She perceived the disorder I was in, but did not know the meaning of
it; so she ran on in her wild talk upon the weakness of my supposing
that children were murdered because they were not all nursed by the
mother, and to persuade me that the children she disposed of were as
well used as if the mothers had the nursing of them themselves.
'It may be true, mother,' says I, 'for aught I know, but my doubts are
very strongly grounded indeed.' 'Come, then,' says she, 'let's hear
some of them.' 'Why, first,' says I, 'you give a piece of money to
these people to take the child off the parent's hands, and to take care
of it as long as it lives. Now we know, mother,' said I, 'that those
are poor people, and their gain consists in being quit of the charge as
soon as they can; how can I doubt but that, as it is best for them to
have the child die, they are not over solicitous about life?' 'This is all vapours and fancy,' says the old woman; 'I tell you their
credit depends upon the child's life, and they are as careful as any
mother of you all.' 'O mother,' says I, 'if I was but sure my little baby would be
carefully looked to, and have justice done it, I should be happy
indeed; but it is impossible I can be satisfied in that point unless I
saw it, and to see it would be ruin and destruction to me, as now my
case stands; so what to do I know not.' 'A fine story!' says the governess. 'You would see the child, and you
would not see the child; you would be concealed and discovered both
together. These are things impossible, my dear; so you must e'en do as
other conscientious mothers have done before you, and be contented with
things as they must be, though they are not as you wish them to be.' I understood what she meant by conscientious mothers; she would have
said conscientious whores, but she was not willing to disoblige me, for
really in this case I was not a whore, because legally married, the
force of former marriage excepted.
However, let me be what I would, I was not come up to that pitch of
hardness common to the profession; I mean, to be unnatural, and
regardless of the safety of my child; and I preserved this honest
affection so long, that I was upon the point of giving up my friend at
the bank, who lay so hard at me to come to him and marry him, that, in
short, there was hardly any room to deny him.