this is the last day I shall
see you for some time, will you not keep your promise to me, and tell me
your history?"

"Jack, Jack, you are the most persevering creature I ever did see. I'm
sure I shall be worried out of my life until I tell you, and so I may as
well tell you at once, and there'll be an end of it; but I wish you had
not asked me, Jack, I do indeed. I thought of it last night when I was
in bed, and at one time I made up my mind that I would not tell you, and
then I thought again that I would; for, Jack, as I said yesterday,
there's a lesson in every life, and a warning in too many, and maybe
mine will prove a warning to you, so far as to make you prevent a mother
from being so foolish as I have been.

"Now, Jack, listen to me: mine is an old story, but in most cases the
consequences have not been so fatal. I shall not tell you my name; it
was once a fair one, but now tarnished. I was the only daughter of a
merchant and shipowner, a rich man, and the first person in consequence
in the seaport town where I was born and brought up. I never knew my
mother, who died a year after I was born. I was brought up as most
girls are who have no mother or brothers; in short, I was much indulged
by my father and flattered by other people. I was well educated, as you
may suppose; and, moreover, what you may not credit quite so easily, I
was very handsome. In short, I was a beauty and a fortune, at the head
of the society of the place, caressed, indulged, and flattered by all.
This, if it did not spoil me, at least made me wilful. I had many
offers, and many intended offers, which I nipped in the bud, and I was
twenty-three before I saw any one who pleased me. At last a vessel came
in consigned to the house and the captain was invited to dinner. He was
a handsome careless young man, constantly talking about the qualities of
his ship, and, to my surprise, paying me little or none of that
attention which I now considered as my due. This piqued me, and in the
end I set my affections on him; either he did not or would not perceive
it, and he sailed without showing me any preference. In six months he
returned, and whether it was that he was told of by others, or at last
perceived, my feelings towards him, he joined the crowd of suitors, made
a proposal in his offhand manner, as if he was indifferent as to my
reply, and was accepted. My father, to whom he communicated the
intelligence as carelessly as if he were