years old when this father-in-law died, and left my mother
in tolerable circumstances, and without any children by him. As to my
natural father, he had betaken himself to the sea; where, when the truth
of things came out, I was told that he died, not immensely rich you may
think, since he was no more than a common sailor. As I grew up, under
the eyes of my mother, who kept on the business, I could not but see,
in her severe watchfulness, the marks of a slip, which she did not
care should be hereditary; but we no more choose our passions than
our features or complexions, and the bent of mine was so strong to the
forbidden pleasure, that it got the better, at length, of all her care
and precaution. I was scarce twelve years old, before that part
which she wanted so much to keep out of harm's way, made me feel its
impatience to be taken notice of, and come into play; already had it
put forth the signs of forwardness in the sprout of a soft down over it,
which had often fluttered, and I might also say, grown under my constant
touch and visitation, so pleased was I with what I took to be a kind
of title to womanhood, that state I pined to be entered of, for the
pleasures I conceived were annexed to it; and now the growing importance
of that part to me, and the new sensations in it, demolished at once all
my girlish play-things and amusements. Nature now pointed me strongly
to more solid diversions, while all the stings of desire settled so
fiercely in that little centre of them, that I could not mistake the
spot I wanted a playfellow in.

"I now shunned all company in which there was no hopes of coming at
the object of my longings, and used to shut myself up, to indulge in
solitude some tender meditation on the pleasure I strongly perceived the
overture of, in feeling and examining what nature assured me must be the
chosen avenue, the gates for unknown bliss to enter at, that I panted
after.

"But these meditations only increased my disorder, and blew the fire
that consumed me. I was yet worse when, yielding at length to the
insupportable irritations of the little fairy charm that tormented me,
I seized it with my fingers, teazing it to no end. Sometimes, in the
furious excitations of desire, I threw myself on the bed, spread my
thighs abroad, and lay as it were expecting the longed-for relief, till
finding my illusion, I shut and squeezed them together again, burning
and fretting. In short, this develish thing, with its i