"I told you it was a part of the plot of Wates, that his confederate Villars, was to cast old Danvers into prison, on account of the pretended debt. The old landlord was sitting in the parlour of the _Old Ship_, trembling at the horrors of a jail, and fearing every moment the entrance of a sheriff's officer to arrest him, while his wife and daughter endeavoured to comfort him, and he said mournfully--'Wife, after being married thirty years as we have been, I did not expect that we should have been parted in this way. I did not think that, after toiling in the _Old Ship_ here for twenty years, to save a matter of money for our daughter, I should lose all, and my hair grow white in a prison. But it is of no use mourning about it; for I question if those for whom we wished the money would have thanked us. I know I would not have seen a father or mother of mine dragged to jail like a common thief, if I by any means could have prevented it.' And, as he spoke, he cast a look of sorrow and upbraiding upon Mary, who wept on her mother's shoulder. "'Don't be cruel, husband,' said his wife; 'how can you distress our daughter? I am sure she can't help the state we are reduced to, any more than I can. But I always said what all your jobbing and trafficking in company with the bankrupt Villars, would end in. I know thou'rt suffering enough, and we are all suffering; but don't be reflecting upon our dear Mary, for a better child never parents had.' "'I an't making reflections,' replied he, peevishly; 'only I'm saying, I would not have stood so by my father. It is no reflection to say that Mary might have been a lady, and then I am sure I should not have been dragged from the parlour--where I have sat for twenty years--to a dungeon in a jail.' "'Father!' said Mary, 'what would you have me do? Would you have me become an object for the virtuous to shun, for your enemies to triumph over and despise, and for the abandoned to insult? Would you have me to sell my purity, my peace of mind, my present and eternal happiness, to a miscreant who carries sanctity on his brow, and morality between his teeth, while his heart is a putrid sepulchre? Would you have me do this to save you from a prison?--and to which you have been brought by your own simplicity. To assist you, I will become the servant of servants--I would brush the dust from the shoes of strangers, in this house where I was born. But, while the tear blanches my cheeks for your misfortunes, cause them not to burn with shame.'