The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

She perceived the disorder I was in, but did not know the meaning of

it; so she ran on in her wild talk upon the weakness of my supposing

that children were murdered because they were not all nursed by the

mother, and to persuade me that the children she disposed of were as

well used as if the mothers had the nursing of them themselves.

'It may be true, mother,' says I, 'for aught I know, but my doubts are

very strongly grounded indeed.' 'Come, then,' says she, 'let's hear

some of them.' 'Why, first,' says I, 'you give a piece of money to

these people to take the child off the parent's hands, and to take care

of it as long as it lives. Now we know, mother,' said I, 'that those

are poor people, and their gain consists in being quit of the charge as

soon as they can; how can I doubt but that, as it is best for them to

have the child die, they are not over solicitous about life?' 'This is all vapours and fancy,' says the old woman; 'I tell you their

credit depends upon the child's life, and they are as careful as any

mother of you all.' 'O mother,' says I, 'if I was but sure my little baby would be

carefully looked to, and have justice done it, I should be happy

indeed; but it is impossible I can be satisfied in that point unless I

saw it, and to see it would be ruin and destruction to me, as now my

case stands; so what to do I know not.' 'A fine story!' says the governess. 'You would see the child, and you

would not see the child; you would be concealed and discovered both

together. These are things impossible, my dear; so you must e'en do as

other conscientious mothers have done before you, and be contented with

things as they must be, though they are not as you wish them to be.' I understood what she meant by conscientious mothers; she would have

said conscientious whores, but she was not willing to disoblige me, for

really in this case I was not a whore, because legally married, the

force of former marriage excepted.

However, let me be what I would, I was not come up to that pitch of

hardness common to the profession; I mean, to be unnatural, and

regardless of the safety of my child; and I preserved this honest

affection so long, that I was upon the point of giving up my friend at

the bank, who lay so hard at me to come to him and marry him, that, in

short, there was hardly any room to deny him.