p on the vagrant act. He soon ran away
from Sally, leaving her to bewail her own weakness; for it was that
indeed, and not any irresistible fate, which had been the cause of her
ruin. To complete the misery, she herself was suspected of having
stolen the silver cup which Rachel had pocketed. Her master, however,
would not prosecute her, as she was falling into a deep decline, and
she died in a few months of a broken heart, a sad warning to all
credulous girls.

* * * * *

Rachel, whenever she got near home, used to drop her trade of
fortune-telling, and only dealt in the wares of her basket. Mr.
Wilson, the clergyman, found her one day dealing out some very wicked
ballads to some children. He went up with a view to give her a
reprimand; but had no sooner begun his exhortation than up came a
constable, followed by several people.

"There she is, that is she, that is the old witch who tricked my wife
out of the five guineas," said one of them. "Do your office,
constable; seize the old hag. She may tell fortunes and find pots of
gold in Taunton jail, for there she will have nothing else to do."

This was that very farmer Jenkins, whose wife had been cheated by
Rachel of the five guineas. He had taken pains to trace her to her own
parish: he did not so much value the loss of the money, but he thought
it was a duty he owed the public to clear the country of such vermin.
Mr. Wilson immediately committed her. She took her trial at the next
assizes, when she was sentenced to a year's imprisonment.

In the meantime the pawnbroker to whom she had sold the silver cup,
which she had stolen from poor Sally's master, impeached her; and as
the robbery was fully proved upon Rachel, she was sentenced for this
crime to Botany Bay; and a happy day it was for the county of
Somerset, when such a nuisance was sent out of it. She was transported
much about the same time that her husband Giles lost his life, in
stealing the net from the garden wall, as related in the second part
of Poaching Giles.

I have thought it my duty to print this little history, as a kind of
warning to all young men and maidens, not to have any thing to say to
cheats, impostors, cunning women, fortune-tellers, conjurers, and
interpreters of dreams. Listen to me, your true friend, when I assure
you that God never reveals to weak and wicked women those secret
designs of his providence, which no human wisdom is able to foresee.
To co