it was the first tear that
social enjoyment had ever drawn from her. She seemed indeed to breathe
more freely; the cloud of suspicion cleared away from her brow; she felt
herself, for once in her life, treated like a fellow-creature.

Imagination! who can paint thy power; or reflect the evanescent tints
of hope fostered by thee? A despondent gloom had long obscured Maria's
horizon--now the sun broke forth, the rainbow appeared, and every
prospect was fair. Horror still reigned in the darkened cells, suspicion
lurked in the passages, and whispered along the walls. The yells of
men possessed, sometimes, made them pause, and wonder that they felt
so happy, in a tomb of living death. They even chid themselves for such
apparent insensibility; still the world contained not three happier
beings. And Jemima, after again patrolling the passage, was so softened
by the air of confidence which breathed around her, that she voluntarily
began an account of herself.

CHAPTER 5

"MY FATHER," said Jemima, "seduced my mother, a pretty girl, with whom
he lived fellow-servant; and she no sooner perceived the natural, the
dreaded consequence, than the terrible conviction flashed on her--that
she was ruined. Honesty, and a regard for her reputation, had been the
only principles inculcated by her mother; and they had been so forcibly
impressed, that she feared shame, more than the poverty to which it
would lead. Her incessant importunities to prevail upon my father to
screen her from reproach by marrying her, as he had promised in the
fervour of seduction, estranged him from her so completely, that her
very person became distasteful to him; and he began to hate, as well as
despise me, before I was born.

"My mother, grieved to the soul by his neglect, and unkind treatment,
actually resolved to famish herself; and injured her health by the
attempt; though she had not sufficient resolution to adhere to her
project, or renounce it entirely. Death came not at her call; yet
sorrow, and the methods she adopted to conceal her condition, still
doing the work of a house-maid, had such an effect on her constitution,
that she died in the wretched garret, where her virtuous mistress had
forced her to take refuge in the very pangs of labour, though my father,
after a slight reproof, was allowed to remain in his place--allowed by
the mother of six children, who, scarcely permitting a footstep to be
heard, during her month's indulgence, felt