ing.

However, I was too tender a mother still, notwithstanding what I had
done, to let this poor girl go about the world drudging, as it were, for
bread, and slaving at the fire and in the kitchen as a cook-maid;
besides, it came into my head that she might perhaps marry some poor
devil of a footman, or a coachman, or some such thing, and be undone
that way, or, which was worse, be drawn in to lie with some of that
coarse, cursed kind, and be with child, and be utterly ruined that way;
and in the midst of all my prosperity this gave me great uneasiness.

As to sending Amy to her, there was no doing that now, for, as she had
been servant in the house, she knew Amy as well as Amy knew me; and no
doubt, though I was much out of her sight, yet she might have had the
curiosity to have peeped at me, and seen me enough to know me again if I
had discovered myself to her; so that, in short, there was nothing to be
done that way.

However, Amy, a diligent indefatigable creature, found out another
woman, and gave her her errand, and sent her to the honest man's house
in Spitalfields, whither she supposed the girl would go after she was
out of her place; and bade her talk with her, and tell her at a distance
that as something had been done for her brother, so something would be
done for her too; and, that she should not be discouraged, she carried
her L20 to buy her clothes, and bid her not go to service any more, but
think of other things; that she should take a lodging in some good
family, and that she should soon hear farther.

The girl was overjoyed with this news, you may be sure, and at first a
little too much elevated with it, and dressed herself very handsomely
indeed, and as soon as she had done so came and paid a visit to Madam
Amy, to let her see how fine she was. Amy congratulated her, and wished
it might be all as she expected, but admonished her not to be elevated
with it too much; told her humility was the best ornament of a
gentlewoman, and a great deal of good advice she gave her, but
discovered nothing.

All this was acted in the first years of my setting up my new figure
here in town, and while the masks and balls were in agitation; and Amy
carried on the affair of setting out my son into the world, which we
were assisted in by the sage advice of my faithful counsellor, Sir
Robert Clayton, who procured us a master for him, by whom he was
afterwards sent abroad to Italy, as you shall hear in its place; and A