she thought Amy had found some way to persuade her to be quiet and easy, and to give over teasing and following me, and rejoiced in it for my sake; as she thought nothing of any evil herself, so she suspected none in anybody else, and was exceeding glad of having such good news to write to me; but my thoughts of it run otherwise.
I was struck, as with a blast from heaven, at the reading her letter; I fell into a fit of trembling from head to foot, and I ran raving about the room like a mad woman. I had nobody to speak a word to, to give vent to my passion; nor did I speak a word for a good while, till after it had almost overcome me. I threw myself on the bed, and cried out, 'Lord, be merciful to me, she has murdered my child!'; and with that a flood of tears burst out, and I cried vehemently for above an hour.
My husband was very happily gone out a-hunting, so that I had the opportunity of being alone, and to give my passions some vent, by which I a little recovered myself. But, after my crying was over, then I fell in a new rage at Amy; I called her a thousand devils and monsters and hard-hearted tigers; I reproached her with her knowing that I abhorred it, and had let her know it sufficiently, in that I had, as it were, kicked her out of doors, after so many years' friendship and service, only for naming it to me.
Well, after some time, my spouse came in from his sport, and I put on the best looks I could to deceive him; but he did not take so little notice of me as not to see I had been crying, and that something troubled me, and he pressed me to tell him. I seemed to bring it out with reluctance, but told him my backwardness was more because I was ashamed that such a trifle should have any effect upon me, than for any weight that was in it; so I told him I had been vexing myself about my woman Amy's not coming again; that she might have known me better than not to believe I should have been friends with her again, and the like; and that, in short, I had lost the best servant by my rashness that ever woman had.
'Well, well', says he, 'if that be all your grief, I hope you will soon shake it off; I'll warrant you, in a little while we shall hear of Mrs Amy again.' And so it went off for that time. But it did not go off with me; for I was uneasy and terrified to the last degree, and wanted to get some farther account of the thing. So I went away to my sure and certain comforter, the Quaker, and there I had the whole story of it; and the good, innocent Quaker gave me joy of my being rid of such an unsufferable tormentor.
'Rid of her! Ay', says I, 'if I was rid of her fairly and honourably; but I don't know what Amy may have done. Sure, she ha'n't made her away?' 'Oh fie! I says my Quaker; 'how canst thou entertain such a notion! No, no. Made her away? Amy didn't talk like that; I dare say thou may'st be easy in that; Amy has nothing of that in her head, I dare say', says she; and so threw it, as it were, out of my thoughts.
But it would not do; it run in my head continually; night and day I could think of nothing else; and it fixed such a horror of the fact upon my spirits, and such a detestation of Amy, who I looked upon as the murderer, that, as for her, I believe, if I could have seen her, I should certainly have sent her to Newgate, or to a worse place, upon suspicion; indeed, I think I could have killed her with my own hands. As for the poor girl herself, she was ever before my eyes; I saw her
