A harlot's progress. [graphic] / Plate 1

A scene outside the Bell Inn in which a country girl, Moll Hackabout, just arrived on the York Wagon, meets an extravagantly dressed bawd (Mother Needham); a clergyman on horseback fails to notice the encounter, but a lecherous old gentleman (Colonel Charteris) eyes the girl with anticipation. In the lower right the girl's initials "M.H." (M[ary?] Hackabout) are on her portmanteau, next to which is a basket with a goose with a note around its neck, "For my Loving Cosen in Tems Stret in London", presumably the person who has failed to meet her. In the background a woman hangs out her laundry on a balcony