poor and perishing, like mine, without tears;
reflecting on the dreadful condition that mine were reduced to, when
poor Amy sent them all into their aunt's in Spitalfields, and run away
from them. These were the original springs, or fountain-head, from
whence my affectionate thoughts were moved to assist this poor woman.

When a poor debtor, having lain long in the Compter, or Ludgate, or the
King's Bench for debt, afterwards gets out, rises again in the world,
and grows rich, such a one is a certain benefactor to the prisoners
there, and perhaps to every prison he passes by as long as he lives, for
he remembers the dark days of his own sorrow; and even those who never
had the experience of such sorrows to stir up their minds to acts of
charity would have the same charitable, good disposition did they as
sensibly remember what it is that distinguishes them from others by a
more favourable and merciful Providence.

This, I say, was, however, the spring of my concern for this honest,
friendly, and grateful Quaker; and as I had so plentiful a fortune in
the world, I resolved she should taste the fruit of her kind usage to me
in a manner that she could not expect.

All the while I talked to her I saw the disorder of her mind; the sudden
joy was too much for her, and she coloured, trembled, changed, and at
last grew pale, and was indeed near fainting, when she hastily rung a
little bell for her maid, who coming in immediately, she beckoned to
her--for speak she could not--to fill her a glass of wine; but she had
no breath to take it in, and was almost choked with that which she took
in her mouth. I saw she was ill, and assisted her what I could, and with
spirits and things to smell to just kept her from fainting, when she
beckoned to her maid to withdraw, and immediately burst out in crying,
and that relieved her. When she recovered herself a little she flew to
me, and throwing her arms about my neck, "Oh!" says she, "thou hast
almost killed me;" and there she hung, laying her head in my neck for
half a quarter of an hour, not able to speak, but sobbing like a child
that had been whipped.

I was very sorry that I did not stop a little in the middle of my
discourse and make her drink a glass of wine before it had put her
spirits into such a violent motion; but it was too late, and it was ten
to one odds but that it had killed her.

But she came to herself at last, and began to say some very good things
in return for my