Page:Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749, vol. 2).pdf/47

 production of the first essay of a journeyman cabinet-maker, on his master's maid; the consequence of which was a big-belly, and the loss of her place. He was not in circumstances to do much for her; and yet, after all this blemish, she found means, after she had dropt her burthen, and disposed of me at a poor relation's in the country, to repair it by marrying a pastry cook here in London, in thriving business; on whom she soon, under favour of the compleat ascendant he had given her over him, passed me for a child she had by her first husband. I had, on that footing been taken home, and was not six years old when this father-in-law died, and left my mother in tolerable circumstances, and without any children by him. As to my natural father, he had betaken himself to the sea; where, when the truth of things came out, I was told that he died, not immensely rich you may think, since he was no more than a common sailor. As I grew up, under the eye of my mother, who kept on the - Rh