to the hands of one who was an entire stranger to
me, but who has since proved himself the dearest friend I ever had. He
read it, and said it must be published. But the thought of publication
so frightened me that it almost deprived me of sleep. Still, after very
long persuasion, I consented, and the whole was written over again, with
a great many things added. When it was all ready, he told me I must
write a preface. So I was persuaded even to this, though that was a new
alarm, and I had scarcely recovered from the first. I have always been
retiring,--indeed, quite out of sight; and nothing has reconciled me to
this publicity but the knowledge that no one will be able to discover
me, unless it be the very few who had patience to read my manuscript.
Even they will find it so altered and enlarged as scarcely to remember
it.

Yet there is another consideration which ought to reconcile me to coming
forward in a way so contrary to what I had ever contemplated. I think
the story of my quiet life may lead others to reflect more seriously on
the griefs, the trials, and the hardships to which so many of my sex are
constantly subjected. It may lead some of the other sex either to think
more of these trials, or to view them in a new and different light from
any in which they have heretofore regarded them. They may even think
that I have suggested a new remedy for an old evil. I know that many
such have labored to remove the wrongs of which poor and friendless
women are the victims. But while they have already done much toward that
humane end, as much remains to do. I make no studied effort to influence
or direct them. The contrast between my first and last experience was so
great, that, in rewriting, I added some facts from the experience of
others to give force to the recital of my own. My hope is, that humane
minds may be gratified by a narrative so uneventful, and that they,
fortified by position and means, will be led to do for others, in a new
direction, as much as I, comparatively unaided, have been able to do for
myself.

CHAPTER I.

Having always had a great fondness for reading, I have gone through
every book to which my very limited circle of acquaintance gave me
access. Even this small literary experience was sufficient to impress
upon my mind the superior value of personal memoirs. Of all my reading,
they most interested me; and I have learned from others that such books
have most interested them. Indeed, biograp