These desertions had, however, now so far thinned Mrs.
Cole's brood that she was left with only me like a hen with
one chicken; but tho' she was earnestly entreated and encou-
rag'd to recruit her corps, her growing infirmities, and,
above all, the tortures of a stubborn hip-gout, which she
found would yield to no remedy, determin'd her to bread up her
business and retire with a decent pittance into the country,
where I promis'd myself nothing so sure, as my going down to
live with her as soon as I had seen a little more of life and
improv'd my small matters into a competency that would create
in me an independence on the world: for I was, now, thanks to
Mrs. Cole, wise enough to keep that essential in view.
Thus was I then to lose my faithful preceptress, as did
the Philosophers of the town the White Crow of her profession.
For besides that she never ransacked her customers, whose
taste too she ever studiously consulted, besides that she
never racked her pupils with unconscionable extortions, nor
ever put their hard earnings, as she call'd them, under the
contribution of poundage. She was a severe enemy to the
seduction for innocence, and confin'd her acquisitions solely
to those unfortunate young women, who, having lost it, were
but the juster objects of compassion: among these, indeed,
she pick'd but such as suited her views and taking them under
her protection, rescu'd them from the danger of the publick
sinks of ruin and misery, to place, or do for them, well or
ill, in the manner you have seen.
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