o please himself. The one was a large, very good leg of veal; the
other a piece of the fore-ribs of roasting beef. He looked at them, but
made me chaffer with the butcher for him, and I did so, and came back to
him and told him what the butcher had demanded for either of them, and
what each of them came to. So he pulls out eleven shillings and
threepence, which they came to together, and bade me take them both; the
rest, he said, would serve another time.

I was surprised, you may be sure, at the bounty of a man that had but a
little while ago been my terror, and had torn the goods out of my house
like a fury; but I considered that my distresses had mollified his
temper, and that he had afterwards been so compassionate as to give me
leave to live rent free in the house a whole year.

But now he put on the face, not of a man of compassion only, but of a
man of friendship and kindness, and this was so unexpected that it was
surprising. We chatted together, and were, as I may call it, cheerful,
which was more than I could say I had been for three years before. He
sent for wine and beer too, for I had none; poor Amy and I had drank
nothing but water for many weeks, and indeed I have often wondered at
the faithful temper of the poor girl, for which I but ill requited her
at last.

When Amy was come with the wine, he made her fill a glass to him, and
with the glass in his hand he came to me and kissed me, which I was, I
confess, a little surprised at, but more at what followed; for he told
me, that as the sad condition which I was reduced to had made him pity
me, so my conduct in it, and the courage I bore it with, had given him a
more than ordinary respect for me, and made him very thoughtful for my
good; that he was resolved for the present to do something to relieve
me, and to employ his thoughts in the meantime, to see if he could for
the future put me into a way to support myself.

While he found me change colour, and look surprised at his discourse,
for so I did, to be sure, he turns to my maid Amy, and looking at her,
he says to me, "I say all this, madam, before your maid, because both
she and you shall know that I have no ill design, and that I have, in
mere kindness, resolved to do something for you if I can; and as I have
been a witness of the uncommon honesty and fidelity of Mrs. Amy here to
you in all your distresses, I know she may be trusted with so honest a
design as mine is; for I assure you, I bear a prop