in continual fear that my altered shape would be noticed, my master
gave me a medicine in a phial, which he desired me to take, telling me,
without any circumlocution, for what purpose it was designed. I burst
into tears, I thought it was killing myself--yet was such a self as
I worth preserving? He cursed me for a fool, and left me to my own
reflections. I could not resolve to take this infernal potion; but I
wrapped it up in an old gown, and hid it in a corner of my box.

"Nobody yet suspected me, because they had been accustomed to view me as
a creature of another species. But the threatening storm at last broke
over my devoted head--never shall I forget it! One Sunday evening when
I was left, as usual, to take care of the house, my master came home
intoxicated, and I became the prey of his brutal appetite. His extreme
intoxication made him forget his customary caution, and my mistress
entered and found us in a situation that could not have been more
hateful to her than me. Her husband was 'pot-valiant,' he feared her not
at the moment, nor had he then much reason, for she instantly turned the
whole force of her anger another way. She tore off my cap, scratched,
kicked, and buffetted me, till she had exhausted her strength,
declaring, as she rested her arm, 'that I had wheedled her husband from
her.--But, could any thing better be expected from a wretch, whom she
had taken into her house out of pure charity?' What a torrent of abuse
rushed out? till, almost breathless, she concluded with saying, 'that I
was born a strumpet; it ran in my blood, and nothing good could come to
those who harboured me.'

"My situation was, of course, discovered, and she declared that I should
not stay another night under the same roof with an honest family. I was
therefore pushed out of doors, and my trumpery thrown after me, when
it had been contemptuously examined in the passage, lest I should have
stolen any thing.

"Behold me then in the street, utterly destitute! Whither could I creep
for shelter? To my father's roof I had no claim, when not pursued
by shame--now I shrunk back as from death, from my mother's cruel
reproaches, my father's execrations. I could not endure to hear him
curse the day I was born, though life had been a curse to me. Of death
I thought, but with a confused emotion of terror, as I stood leaning
my head on a post, and starting at every footstep, lest it should be
my mistress coming to tear my heart out. One