This was really so prudently and wisely managed, that I found my son
was a man of sense, and needed no direction from me. I told him I did
not wonder that his father was as he had described him, for that his
head was a little touched before I went away; and principally his
disturbance was because I could not be persuaded to conceal our
relation and to live with him as my husband, after I knew that he was
my brother; that as he knew better than I what his father's present
condition was, I should readily join with him in such measure as he
would direct; that I was indifferent as to seeing his father, since I
had seen him first, and he could not have told me better news than to
tell me that what his grandmother had left me was entrusted in his
hands, who, I doubted not, now he knew who I was, would, as he said, do
me justice. I inquired then how long my mother had been dead, and
where she died, and told so many particulars of the family, that I left
him no room to doubt the truth of my being really and truly his mother.
My son then inquired where I was, and how I had disposed myself. I
told him I was on the Maryland side of the bay, at the plantation of a
particular friend who came from England in the same ship with me; that
as for that side of the bay where he was, I had no habitation. He told
me I should go home with him, and live with him, if I pleased, as long
as I lived; that as to his father, he knew nobody, and would never so
much as guess at me. I considered of that a little, and told him, that
though it was really no concern to me to live at a distance from him,
yet I could not say it would be the most comfortable thing in the world
to me to live in the house with him, and to have that unhappy object
always before me, which had been such a blow to my peace before; that
though I should be glad to have his company (my son), or to be as near
him as possible while I stayed, yet I could not think of being in the
house where I should be also under constant restraint for fear of
betraying myself in my discourse, nor should I be able to refrain some
expressions in my conversing with him as my son, that might discover
the whole affair, which would by no means be convenient.