horrors of his detestable
presence.

     As soon as he was gone, Martha very tenderly offered
me her assistance in any thing, and would have got me some
hartshorn drops, and put me to bed; which last, I at first
positively refused, in the fear that the monster might re-
turn and take me at that advantage.  However, with much
persuasion, and assurances that I should not be molested
that night, she prevailed on me to lie down; and indeed I
was so weakened by my struggles, so dejected by my fearful
apprehensions, so terror-struck, that I had not power to
sit up, or hardly to give answers to the questions with
which the curious Martha ply'd and perplex'd me.

     Such too, and so cruel was my fate, that I dreaded 
the sight of Mrs. Brown, as if I had been the criminal
and she the person injur'd; a mistake which you will not
think so strange, on distinguishing that neither virtue