and fancy,' says the old woman; 'I tell you their
credit depends upon the child's life, and they are as careful as any
mother of you all.'

'O mother,' says I, 'if I was but sure my little baby would be
carefully looked to, and have justice done it, I should be happy
indeed; but it is impossible I can be satisfied in that point unless I
saw it, and to see it would be ruin and destruction to me, as now my
case stands; so what to do I know not.'

'A fine story!' says the governess. 'You would see the child, and you
would not see the child; you would be concealed and discovered both
together. These are things impossible, my dear; so you must e'en do as
other conscientious mothers have done before you, and be contented with
things as they must be, though they are not as you wish them to be.'

I understood what she meant by conscientious mothers; she would have
said conscientious whores, but she was not willing to disoblige me, for
really in this case I was not a whore, because legally married, the
force of former marriage excepted.

However, let me be what I would, I was not come up to that pitch of
hardness common to the profession; I mean, to be unnatural, and
regardless of the safety of my child; and I preserved this honest
affection so long, that I was upon the point of giving up my friend at
the bank, who lay so hard at me to come to him and marry him, that, in
short, there was hardly any room to deny him.

At last my old governess came to me, with her usual assurance. 'Come,
my dear,' says she, 'I have found out a way how you shall be at a
certainty that your child shall be used well, and yet the people that
take care of it shall never know you, or who the mother of the child
is.'

'Oh mother,' says I, 'if you can do so, you will engage me to you for
ever.' 'Well,' says she, 'are you willing to be a some small annual
expense, more than what we usually give to the people we contract
with?' 'Ay,' says I, 'with all my heart, provided I may be concealed.'
'As to that,' says the governess, 'you shall be secure, for the nurse
shall never so much as dare to inquire about you, and you shall once or
twice a year go with me and see your child, and see how 'tis used, and
be satisfied that it is in good hands, nobody knowing who you are.'

'Why,' said I, 'do you think, mother, that when I come to see my child,
I shall be able to conceal my being the mother of it? Do you think
that possible?'

'Well, well,' says m