With sunken eye, slow pace, and pallid cheek, She look’d confusion, and she fear’d to speak. All this the friend beheld, for, quick of sight, 400 She knew the husband eager for her flight; And that by force alone she could retain The lasting comforts she had hope to gain: She now perceived, to win her post for life, She must infuse fresh terrors in the wife; Must bid to friendship’s feebler ties adieu, And boldly claim the object in her view; She saw the husband’s love, and knew the power Her friend might use in some propitious hour. Meantime the anxious wife, from pure distress 410 Assuming courage, said, “I will confess;” But with her children felt a parent’s pride, And sought once more the hated truth to hide. Offended, grieved, impatient, Stafford bore The odious change till he could bear no more. A friend to truth, in speech and action plain, He held all fraud and cunning in disdain; But fraud to find, and falsehood to detect, For once he fled to measures indirect. One day the friends were seated in that room 420 The guest with care adorn’d, and named her home. To please the eye, there curious prints were placed, And some light volumes to amuse the taste; Letters and music, on a table laid, The favourite studies of the fair betray’d; Beneath the window was the toilet spread, And the fire gleam’d upon a crimson bed. In Anna’s looks and falling tears were seen How interesting had their subjects been: “Oh! then,” resumed the friend, “I plainly find 430 That you and Stafford know each other’s mind; I must depart, must on the world be thrown, Like one discarded, worthless and unknown; But shall I carry, and to please a foe, A painful secret in my bosom? No! Think not your friend a reptile you may tread Beneath your feet, and say, the worm is dead: I have some feeling, and will not be made The scorn of her whom love cannot persuade. Would not your word, your slightest wish, effect 440 All that I hope, petition, or expect? The power you have, but you the use decline-- Proof that you feel not, or you fear not mine. There was a time, when I, a tender maid, Flew at a call, and your desires obey’d; A very mother to the child became, Consoled your sorrow, and conceal’d your shame; But now, grown rich and happy, from the door You thrust a bosom-friend, despised and poor; That child alive, its mother might have known 450 The hard, ungrateful spirit she has shown.” Here paused the guest, and Anna cried at length-- “You try me, cruel friend! beyond my strength; Would I had been beside my infant laid, Where none would vex me, threaten, or upbraid.” In Anna’s looks the friend beheld despair; Her speech she soften’d, and composed her air;