Backdraft: Clorese
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure)
Letter The Second
These desertions had, however, now so far thinned Mrs. Cole's brood that she was left with only me like a hen with one chicken; but tho' she was earnestly entreated and encourag'd to recruit her corps, her growing infirmities, and, above all, the tortures of a stubborn hip-gout, which she found would yield to no remedy, determin'd her to bread up her business and retire with a decent pittance into the country, where I promis'd myself nothing so sure, as my going down to live with her as soon as I had seen a little more of life and improv'd my small matters into a competency that would create in me an independence on the world: for I was, now, thanks to Mrs. Cole, wise enough to keep that essential in view.
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