Page:Pleasing and entertaining history of the famous Moll Flanders.pdf/3

3 of by his parents. In a few months I married a Draper, who was soon obliged to fly to France for debt; on which I took a lodging in the Mint, pretending to be a widow, and assumed the name of Mrs Flanders. It was my good fortune to marry a gentleman whose estates was in Virginia, and with whom I took a voyage thither, and was kindly received by my husband’s mother; but I found out that our family was of Newgate extraction, she shewing me where she was burned in the hand. Here I lived about three years, and had one child, a boy; but I grew tired of the place, and wished to return to England. I told my husband's mother, who was anxious to know why I was leaving them, that I was convinced she was my own mother, who was delivered of me in Newgate, and that my husband was my brother. I was forced to disclose the matter to him, which so grieved him that he fell into a deep melancholy. I embarked for England, after residing three years in Virginia, landed in Wales, and in nine weeks I arrived in London. Some time after I was courted by a gentleman who had a wife disordered in her head. I lived six years with him, and he was very liberal to me, till at length he fell sick; and on his recovery slighted me, through remorse of conscience. He gave me about £250, promised to take care of a boy I had by him, and I gave him a general release, which put an end to this affair. It was not long before I got acquainted with a clerk belonging to the bank, whose wife had made him a cuckold, and I had like to have become his bride, he