et tell me,
(for the surgeons have told you the truth, no doubt,) tell me, shall I do
well again? May I recover? If I may, I will begin a new course of life:
as I hope to be saved, I will. I'll renounce you all--every one of you,
[looking round her,] and scrape all I can together, and live a life of
penitence; and when I die, leave it all to charitable uses--I will, by my
soul--every doit of it to charity--but this once, lifting up her rolling
eyes, and folded hands, (with a wry-mouthed earnestness, in which every
muscle and feature of her face bore its part,) this one time--good God of
Heaven and earth, but this once! this once! repeating those words five or
six times, spare thy poor creature, and every hour of my life shall be
passed in penitence and atonement: upon my soul it shall!

Less vehement! a little less vehement! said I--it is not for me, who have
led so free a life, as you but too well know, to talk to you in a
reproaching strain, and to set before you the iniquity you have lived in,
and the many souls you have helped to destroy. But as you are in so
penitent a way, if I might advise, you should send for a good clergyman,
the purity of whose life and manners may make all these things come from
him with a better grace than they can from me.

How, Sir! What, Sir! interrupting me: send for a parson!--Then you
indeed think I shall die! Then you think there is no room for hope!----A
parson, Sir!----Who sends for a parson, while there is any hope left?--
The sight of a parson would be death immediate to me!--I cannot, cannot
die!--Never tell me of it!--What! die!--What! cut off in the midst of my
sins!

And then she began again to rave.

I cannot bear, said I, rising from my seat with a stern air, to see a
reasonable creature behave so outrageously!--Will this vehemence, think
you, mend the matter? Will it avail you any thing? Will it not rather
shorten the life you are so desirous to have lengthened, and deprive you
of the only opportunity you can ever have to settle your affairs for both
worlds?--Death is but the common lot: and if it be your's soon, looking
at her, it will be also your's, and your's, and your's, speaking with a
raised voice, and turning to every trembling devil round her, [for they
all shook at my forcible application,] and mine too. And you have reason
to be thankful, turning again to her, that you did not perish in that act
of intemperance which brought you to this: for it might