fervour of seduction, estranged him from her so completely, that her
very person became distasteful to him; and he began to hate, as well as
despise me, before I was born.

"My mother, grieved to the soul by his neglect, and unkind treatment,
actually resolved to famish herself; and injured her health by the
attempt; though she had not sufficient resolution to adhere to her
project, or renounce it entirely. Death came not at her call; yet
sorrow, and the methods she adopted to conceal her condition, still
doing the work of a house-maid, had such an effect on her constitution,
that she died in the wretched garret, where her virtuous mistress had
forced her to take refuge in the very pangs of labour, though my father,
after a slight reproof, was allowed to remain in his place--allowed by
the mother of six children, who, scarcely permitting a footstep to be
heard, during her month's indulgence, felt no sympathy for the poor
wretch, denied every comfort required by her situation.

"The day my mother, died, the ninth after my birth, I was consigned to
the care of the cheapest nurse my father could find; who suckled her own
child at the same time, and lodged as many more as she could get, in two
cellar-like apartments.

"Poverty, and the habit of seeing children die off her hands, had so
hardened her heart, that the office of a mother did not awaken the
tenderness of a woman; nor were the feminine caresses which seem a part
of the rearing of a child, ever bestowed on me. The chicken has a wing
to shelter under; but I had no bosom to nestle in, no kindred warmth to
foster me. Left in dirt, to cry with cold and hunger till I was weary,
and sleep without ever being prepared by exercise, or lulled by kindness
to rest; could I be expected to become any thing but a weak and rickety