fearing some one would see me, got into a Hackney-coach and drove in the
wrong direction; then got out and went a round-about way home, fearing
some one was following to upbraid or expose me. I scarcely slept that
night for horror of myself, never went up the street again for years,
and never passed its end without shuddering, have no recollection of
having had pleasure, or of any sensation whatever; all was dread to
me. And so ended that debauch; one I was deliberately let into by that
woman, having never thought of such doings before as possible, or at
all, as far as I can recollect.

CHAPTER XII.

Sarah and Susan.--At the key-hole.--A village fair.--Up
against a wall.--An unknown woman.--Clapped again.--My deaf
relative.--Some weeks felicity.--Sarah's secret.--Susan's
history.--Sarah with child.--Amidst black-berries.--
Susan's virginity.--Susan with child.--Sisters'
disclosures.--A row.--A child born.--Emigration.

I had now passed my twentieth year. The new servants were sisters (how
many times have sisters fallen to me!); the eldest who was cook was
named Sarah; the youngest, Susan. Sarah was about twenty-six, Susan
nineteen or twenty. I carefully arranged the key in the key-hole of
their door the first night, but saw nothing for two or three nights.
Then oh! fortune again. They rose later than my mother liked; she came
up to their room one morning and found them locked in, so she took away
the key. Now I had as far as the key-hole permitted, a fair field, but
then clothes hanging upon pegs on the door were often in my way; yet I
was so persistent in looking when they went to bed, and arose, that I
saw a great deal. How cunning I had got; I had filed and oiled the lock
and hinges of my door and theirs, so that I could close and open them
noiselessly, used to stoop daily with my eye to their key-hole, stepping
from my room with naked feet. I was nearly caught several times, but
never quite. It now seems wonderful that I was not.

I was so demure and quiet in talk about women always, and had kept
myself so circumspectly, that my mother never had the least suspicion of
me,--but in all matters of love and intrigue, mother always seemed to me
as innocent as the babe unborn.

For all that, my mother just then, and to my dismay, seeing that my
little games would be much interfered with, said I better change my
room, and have one on the first floor. Mrs. ------ had remarked, that