Page:Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749, vol. 1).pdf/155

 Mrs. Jones, however, judging rightly that it was her time to strike whilst the impressions were so strong upon me, left me to myself, and to all the terrors of an imagination, wounded to death by the idea of going to a prison, and, from a principle of self-preservation, snatching at every glimpse of redemption from it.

In this situation I sat near half an hour, swallow'd up in grief and despair, when my landlady came in, and observing a death-like dejection in my countenance, still in pursuance of her plan, put on a false pity, and bidding me be of a good heart, things she said would not be so bad as I imagin'd, if I would be but my own friend: and closed with telling me she had brought a very honourable gentleman to drink tea with me, who would give me the best advice how to get rid of all my troubles: upon which, without waiting for a reply, she goes out, and returns with this very honourable gentleman, whose very honourable procuress she had been on this as well as other occasions.

Rh