here your benevolence rescued me from the jaws of death.'

So much candour and good sense appeared in this lady's narration, that
I made no scruple of believing every syllable of what she said, and
expressed my astonishment at the variety of miseries she had undergone
in so little time, for all her misfortunes had happened within the
compass of two years; I compared her situation with my own, and found it
a thousand times more wretched. I had endured hardships, 'tis true--my
whole life had been a series of such; and when I looked forward, the
prospect was not much bettered, but then they were become habitual to
me, and consequently I could bear them with less difficulty. If one
scheme of life should not succeed, I could have recourse to another, and
so to a third, veering about to a thousand different shifts, according
to the emergencies of my fate, without forfeiting the dignity of my
character beyond a power of retrieving it, or subjecting myself wholly
to the caprice and barbarity of the world. On the other hand, she had
known and relished the sweets of prosperity, she had been brought up
under the wings of an indulgent parent, in all the delicacies to which
her sex and rank entitled her; and without any extravagance of hope,
entertained herself with the view of uninterrupted happiness through the
whole scene of life. How fatal then, how tormenting, how intolerable,
must her reverse of fortune be!--a reverse, that not only robs her of
these external comforts, and plunges her into all the miseries of want,
but also murders her peace of mind, and entails upon her the curse of
eternal infamy! Of all professions I pronounced that of a courtesan the
most deplorable, and her of all courtesans the most unhappy. She allowed
my observation to be just in the main, but at the same time affirmed
that notwithstanding the disgraces which had fallen to her share, she
had not been so unlucky in the condition of a prostitute as many others
of the same community. "I have often seen," said she, "while I strolled
about the streets at midnight, a number of naked wretches reduced to
rags and filth, huddled together like swine, in the corner of a dark
alley, some of whom, but eighteen months before, I had known the
favourites of the town, rolling in affluence, and glittering in all the
pomp of equipage and dress. Miserable wretch that I am! perhaps the same
horrors are decreed for me!" "No!" cried she, after some pause, "I shall
never live