upon a discovery that she spared no pains, and she believed she had taken a lodging very near their house for that purpose.
I could hardly give her a hearing of all this for my eagerness to ask for Amy; but I was confounded when she told me she had heard nothing of her. It is impossible to express the anxious thoughts that rolled about in my mind, and continually perplexed me about her; particularly I reproached myself with my rashness in turning away so faithful a creature that for so many years had not only been a servant but an agent; and not only an agent, but a friend, and a faithful friend too.
Then I considered too, that Amy knew all the secret history of my life; had been in all the intrigues of it, and been a party in both evil and good; and at best there was no policy in it; that, as it was very ungenerous and unkind to run things to such an extremity with her, and for an occasion, too, in which all the fault she was guilty of was owing to her excessive care for my safety, so it must be only her steady kindness to me, and an excess of generous friendship for me, that should keep her from ill-using me in return for it; which ill-using me was enough in her power, and might be my utter undoing.
These thoughts perplexed me exceedingly, and what course to take I really did not know. I began, indeed, to give Amy quite over, for she had now been gone above a fortnight, and, as she had taken away all her clothes, and her money too, which was not a little, and so had no occasion of that kind to come any more, so she had not left any word where she was gone, or to which part of the world I might send to hear of her.
And I was troubled on another account too, viz., that my spouse, and I too, had resolved to do very handsomely for Amy, without considering what she might have got another way at all; but we had said nothing of it to her, and so I thought, as she had not known what was likely to fall in her way, she had not the influence of that expectation to make her come back.
Upon the whole, the perplexity of this girl, who hunted me as if, like a hound, she had had a hot scent, but was now at a fault, I say, that perplexity, and this other part of Amy being gone, issued in this I resolved to be gone, and go over to Holland; there, I believed, I should be at rest. So I took occasion one day to tell my spouse that I was afraid he might take it ill that I had amused him thus long, and that, at last, I doubted I was not with child; and that, since it was so, our things being packed up, and all in order for going to Holland, I would go away now when he pleased.
My spouse, who was perfectly easy whether in going or staying, left it all entirely to me; so I considered of it, and began to prepare again for my voyage. But, alas! I was irresolute to the last degree. I was, for want of Amy, destitute; I had lost my right hand; she was my steward, gathered in my rents (I mean my interest money) and kept my accounts, and, in a word, did all my business; and without her, indeed, I knew not how to go away nor how to stay. But an accident thrust itself in here, and that even in Amy's conduct too, which frighted me away, and without her too, in the utmost horror and confusion.
I have related how my faithful friend the Quaker was come to me, and what account she gave me of her being continually haunted by my daughter; and that, as she said, she watched her very door night and day. The
