by my fearful apprehensions, so terrour-struck, that I had no power to sit up, or hardly to give answers to the questions with which the curious Martha ply'd and perplex'd me.
Such too, and so cruel was my fate, that I dreaded the sight of Mrs. Brown, as if I had been the criminal, and she the person injur'd: a mistake which you will not think so strange, on distinguishing that neither virtue, nor principles, had the least share in the defence I had made; but only the particular aversion I had conceiv'd against this first brutal and frightful invader of my tender innocence.
I pass'd then the time till Mrs. Brown's return home, under all the agitations of fear and despair that may easily be guessed.
About eleven at night my two ladies came home, and having receiv'd rather a favourable account from Martha, who had run down to let them in: (for Mr. Crofts, that was the name of my brute, was gone out of the house, after
