d to leave it quite off, if I could but come to lay up
Money enough to maintain me; But these were Thoughts of no weight, and whenever
he came to me they vanish'd; for his Company was so Delightful, that there was
no being Melancholly when he was there, the Reflections were all the Subject of
those Hours when I was alone.
    I liv'd six Years in this happy, but unhappy Condition, in which time I
brought him three Children, but only the first of them liv'd; and tho' I remov'd
twice in that Six Years, yet I came back the Sixth Year to my first Lodgings at
Hamersmith: Here it was that I was one Morning surpris'd with a kind but
melancholly Letter from my Gentleman; intimating, that he was very ill, and was
afraid he should have another Fit of Sickness, but that his Wife's Relations
being in the House with him, it would not be practicable to have me with him,
which however he express'd his great Dissatisfaction in, and that he wish'd I
could be allow'd to tend and Nurse him as I did before.
    I was very much concern'd at this Account, and was very impatient to know
how it was with him; I waited a Fortnight or thereabouts, and heard nothing,
which surpriz'd me, and I began to be very uneasy indeed; I think, I may say,
that for the next Fortnight I was near to distracted: It was my particular
Difficulty, that I did not know directly where he was; for I understood at first
he was in the Lodgings of his Wife's Mother; but having remov'd my self to
London, I soon found, by the help of the Direction I had for writing my Letters
to him, how to enquire after him, and there I found that he was at a House in
Bloomsbury, whither he had remov'd his whole Family; and that his Wife, and
Wife's Mother, were in the same House, tho' the Wife was not suffer'd to know
that she was in the same House with her Husband.
    Here I also soon understood that he was at the last Extremity, which made me
almost at the last Extremity too, to have a true Account: One Night I had the
Curiosity to disguise my self like a Servant Maid in a round Cap and Straw Hat,
and went to the Door, as sent by a Lady of his Neighbourhood, where he liv'd
before,
