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MY SECRET LIFE

CHAPTER XII.

Sarah and Susan.—At a keyhole.—A village fair.—Up against a wall.—An unknown woman.—Clapped again.—My deaf relative.—Some weeks felicity.—Sarah’s secret.—Susan’s history.—Sarah with child.—Amidst black-beetles.—Susan’s virginity.—Susan with child.—Sisters’ disclosures.—A row.—A child born.—Emigration.

I had now passed my twentieth year. The new servants were sisters (how many times have sisters fallen to me!); the eldest who was cook was named Sarah; the youngest, Susan. Sarah was about twenty-six, Susan nineteen or twenty. I carefully arranged the key in the key-hole of their door the first night, but

saw nothing for two or three nights. Then oh! fortune again. They rose later than my mother liked; she came up to their room one morning and found them locked in, so she took away the key. Now I had as far as the key-hole permitted, a fair field, but then clothes hanging upon pegs on the door were often in my way; yet I was so persistent in looking when they went to bed, and arose, that I saw a great deal. How cunning I had got; I had filed and oiled the lock and hinges of my door and theirs, so that I could close and open them noiselessly, used to stoop daily with my eye to their key-hole, stepping from my room with naked feet. I was nearly caught several times, but never quite. It now seems wonderful that I was not.

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