saw myself under a necessity of trying my fortune with them, rather with pleasure and gayety, than with the least idea of despondence.
In the mean time, several of my acquaintance among the sister hood, who had soon got wind of my misfortune, flock'd to insult me with their malicious consolations: most of them had long envied me the affluence and splendour I had been maintain'd in; and though there was scarce one of them that did not at least deserve to be in my case, and would probably sooner or later come to it, it was equally easy to remark, even in their affected pity, their secret pleasure at seeing me thus disgrac'd and discarded, and their secret grief that it was still no worse with me. Unaccountable malice of the human heart! and which is not confin'd to the class of life they were of.
But as the time approach'd for me to come to some resolution how to dispose of myself, and I was considering round where to shift my quarters to, Mrs. Cole, a middle-aged discret sort of woman, who had been brought into my acquaintance by one of the misses that visited me, upon learning my situation, came to offer her cor-
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