Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/317

 she was turned away: but, upon exhibiting great repentance, she was taken back again. Lady Hester found no difficulty, as may be supposed, in extracting from her a confession of the system of plunder that had been carried on, and the names of her accomplices. "I could hang them all," was her constant expression in speaking of them. Fatôom had been in her ladyship's service ten or eleven years, and was not yet twenty; and, being very pretty, and decked out in the finery to which she was enabled to help herself by her share of the plunder, she had vanity enough, when she was turned away, to hope that she should get at least an aga for a husband: but she was disappointed, and was obliged to put up with a small farmer. She consequently came back a married woman, in poor plight as to circumstances, with the prospect of having her difficulties aggravated by a speedy increase to her cares. On this day, 5th March, Fatôom complained of pains. There was not a moment to be lost: the midwife was instantly sent for; Fatôom was hurried away to her mother's in the village, and, before the expiration of a quarter of an hour, she gave birth to a boy.

As soon as Lady Hester learned the result, she requested me to go and see her. I found Fatôom sitting on a mattress on the floor (for nobody in the East has a bedstead) with from fifteen to twenty