 to preserve my life.'



THE reader having seen that Mrs. Marlow, instead of acting the treacherous part of a faithless servant, had assumed all the dignity of a Spartan mother, it may not be amiss for the satisfaction of my readers to see how she became that mother.
It will easily be recollected that, in the second volume of this history, I gave a hint that Emma had made a very singular discovery, on hearing the particulars of Mrs. Marlow's story. This discovery was no less than that Standfast was the very clergyman by whom that poor lady had been seduced, through the connivance of her aunt, when little more than an infant.
She recollected to have heard that there had been a similar accusation against him when first he lived chaplain to Major Malplaquet, and now, having

learnt the maiden name of Mrs. Marlow, she found that she must have been the innocent victim whom she had always understood he had treated with uncommon cruelty. For the remainder of her intelligence, she received it first from Figgins, and afterwards, through Swash, from Flush, who had lived with him at the time, and was in the plot; but, as her communication with Kiddy had been ambiguous and guarded, till some little time before the grand eclaircissement, she had only learnt that Gloss was the precious fruit of that illicit amour in time to make it the climax of her discovery to Sir Sidney.
The reader recollects—which will illustrate this matter better—that while that close intimacy subsisted between Charles and Gloss, Figgins was of the party, who, from some circumstances that came within his knowledge, learnt that Gloss did not go to the Cape of Good Hope. This induced him to think oddly of his connexion with Mr. Standfast, but he did not find it worth his while to investigate it till Emma went to France, at which time he undertook to gather all the intelligence he could for her at home, that, had it been necessary to make her grand discovery there, she might be in possession of facts of magnitude sufficient to have induced Sir Sidney to discard Gloss. Thus she learnt, by a

letter from Mr. Figgins, three days before the business of Aix la Chapelle, that Gloss was the son of Standfast, but she never divined the rest, as I have just said, till after repeated conversations with Mrs. Marlow, and Kiddy's confirmation of those suspicions that arose out of it.
Thus, in different stages of this business, she used as much of this fact as she thought necessary for her purpose. She told Annette, in
