and as heartily as I did.

The truth was, there was no need of much discourse in the case, the
thing spoke itself; they saw me in rags and dirt, who was but a little
before riding in my coach; thin, and looking almost like one starved,
who was before fat and beautiful. The house, that was before handsomely
furnished with pictures and ornaments, cabinets, pier-glasses, and
everything suitable, was now stripped and naked, most of the goods
having been seized by the landlord for rent, or sold to buy necessaries;
in a word, all was misery and distress, the face of ruin was everywhere
to be seen; we had eaten up almost everything, and little remained,
unless, like one of the pitiful women of Jerusalem, I should eat up my
very children themselves.

After these two good creatures had sat, as I say, in silence some time,
and had then looked about them, my maid Amy came in, and brought with
her a small breast of mutton and two great bunches of turnips, which she
intended to stew for our dinner. As for me, my heart was so overwhelmed
at seeing these two friends--for such they were, though poor--and at
their seeing me in such a condition, that I fell into another violent
fit of crying, so that, in short, I could not speak to them again for a
great while longer.

During my being in such an agony, they went to my maid Amy at another
part of the same room and talked with her. Amy told them all my
circumstances, and set them forth in such moving terms, and so to the
life, that I could not upon any terms have done it like her myself, and,
in a word, affected them both with it in such a manner, that the old
aunt came to me, and though hardly able to speak for tears, "Look ye,
cousin," said she, in a few words, "things must not stand thus; some
course must be taken, and that forthwith; pray, where were these
children born?" I told her the parish where we lived before, that four
of them were born there, and one in the house where I now was, where the
landlord, after having seized my goods for the rent past, not then
knowing my circumstances, had now given me leave to live for a whole
year more without any rent, being moved with compassion; but that this
year was now almost expired.

Upon hearing this account, they came to this resolution, that the
children should be all carried by them to the door of one of the
relations mentioned above, and be set down there by the maid Amy, and
that I, the mother, should remove for some days, shut