with great acrimony, he reproached her with having formed a design to marry his son without his consent, an act of ingratitude which he said justified him in upbraiding her with the favours which he had already conferred upon her, and in a resolution he had taken that a bank bill of fifty pounds, which he then put into her hand, should be the last; adding, that he expected she should within one week leave the house. To this heavy charge she was not in a condition to reply; nor did he stay to see whether she would attempt it, but hastily got into the coach, which immediately drove from the door.

Thus was Melissa, a third time, by a sudden and unexpected desertion, exposed to penury and distress, with this aggravation, that ease and affluence were become habitual; and that though she was not so helpless as at the death of her uncle, she was exposed to yet greater danger; for few that have been used to slumber upon down, and wake to festivity, can resist the allurements of vice, who still offers ease and plenty, when the alternatives are a flock bed and a garret, short meals, coarse apparel, and perpetual labour.

Melissa, as soon as she had recovered from the stupor which had seized her upon so astonishing and dreadful a change of fortune, determined not to accept the bounty of a person who imagined her to be unworthy of it; nor to attempt her justification, while it would render her veracity suspected, and appear to proceed only from the hope of being restored to a state of splendid dependence, from which jealousy or caprice might again at any time remove her, without cause and without notice: she had not, indeed, any hope of being ever able to defend herself against her accuser upon equal terms; nor did she know how to subsist a single day, when she had returned his bill and quitted his house; yet such was the dignity of her spirit, that she immediately enclosed it in a blank cover, directed to him at his country seat, and calling up the maid who had been left to take care of the house, sent her immediately with it to the postoffice. The tears then burst out, which the agitation of her mind had before restrained; and when the servant returned, she told her all that had happened, and asked her advice what she should do. The girl, after the first emotions of wonder and pity had subsided, told her that she had a sister who lodged in a reputable house, and took in plain work, to whom she would be welcome, as she could assist her in her business, of which she had often more than she could do; and with whom she might continue till some more eligible situation could be obtained. Melissa listened to this proposal as to the voice of heaven; her mind was suddenly relieved from the most tormenting perplexity, from the dread of wandering about without money or employment, exposed to the menaces of a beadle, or the insults of the rabble: she was in haste to secure her good fortune, and felt some degree of pain lest she should lose it by the earlier application of another; she therefore went immediately with the maid to her sister, with whom it was soon agreed that Melissa should work for her board and lodging: for she would not consent to accept as a gift, that which she could by any means deserve as a payment.

While Melissa was a journeywoman to a person, who but a few weeks before would have regarded her with envy, and approached her with confusion; it happened that a suit of linen was brought from the milliner’s wrapped up in a newspaper: the linen was put into the work-basket, and the paper being thrown carelessly about, Melissa, at last, catched it up, and was about to read it; but perceiving that it had been published a fortnight, was just going to put it into the fire, when by an accidental glance she saw her father’s name: this immediately engaged her attention, and with great perturbation of mind she read an advertisement, in which her father, said to have left his friends, about eighteen years before, and to have entered either into the army or the navy, was directed to apply to a person in Staples Inn, who could inform him of something greatly to his advantage. To this person Melissa applied with all the ardour of curiosity, and all the tumult of expectation: she was informed that the elder brother of the person mentioned in the advertisement was lately dead, unmarried; that he was possessed of fifteen hundred a year, five hundred of which had descended to him from his father, and one thousand had been left him by an uncle, which upon his death, there being no male heir, had been claimed by his sisters; but that a mistress who had lived with him many years, and who had been treated by the supposed heiresses with too much severity and contempt, had in the bitterness of her resentment published the advertisement, having heard in the family that there was a younger brother abroad.