She was a lovely woman, had firm, smooth, creamy flesh, was as plump as a sucking-pig, a fat cunt of my favorite style then, and the loveliest coloured hair on it I ever saw; but it was ample, both inside and out-side, I had experience enough to know that even then, though its grip of the prick was heavenly. Her form and figure was if anything, what may be called thick, the ankles and wrists were thick, but neither feet or hands were large, her breasts and bum were faultless. Take her all in all she was a superb creature, and had such a complexion'

I sent for wine and biscuits, for we got thirsty and hungry, and then amidst amorous dalliance we chatted. She astonished me not a little about her career. I was always curious with a woman whom I had poked, and till I had heard something about her was not satisfied. Whether lies or truth I always got a history of some sort out of a woman of Mary's class, and usually got the main facts truly. I have tested them. But not so with gay women, they mostly lie heavily.

“Master (she always addressed me so in country fashion and dialect), you know.” “I?” “Yes.” “No.” “You do.” “What nonsense.” “Ain't she told you?” “No.” “Why she knows all about me, she caught me crying one day, spoke kindly, it made me open my heart, and I told her all I —yet she has never told you?” “Never, and if you have told her anything about your-self that you had better have kept to yourself, you will regret it.” “I fear I shall.” Then little by little, amidst tears and caresses, she told me her history, and again did on future days, and I saw her letters, rings, jewellery, silks, and other proofs, I knew the town she lived in, know some of the people in it whom she mentioned, and was satisfied with the truth of every part of her story. One gentleman she named was to have married one of my sisters, — how strange !

Chapter XXI

Preliminary. • Maid Mary's seduction. • Flight. • Desertion. • Going to the post-office. • A halfpenny signal. • Against an arm-chair. • The privy watched. • Nearly caught. • Mary suspected. • Dismissed.-In lodgings. • Service again. • My cousin sir. • Letters lost • Mary disappears. • Seven years afterwards. • Sequel.

The daughter of a small inn-keeper at the town of B..t.n, she was at a public hall. A young gentleman danced with her, afterwards paid attentions to her, and induced her to run off with him. “Oh! I was just as bad as him, poor fellow! When he got me into the room I felt sure what he was after, knew it was wrong, knew he would want me, and that I should let him. I wanted to let him do it, to be all to him, I did not want it done to me for myself, not that I recollect, I dare say I might, but don't recollect that; but I wanted him to do with me what he liked, anything he liked, anything he wanted to do me. I would have let him do anything that would make him happy, and seem as if I belonged to him entirely, and he to me for ever.”

“And he did it?” “Yes. I stopped out all night and next day, and then went home frightened. I was father's favorite, he had been hunting for me like mad all over the town, and letting people know I was not at home. He hit me,-there was such a row !—my sister spat at me, and called me a whore. I never slept all night, and hadn't slept the night before, what with his a pulling me about and doing it, and my fear of being found out. I was ill, and father kept me locked up in my room a week, because I would not tell him where I had been and with who. I said I had been to an aunt's, he went to her, and found I had fibbed. At length he let me out, because he wanted me to attend to his business, and the first man I saw in the bar was my dear boy,-I nearly fainted.” — These were as nearly as posible her own words describing her seduction, they are so unlike the confessions I have had from other women, that the very words sank deep into my mind.

After that he used to go and drink at the bar, her father talked with him, not knowing he was the man who had broached his daughter. She was watched till life was unbearable, her sister worried her (she had no mother), neighbours who had thought well of her began to sneer, a country swain who liked her was saucy to her, one or two swells in the neighbourhood who had been accustomed to see her about, and ad-mired her beautty, were now free in their behaviour. One took liberties with her, and in the public-house began asking her smutty questions. Weary with all this, liking the man whose sperm had wetted her virgin cunt, perhaps longing to have more (although she always declared to me that she had no recollection of that desire affecting her), one night she ran away to Lon-don with him.

They lived in London nine months. Then came grief. He was the son of a West-India planter who had sent him to London to pass as barrister. His father's agents found out the connection with Mary, and wrote to the father that he was spending his money, but not ad- vancing his career. His father objected, then threatened, and then his allowance was stopped. They lived on what they had, until penniless. He wrote that he was going to marry Mary, and his father replied that if he did he need never return and might starve. He was a gentleman, and could not get his living, he tried but failed. Then the father wrote, requesting him to return, and saying he would provide for Mary. Misery stared them in the face, and he consented to go home.

His father remitted money. The first thing he did was to take all Mary's jewelry and clothes out of pawn, and then to arrange for her to live. He promised to come back, and marry her, and some sort of such promise was made by his father's agents. He begged her to go home, but she would not. Then he put her to lodge with a small middle-class woman whom he bribed to give Mary a character as a servant, for he declared he would remain, and ruin himself for ever, if she neither would go home, nor go to service. Mary remained there a couple of months, dressing plainly, and only going to see him in his lodgings at night, or to meet him at places where it would not be known. Then he went to India. Repeated threats of his father, and his want of money would let him stay no longer.

The father arranged that Mary should be paid fifteen shillings a week, and they paid it for some time. She wanted to write to her lover, but had mislaid his address, the agents said that their instructions were to stop the weekly payment if she corresponded with him; but he wrote to her, she replied, and then their payments ceased. Her lover then sent her money; but his father found that out, and kept him penniless. She was in London now alone, knowing not a person, again he sent her trifling sums, but begged her to go out to service, or she would become a gay woman (I have seen his letters). She used to go out, sit down on a green close by, and cry all day. One day a middle-aged woman accosted her, she told a little of her grief to her, it was something to tell her grief, even to a stranger. The woman told some plausible story, and she went to see her (I had the address). There the woman asked to see her partly undressed, and told her that with such legs and breasts she might have silk dresses and jewelry galore, in fact incited her to be a gay woman. True to her lover, she did as he advised. The female with whom she lived gave her a character as a servant, and with that she came into our house.

The way in which the old bawd got to see her legs was amusing, I often thought of it; not knowing a bawd's dodges then. She asked her if she wanted to piddle, took her to a bed-room, and as in sitting down she showed a little leg, the woman broke out into ecstacies, and asked her to show more. Much flattered she did, and then came the old woman's suggestions.

“From the time he left you till the other day, had you never been poked?” “Never, by all that is good. — I would not have injured him, — I was shocked when the old woman told me about getting money by my legs. I hoped he would come back, and always thought he would. But he never answers my letters now, al-though some money came for me the other day, and I know it must be from him, although the writing is not his; even when you threw me on the sofa that day, I thought I was wronging him for a moment, till I for-got everything but you.