'Mademoiselle Grenouille seemed now terribly alarmed, on my communicating to her my suspicions on this score: she cried 'twas very unlucky!--then paused, and asked what I would do, if it should really be as I feared. I replied, that I knew not what course to take, for if my father should know it I was utterly undone: I added, that he was a very austere man; and, besides, I had a mother-in-law, who would not fail to say every thing she could to incense him against me. '"I see no recourse you have, then," said she, "but by taking physick to cause an abortion. You must pretend you are a little disordered, and send for an apothecary; the sooner the better, for if it should become visible, all would infallibly be known, and we should both be ruined." 'I was not so weak as not to see, that if any discovery were made, her share in the intrigue must come out, and she would be directly turned out of doors; and that, whatever concern she pretended for me, it was chiefly on her own account: however, as I saw no other remedy, was resolved to take her advice. 'Thus, by having been guilty of one crime, I was ensnared to commit another of a yet fouler kind: one was the error of nature, this an offence against nature. The black design, however, succeeded not: I took potion after potion, yet still retained the token of my shame; which at length became too perspicuous for me to hope it would not be taken notice of by all who saw me. 'I was almost distracted, and Mademoiselle Grenouille little less so. I was one day alone in my chamber, pondering on my wretched state, and venting some part of the anguish of my mind in tears, when she came in; "What avails all this whimpering?" said she; "you do but hasten what you would wish to avoid. The governess already perceives you are strangely altered; she thinks you are either in a bad state of health, or some way disordered in your mind, and talks of writing to your father to send for you home." "Oh Heaven!" cried I. "Home, did you say?--No; I will never go home! The grave is not so hateful to me, nor death so terrible, as my father's presence."--"I pity you from my soul," said she: "but what can you do? There will be no staying for you here, after your condition is once known, and it cannot be concealed much longer." These words, the truth of which I was very well convinced of, drove me into the last despair: I raved, I tore my hair, I swore to poison, drown, or stab myself, rather than live to have my shame exposed to the severity of my father, and reproaches of my kindred.' '"Come, come," resumed she, "there is no need of such desperate remedies; you had better go to London, and have recourse to Wildly: who knows, as you are a gentleman's daughter, and will have a fortune, but you may persuade him to marry you? If not, you can oblige him to take care of you in your lying-in, and to keep the child: and when you are once got rid of your burden, some excuse or other may be found for your elopement."