This day happened to be one in which the top-sawyer had been graciously pleased to toss his arms up and down over the pit--not of destruction, but of preservation. He had started early, and, whilst he was setting the teeth on edge of all within hearing, by setting an edge to his saw, some very officious friend ran to him, to tell him that his wife was increasing his family, without even his permission having been asked. Instead, therefore, of making a dust in his own pit, he flung down his file, took up his lanthorn, and hurried along to kick up a dust at home. The brute! may he have to sharpen saws with bad files for half an eternity! He swore--how awfully the fellow swore!--that I should be turned from his inhospitable roof immediately--and my gentle nurse, adding her tears to my squalls, through that dismal, sleety morning, which was then breaking mistily upon so much wretchedness, was compelled to carry me back to my mother. The most impassioned entreaties, and an additional five pounds, at length prevailed on Mrs Brandon to nestle me again in her bosom, and try to excite the sympathy of her husband. She returned to him, but the fellow had now taken to himself two counsellors, a drunken mate who served under him in the pit, and his own avarice. I am stating mere facts: I may not be believed--I cannot help it--but three times was I carried backwards and forwards, every transit producing to the sawyer five extra pounds, when, at length, my little head found a resting-place. All these events I have had over and over again from my nurse, and they are most faithfully recorded. Before noon on that memorable morning the chaise-and-four were again at the door, and the veiled and shawl-enveloped lady was lifted in, and the vehicle dashed rapidly through the streets of Reading, in a northerly direction. I pretend not to relate facts of which I have never had an assured knowledge; I cannot state to where that chaise and its desolate occupant proceeded, nor can I give a moving description of feelings that I did not witness. When I afterwards knew that that lady was my mother, I never dared question her upon these points, but, from the strength, the intensity of every good and affectionate feeling that marked her character, I can only conceive, that, if that journey was made in the stupor of weakness and exhaustion, or even in the wanderings of delirium, it must have been, to her, a dispensation of infinite mercy. She deserted her new-born infant--she flung forth her child from the warmth of her own bosom to the cold, hireling kindness of the stranger. I think I hear some puritanical, world-observing, starched piece of female rigidity exclaim, "And therein she did a great wickedness." The fact I admit, but the wickedness I deny utterly.