Her heart was ready to break. And she began to vindicate her fidelity
and love; and disclaimed any mischief she had ever made.
I told her, that those who occasioned her being turned out of my
service, made no question of her integrity: that her dismission was
intended for an indignity to me: that I was very sorry to be obliged to
part with her, and hoped she would meet with as good a service.
Never, never, wringing her hands, should she meet with a mistress
she loved so well. And the poor creature ran on in my praises, and in
professions of love to me.
We are all apt, you know, my dear, to praise our benefactors, because
they are our benefactors; as if every body did right or wrong, as they
obliged or disobliged us. But this good creature deserved to be kindly
treated; so I could have no merit in favouring one whom it would have
been ungrateful not to distinguish.
I gave her a little linen, some laces, and other odd things; and instead
of four pounds which were due to her, ten guineas: and said, if ever I
were again allowed to be my own mistress, I would think of her in the
first place.
Betty enviously whispered Shorey upon it.
Hannah told me, before their faces, having no other opportunity, that
she had been examined about letters to me, and from me: and that she
had given her pockets to Miss Harlowe, who looked into them, and put her
fingers in her stays, to satisfy herself that she had not any.
She gave me an account of the number of my pheasants and bantams; and I
said, they should be my own care twice or thrice a day.
We wept over each other at parting. The girl prayed for all the family.
To have so good a servant so disgracefully dismissed, is very cruel: and
I could not help saying that these methods might break my heart, but not
any other way answer the end of the authors of my disgraces.
Betty, with a very saucy fleer, said to Shorey, There would be a trial
of skill about that she fancied. But I took no notice of it. If this
wench thinks that I have robbed her young mistress of a lover, as you
say she has given out, she may believe that it is some degree of merit
in herself to be impertinent to me.
Thus have I been forced to part with my faithful Hannah. If you can
command the good creature to a place worthy of her, pray do for my sake.