Daniel Defoe

“ I sent her next to find out the honest man who, as in the beginning of my story I observed, made them be entertained, and caused the youngest to be fetched from the town where we lived, and where the parish officers had taken care of him. This gentleman was still alive; and there she heard that my youngest daughter and eldest son were dead also, but that my youngest son was alive and was at that time about seventeen years old, and that he was put out apprentice by the kindness and charity of his uncle, but to a mean trade, and at which he was obliged to work very hard. ”

“ However, Amy, a diligent, indefatigable creature, found out another woman and gave her her errand, and sent her to the honest man’s house in Spitalfields, whither she supposed the girl would go after she was out of her place, and bade her talk with her and tell her at a distance that as something had been done for her brother, so something would be done for her too; and that she should not be discouraged, she carried her £20 to buy her clothes, and bade her not to go to service any more but think of other things ”

“ No, she said, it was not a trick, for she had made them take her brother home from apprentice, and bought him new clothes, and put him to have more learning; and the gentlewoman said she would make him her heir.
“Her heir!” says Amy; “what does that amount to? It may be she had nothing to leave him, she might make anybody her heir.”
“No, no,” says the girl, “she came in a fine coach and horses, and I don’t know how many footmen to attend her, and brought a great bag of gold and gave it to my uncle ——, he that brought up my brother, to buy him clothes and to pay for his schooling and board.” ”

“ They had several meetings after this, for Amy went to see her adopted son, and ordered his schooling, clothes, and other things, but enjoined them not to tell the young man anything but that they thought the trade he was at too hard for him, and they would keep him at home a little longer and give him some schooling to fit him for better business; and Amy appeared to him as she did before, only as one that had known his mother and had some kindness for him. ”

“ I think you have done enough for the child, and that you ought to be acknowledged as a father to him, but you ought not to lose by your kindness to him, more than the kindness of bringing him up obliges you to ”

“ That she had been out of England, and was but newly returned, was true, but the latter was false, and was put in to blind him and provide against further enquiries, for it was not a strange thing for young women to go away poor to the East Indies and come home vastly rich. ”

“ That as to the poor children, two of them, it seems, had been kept by her, that is to say, by her husband while he lived, for that it was against her will, that we all knew; but the honest neighbours pitied the poor children, they said, heartily; for that their aunt used them barbarously and made them little better than servants in the house, to wait upon her and her children, and scarce allowed them clothes fit to wear. ”

“ The maid told her a long story, that she had been to see her brother, the only brother she had in the world, and that she knew he was put out apprentice to a ——, but there had come a lady in a coach to his uncle ——, who had brought him up, and made him take him home again ”