avour, while she was in that house. She had given Mrs. Sinclair
and themselves fair warning, she said: no orders of another ought to make
them detain a free person: but having made an open attempt to go, and
been detained by them, she was the calmer, she told Polly; let them look
to the consequence.

'But yet she spoke this with temper; and Polly gave it as her opinion,
(with apprehension for their own safety,) that having so good a handle to
punish them all, she would not go away if she might. And what, inferred
Polly, is the indemnity of a man who has committed the vilest of rapes on
a person of condition; and must himself, if prosecuted for it, either
fly, or be hanged?

'Sinclair, [so I will still call her,] upon this representation of Polly,
foresaw, she said, the ruin of her poor house in the issue of this
strange business; and the infamous Sally and Dorcas bore their parts in
the apprehension: and this put them upon thinking it advisable for the
future, that the street-door should generally in the day-time be only
left upon a bolt-latch, as they called it, which any body might open on
the inside; and that the key should be kept in the door; that their
numerous comers and goers, as they called their guests, should be able to
give evidence, that she might have gone out if she would: not forgetting,
however, to renew their orders to Will. to Dorcas, to Mabell, and the
rest, to redouble their vigilance on this occasion, to prevent her
escape: none of them doubting, at the same time, that her love of a man
so considerable in their eyes, and the prospect of what was to happen, as
she had reason to believe, on Thursday, her uncle's birth-day, would
(though perhaps not till the last hour, for her pride sake, was their
word) engage her to change her temper.

'They believe, that she discovered the key to be left in the door; for
she was down more than once to walk in the little garden, and seemed to
cast her eye each time to the street-door.

'About eight yesterday morning, an hour after Polly had left her, she
told Mabell, she was sure she should not live long; and having a good
many suits of apparel, which after her death would be of no use to any
body she valued, she would give her a brown lustring gown, which, with
some alterations to make it more suitable to her degree, would a great
while serve her for a Sunday wear; for that she (Mabell) was the only
person in that house of whom she could think without terror o