Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 4).pdf/272

 Then, putting a shilling into one of their hands, she requested to have a couple of eggs and a crust of bread.

The eggs were immediately baked in the cinders; the crust was cut from a loaf of sweet and fresh brown bread. And if her drink had seemed nectar, what was more substantial appeared to her to be ambrosia! and her little waiters became Hebes and Ganymedes.

Refreshment thus salubrious, rest thus restorative, and security thus serene, after fatigue, fasting, and alarm, made her deem this one of the most felicitous moments of her life. Her sole immediate desire was to lengthen it, and to spend, in this tranquil retreat, a part, at least, of the period destined to concealment and obscurity. She had not forgotten her first little protegés, nor lost her wish to join them and their worthy mother; but she had severely experienced how little fitted to the female character, to female safety, and female propriety, was this hazardous