Having reached her friend’s house, she remained there until within a few days of the delivery of her child, when she left it without giving any intimation, and wandered as far as her precarious situation permitted. She was seized with the pains of labour in a cottage where she had gone in to rest herself, and was delivered of a daughter before she left it. The people were kind to her, and administered every thing to her comfort their circumstances admitted; but poor Mary’s distress of mind enhanced her danger; she was seized with violent inflammation and became delirious. The disorder, however, at length subsided, and she gradually recovered her health, but her reason was gone for ever. Her situation was taken notice of by some kind-hearted people, and they meditated taking the child from her; but she was so harmless, and so fond of the babe, grew so uneasy and even frantic when any one attempted to take it, and besides had so much natural nourishment for it, that they allowed it to remain with her. For nearly a twelvemonth she roved about from one place to another subsisting on charity, when the child caught the small-pox; at first she did not seem to understand that it was sick, but when the disorder came to a height, she felt uneasy at seeing the pustules which covered its skin, and one day she carried the poor infant to a stream and endeavoured to wash them off with a wisp of straw. Some person passing discovered her thus employed, and interfered to save the child, but it was too late,—it had expired in her hands; and she would not part with it until it was forcibly taken from her to be buried. From this time the disorder of her mind assumed a different character. She would not enter a house, but slept about old walls or barns, and mourned continually for her child. Some one thought of giving her a large doll by the way of quieting her mind, and the experiment was so far successful; she lavished the same fondness on it, dressed it, and nursed it, as if it had been a living child; but she still avoided going into the houses, unless when the weather was very severe; then she would seek some favourite house, and chaunt over the rhyme at the door, that I heard the woman repeat on my coming out of the room:— ‘Open the door to pretty Polly, for this is a cold winter night; It rains, it hails, it blows, and the elements give no light.’ Her petition was never in vain, for they were all fond of poor Molly; but her constitution could not long withstand the constant exposure to the weather; her health gradually gave way, and one morning the wretched victim of seduction and parental cruelty was found dead by the side of a ditch. FOOTNOTES: