Page:Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749, vol. 1).pdf/139

 precaution of dressing me in a less taudry flaunting stile than were the cloaths I escap'd to him in, and of passing me for his wife that he had secretly married, and kept private, (the old story) on account of his friends. I dare swear this appear'd extremely apocryphal to a woman who knew the town so well as she did; but that was the least of her concern; It was impossible to be less scruple-ridden than she was: and the advantage of letting her rooms being her sole object, the truth itself would have far from scandaliz'd her, or broke her bargain.

A sketch of her picture and personal history will dispose you to account for the part she is to act in my concerns.

She was about forty six years old, tall, meager, red-hair'd, with one of those trivial ordinary faces you meet with every where, and go about unheeded and unmention'd. In her youth she had been kept by a gentleman, who dying, left her forty pounds a year during her life, in consideration of a daughter he had by her; which