at
suffocated me; but my spirits were weak, and the unbidden tears would
flow. 'Why was I,' I would ask thee, but thou didst not heed me,--'cut
off from the participation of the sweetest pleasure of life?' I imagined
with what extacy, after the pains of child-bed, I should have presented
my little stranger, whom I had so long wished to view, to a respectable
father, and with what maternal fondness I should have pressed them both
to my heart!--Now I kissed her with less delight, though with the most
endearing compassion, poor helpless one! when I perceived a slight
resemblance of him, to whom she owed her existence; or, if any gesture
reminded me of him, even in his best days, my heart heaved, and I
pressed the innocent to my bosom, as if to purify it--yes, I blushed to
think that its purity had been sullied, by allowing such a man to be its
father.

"After my recovery, I began to think of taking a house in the country,
or of making an excursion on the continent, to avoid Mr. Venables; and
to open my heart to new pleasures and affection. The spring was melting
into summer, and you, my little companion, began to smile--that smile
made hope bud out afresh, assuring me the world was not a desert. Your
gestures were ever present to my fancy; and I dwelt on the joy I should
feel when you would begin to walk and lisp. Watching your wakening mind,
and shielding from every rude blast my tender blossom, I recovered my
spirits--I dreamed not of the frost--'the killing frost,' to which you
were destined to be exposed.--But I lose all patience--and execrate the
injustice of the world--folly! ignorance!--I should rather call it; but,
shut up from a free circulation of thought, and always pondering on the
same griefs, I writhe under the torturing apprehensions, which ought to
excite only honest indignation, or active compassion; and would, could
I view them as the natural consequence of things. But, born a woman--and
born to suffer, in endeavouring to repress my own emotions, I feel more
acutely the various ills my sex are fated to bear--I feel that the evils
they are subject to endure, degrade them so far below their oppressors,
as almost to justify their tyranny; leading at the same time superficial
reasoners to term that weakness the cause, which is only the consequence
of short-sighted despotism."

CHAPTER 14

"AS MY MIND grew calmer, the visions of Italy again returned with their
former glow of colouring; and I resol