That dismal winter I shall ever remember; my mother was sick, confined even to her bed, my father in danger of arrests every day.  I had a large family to keep, and a small sum to keep it on; and yet in all this care the loss of Leybourne was heaviest.  For nearly half a year I never slept half a night, and now, provoked at all my relations, resolved never to marry.  Wishing to be out of their sight, I began first to think of going into the world.  A vacancy happening in Lincoln boarding school, I went thither; and though I had never so much as seen one before, I fell readily into that way of life; and I was so pleased to see myself in good clothes, with money in my pocket, and respected in a strange manner by everyone, that I seemed gotten into another world.

Here I lived five years and should have done longer, but the school broke up; and my father having got Wroote living, my mother was earnest for my return.  I was told what pleasant company was at Bawtry, Doncaster, etc., and that this addition to my father, with God’s ordinary blessing, would make him a rich man in a few years.  I came home again, in an evil hour for me.  I was well clothed, and, while I wanted nothing, was easy enough.  But this winter, when my own necessaries began to decay and my money was most of it spent, I found what a condition I was in—­every trifling want was either not supplied, or I had more trouble to procure it than it was worth.

I know not when we have had so good a year, both at Wroote and Epworth, as this year; but instead of saving anything to clothe my sister or myself, we are just where we were.  A noble crop has almost all gone, beside Epworth living, to pay some part of those infinite debts my father has run into, which are so many (as I have lately found out) that were he to save 50 pounds a year he would not be clear in the world this seven years.  One thing I warn you of:  let not my giving you this account be any hindrance to your affairs.  If you want assistance in any case, my father is as able to give it now as any time these last ten years; nor shall we be ever the poorer for it.  We enjoy many comforts.  We have plenty of good meat and drink, fuel, etc.; have no duns, nor any of that tormenting care to provide bread which we had at Epworth.  In short, could I lay aside all thoughts of the future, and be content with three things, money, liberty, and clothes, I might live very comfortably.  While my mother lives I am inclined to stay with her; she is so very good to me, and has so little comfort in the world beside, that I think it barbarous to abandon her.  As soon as she is in heaven, or perhaps sooner if I am quite tired out, I have fully fixed on a state of life; a way indeed that my parents may disapprove, but that I do not regard.  And now: 

“Let Emma’s hapless case be falsely told
By the rash young, or the ill-natured old.”