 brought up to the lowest and vilest Offices of the Commonwealth.«
    Mr. Allworthy answered to all this and much more which the Captain had urged
on this Subject, »That however guilty the Parents might be, the Children were
certainly innocent. That as to the Texts he had quoted, the former of them was a
particular Denunciation against the Jews for the Sin of Idolatry, of
relinquishing and hating their heavenly King; and the latter was parabolically
spoken, and rather intended to denote the certain and necessary Consequences of
Sin, than any express Judgment against it. But to represent the Almighty as
avenging the Sins of the Guilty on the Innocent, was indecent, if not
blasphemous, as it was to represent him acting against the first Principles of
natural Justice, and against the original Notions of Right and Wrong, which he
himself had implanted in our Minds; by which we were to judge not only in all
Matters which were not revealed, but even of the Truth of Revelation itself. He
said, he knew many held the same Principles with the Captain on this Head; but
he was himself firmly convinced to the contrary, and would provide in the same
Manner for this poor Infant, as if a legitimate Child had had the Fortune to
have been found in the same Place.«
    While the Captain was taking all Opportunities to press these and such like
Arguments to remove the little Foundling from Mr. Allworthy's, of whose Fondness
for him he began to be jealous, Mrs. Deborah had made a Discovery, which in its
Event threatned at least to prove more fatal to poor Tommy, than all the
Reasonings of the Captain.
    Whether the insatiable Curiosity of this good Woman had carried her on to
that Business, or whether she did it to confirm herself in the good Graces of
Mrs. Blifil, who, notwithstanding her outward Behaviour to the Foundling,
frequently abused the Infant in private, and her Brother too for his Fondness to
it, I will not determine; but she had now, as she conceived, fully detected the
Father of the Foundling.
    Now as this was a Discovery of great Consequence, it may be necessary to
trace it from the Fountain-head. We shall therefore very minutely lay open those
previous Matters by which it was produced; and for that Purpose, we shall be
obliged to reveal all the Secrets of a little Family, with which my Reader is at
present entirely unacquainted; and of which the Oeconomy was so rare and
extraordinary, that I fear it will shock the utmost Credulity of many married
Persons.
 

                                  Chapter III

The Description of a domestic Government founded
