Moll Flanders | Page 8

fourteen years old, was tall of my
age, and looked a little womanish; but I had such a taste of genteel living at the lady's
house that I was not so easy in my old quarters as I used to be, and I thought it was fine to
be a gentlewoman indeed, for I had quite other notions of a gentlewoman now than I had
before; and as I thought, I say, that it was fine to be a gentlewoman, so I loved to be
among gentlewomen, and therefore I longed to be there again.
About the time that I was fourteen years and a quarter old, my good nurse, mother I
rather to call her, fell sick and died. I was then in a sad condition indeed, for as there is no
great bustle in putting an end to a poor body's family when once they are carried to the
grave, so the poor good woman being buried, the parish children she kept were

immediately removed by the church-wardens; the school was at an end, and the children
of it had no more to do but just stay at home till they were sent somewhere else; and as
for what she left, her daughter, a married woman with six or seven children, came and
swept it all away at once, and removing the goods, they had no more to say to me than to
jest with me, and tell me that the little gentlewoman might set up for herself if she
pleased.
I was frighted out of my wits almost, and knew not what to do, for I was, as it were,
turned out of doors to the wide world, and that which was still worse, the old honest
woman had two-and- twenty shillings of mine in her hand, which was all the estate the
little gentlewoman had in the world; and when I asked the daughter for it, she huffed me
and laughed at me, and told me she had nothing to do with it.
It was true the good, poor woman had told her daughter of it, and that it lay in such a
place, that it was the child's money, and had called once or twice for me to give it me, but
I was, unhappily, out of the way somewhere or other, and when I came back she was past
being in a condition to speak of it. However, the daughter was so honest afterwards as to
give it me, though at first she used me cruelly about it.
Now was I a poor gentlewoman indeed, and I was just that very night to be turned into
the wide world; for the daughter removed all the goods, and I had not so much as a
lodging to go to, or a bit of bread to eat. But it seems some of the neighbours, who had
known my circumstances, took so much compassion of me as to acquaint the lady in
whose family I had been a week, as I mentioned above; and immediately she sent her
maid to fetch me away, and two of her daughters came with the maid though unsent. So I
went with them, bag and baggage, and with a glad heart, you may be sure. The fright of
my condition had made such an impression upon me, that I did not want now to be a
gentlewoman, but was very willing to be a servant, and that any kind of servant they
thought fit to have me be.
But my new generous mistress, for she exceeded the good woman I was with before, in
everything, as well as in the matter of estate; I say, in everything except honesty; and for
that, though this was a lady most exactly just, yet I must not forget to say on all occasions,
that the first, though poor, was as uprightly honest as it was possible for any one to be.
I was no sooner carried away, as I have said, by this good gentlewoman, but the first lady,
that is to say, the Mayoress that was, sent her two daughters to take care of me; and
another family which had taken notice of me when I was the little gentlewoman, and had
given me work to do, sent for me after her, so that I was mightily made of, as we say; nay,
and they were not a little angry, especially madam the Mayoress, that her friend had
taken me away from her, as she called it; for, as she said, I was hers by right, she having
been the first that took any notice of me. But they that had me would not part with me;
and as for me, though I should have been very well treated with any of the others,