Before Henry could receive a reply to his letter, the fleet in which he sailed put to sea.

By his absence, not only Rebecca was deprived of the friend she loved, but poor Agnes lost a kind and compassionate adviser. The loss of her parents, too, she had to mourn; for they both sickened, and both died, in a short time after; and now wholly friendless in her little exile, where she could only hope for toleration, not being known, she was contending with suspicion, rebuffs, disappointments, and various other ills, which might have made the most rigorous of her Anfield persecutors feel compassion for her, could they have witnessed the throbs of her heart, and all the deep wounds there imprinted.

Still, there are few persons whom Providence afflicts beyond the limits of all consolation; few cast so low as not to feel pride on certain occasions; and Agnes felt a comfort and a dignity in the thought, that she had both a mind and a body capable of sustaining every hardship, which her destiny might inflict, rather than submit to the disgrace of soliciting William’s charity a second time.

This determination was put to a variety of trials. In vain she offered herself to the strangers of the village in which she was accidentally cast as a servant; her child, her dejected looks, her broken sentences, a wildness in her eye, a kind of bold despair which at times overspread her features, her imperfect story who and what she was, prejudiced all those to whom she applied; and, after thus travelling to several small towns and hamlets, the only employer she could obtain was a farmer; and the only employment to tend and feed his cattle while his men were in the harvest, tilling the ground, or at some other labour which required at the time peculiar expedition.

Though Agnes was born of peasants, yet, having been the only child of industrious parents, she had been nursed with a tenderness and delicacy ill suited to her present occupation; but she endured it with patience; and the most laborious part would have seemed light could she have dismissed the reflection—what it was that had reduced her to such a state.

Soon her tender hands became hard and rough, her fair skin burnt and yellow; so that when, on a Sunday, she has looked in the glass, she has started back as if it were some other face she saw instead of her own. But this loss of beauty gave her no regret—while William did not see her, it was indifferent to her, whether she were beautiful or hideous. On the features of her child only, she now looked with joy; there, she fancied she saw William at every glance, and, in the fond imagination, felt at times every happiness short of seeing him.

By herding with the brute creation, she and her child were allowed to live together; and this was a state she preferred to the society of human creatures, who would have separated her from what she loved so tenderly. Anxious to retain a service in which she possessed such a blessing, care and attention to her humble office caused her master to prolong her stay through all the winter; then, during the spring, she tended his yeaning sheep; in the summer, watched them as they grazed; and thus season after season passed, till her young son could afford her assistance in her daily work.

He now could charm her with his conversation as well as with his looks: a thousand times in the transports of parental love she has pressed him to her bosom, and thought, with an agony of horror, upon her criminal, her mad intent to destroy what was now so dear, so necessary to her existence.

Still the boy grew up more and more like his father. In one resemblance alone he failed; he loved Agnes with an affection totally distinct from the pitiful and childish gratification of his own self-love; he never would quit her side for all the tempting offers of toys or money; never would eat of rarities given to him till Agnes took a part; never crossed her will, however contradictory to his own; never saw her smile that he did not laugh; nor did she ever weep, but he wept too.