The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

This was really so prudently and wisely managed, that I found my son

was a man of sense, and needed no direction from me. I told him I did

not wonder that his father was as he had described him, for that his

head was a little touched before I went away; and principally his

disturbance was because I could not be persuaded to conceal our

relation and to live with him as my husband, after I knew that he was

my brother; that as he knew better than I what his father's present

condition was, I should readily join with him in such measure as he

would direct; that I was indifferent as to seeing his father, since I

had seen him first, and he could not have told me better news than to

tell me that what his grandmother had left me was entrusted in his

hands, who, I doubted not, now he knew who I was, would, as he said, do

me justice. I inquired then how long my mother had been dead, and

where she died, and told so many particulars of the family, that I left

him no room to doubt the truth of my being really and truly his mother.

My son then inquired where I was, and how I had disposed myself. I

told him I was on the Maryland side of the bay, at the plantation of a

particular friend who came from England in the same ship with me; that

as for that side of the bay where he was, I had no habitation. He told

me I should go home with him, and live with him, if I pleased, as long

as I lived; that as to his father, he knew nobody, and would never so

much as guess at me. I considered of that a little, and told him, that

though it was really no concern to me to live at a distance from him,

yet I could not say it would be the most comfortable thing in the world

to me to live in the house with him, and to have that unhappy object

always before me, which had been such a blow to my peace before; that

though I should be glad to have his company (my son), or to be as near

him as possible while I stayed, yet I could not think of being in the

house where I should be also under constant restraint for fear of

betraying myself in my discourse, nor should I be able to refrain some

expressions in my conversing with him as my son, that might discover

the whole affair, which would by no means be convenient.