as above, he had summed up his affection to
the child in the letter he had wrote to me about providing for it; and
that he had, as other fathers often do, looked upon it as a birth which,
being out of the way, was to be forgotten, as its beginning was to be
repented of; that in providing sufficiently for it he had done more than
all such fathers used to do, and might be well satisfied with it.

He answered me that he should have been very glad if I had been so good
but to have given him the satisfaction of knowing the poor unfortunate
creature was yet alive, and he would have taken some care of it upon
himself, and particularly by owning it for a legitimate child, which,
where nobody had known to the contrary, would have taken off the infamy
which would otherwise cleave to it, and so the child should not itself
have known anything of its own disaster; but that he feared it was now
too late.

He added that I might see by all his conduct since that what unhappy
mistake drew him into the thing at first, and that he would have been
very far from doing the injury to me, or being instrumental to add _une
miserable_ (that was his word) to the world, if he had not been drawn
into it by the hopes he had of making me his own; but that, if it was
possible to rescue the child from the consequences of its unhappy birth,
he hoped I would give him leave to do it, and he would let me see that
he had both means and affection still to do it; and that,
notwithstanding all the misfortunes that had befallen him, nothing that
belonged to him, especially by a mother he had such a concern for as he
had for me, should ever want what he was in a condition to do for it.

I could not hear this without being sensibly touched with it. I was
ashamed that he should show that he had more real affection for the
child, though he had never seen it in his life, than I that bore it, for
indeed I did not love the child, nor love to see it; and though I had
provided for it, yet I did it by Amy's hand, and had not seen it above
twice in four years, being privately resolved that when it grew up it
should not be able to call me mother.

However, I told him the child was taken care of, and that he need not be
anxious about it, unless he suspected that I had less affection for it
than he that had never seen it in his life; that he knew what I had
promised him to do for it, namely, to give it the thousand pistoles
which I had offered him, and which he had declin