Page:The Female Advocate.djvu/77

 to her weary limbs. Her inability to wrestle with difficulties are great indeed; especially when she finds her whole endeavours fruitless: and, what is still as bad, by running to and fro, in pursuit of some means for bread, (which she is not able to obtain) the shrill voice of censure, or the destructive whisper of calumny, having breathed such a poisonous vapour over her character, she is despised by all, in the manner described in the foregoing pages, and irremediably doomed to sink, never more to rise; for, who will admit a woman of lost reputation into their house? O, cruel censure! what must be the sensations of oppressed innocence, under the censure of guilt! Even what is it they do not feel, on the bare appellation of idle and disorderly, when they have tried every expedient to obtain employment, though to no effect?

Under such a pressure of misfortunes, they must bear their sorrows in silence, unknown and unpitied! and must frequently put on a face of cheerful serenity, when their hearts are torn with secret grief. Thus they pass their time in sorrow, till they meet the