I also considered this as a temporary expedient, and hoped that
accident or time might hereafter place me in a less precarious
situation. The reasons that principally determined my choice were, that
this employment called upon me for the least preparation, and could, as
I thought, be exercised with least observation.
There was a solitary woman, of middle age, who tenanted a chamber in
this house, upon the same floor with my own. I had no sooner determined
upon the destination of my industry than I cast my eye upon her as the
possible instrument for disposing of my productions. Excluded as I was
from all intercourse with my species in general, I found pleasure in the
occasional exchange of a few words with this inoffensive and
good-humoured creature, who was already of an age to preclude scandal.
She lived upon a very small annuity, allowed her by a distant relation,
a woman of quality, who, possessed of thousands herself, had no other
anxiety with respect to this person than that she should not contaminate
her alliance by the exertion of honest industry.
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