Daniel Defoe

“ So I went away to my sure and certain comforter the Quaker, and there I had the whole story of it; and the good innocent Quaker gave me joy of my being rid of such an unsufferable tormentor.
“Rid of her! Ay,” says I, “if I was rid of her fairly and honourably; but I don’t know what Amy may have done; sure she hasn’t made her away?” “Oh, fie!” says my Quaker, “how canst thou entertain such a notion? No, no, made her away! Amy didn’t talk like that; I dare say thou may’st be easy in that, Amy has nothing of that in her head, I dare say,” says she ”

“ Amy had told them in so many words that she was not their mother, but that she was the maid Amy that carried them to their aunt’s; that she and their mother went over to the East Indies to seek their fortune, and that there good things had befallen them, and that their mother was very rich and happy; that she (Amy) had married in the Indies, but being now a widow, and resolving to come over to England, their mother had obliged her to enquire them out and do for them as she had done, and that now she was resolved to go back to the Indies again ”

“ Upon the whole, I mourned thus for her for above a month, but finding Amy still come not near me, and that I must put my affairs in a posture that I might go to Holland, I opened all my affairs to my dear trusty friend the Quaker, and placed her, in matters of trust, in the room of Amy, and with a heavy, bleeding heart for my poor girl, I embarked with my spouse, and all our equipage and goods, on board another Holland trader, not a packet-boat, and went over to Holland, where I arrived as I have said. ”

“ So, in a word, I committed the finishing it all to my faithful friend the Quaker, to whom I communicated as much of the old story as was needful to empower her to perform what Amy had promised, and to make her talk so much to the purpose, as one employed more remotely than Amy had been, needed to do.
To this purpose she had first of all a full possession of the money, and went first to the honest man and his wife and settled all the matter with them. ”