But in whatever freedoms he has indulged himself, I must own he has always endeavoured to give me a just sense of honour, and the decorum due to my sex while he has taken pains to free me from the restraints of religion, he has left nothing unsaid on other motives that might raise in me the tenderest concern for a clear reputation: which made me the more resent his scandalous conduct, when I found he had a mistress in his house, whom he had sent hither two or three days before we came. I knew not what to do, nor how to behave myself in this exigence, 'till I found she was rather an object of compassion than reproach, and that she came hither not to indulge an infamous amour, but to shelter herself from want and the resentment of her relations.

She told me the story of her misfortune as well as the distress and confusion she was in would permit; and, asking me a thousand pardons, ingenuously owned she had engaged my brother to bring me with him or not to follow her.

I found her education had been strictly modest, and that she was unacquainted with the vicious part of the world. She is hardly fifteen, her name is Charlotte, the only child of a noted citizen, who was utterly ruined in his affairs by a crafty Jew; from the height of credit the unhappy man found himself sunk into circumstances of disgrace and indigence.

This was a melancholy turn to Charlotte, just in the vanity of youthful expectations, to find herself from the affluence of fortune, so suddenly reduced to poverty and contempt. My brother (whom she had sometimes seen with her father, but knew nothing of his character) took this unfortunate crisis to tempt her, with rich presents and fair promises, to leave her friends and retire to some private lodgings he had got for her.

In this distraction of affairs, her father being under an arrest, and all his effects seized, she was surprised into a compliance with my brother's proposal; nor did he give her time to reflect or consult any of her relations, who soon got intelligence of this dishonour, and sent her a severe injunction to see their faces no more.

This cruel message, with the sad tidings of her mother's death that followed, and the full evidence that she was deluded by my brother with feigned promises of marriage, had almost proved fatal to her life; nor could any arguments allay her sorrow, 'till her distressed lover engaged never to ask any future favour of her but what the nicest virtue may grant. On this condition, she consented to go to his new seat in the country; for indeed she has no other refuge. He has kept his promise; she lodges in my apartment, and is treated by him with as much decency as if she was his sister.

tonic; it is an unusual refinement, and, I believe, the first gallantry of this kind he ever practised; but he has an esteem, a tenderness, for her, of which, by his dissolute manners, I always fancied him incapable.

Her behaviour is really modest; nor was there ever a more natural impression of truth and innocence than appears in her face: her too credulous temper and unexperienced years have betrayed her into this state of shame and misery; of which, though too late, she seems exquisitely sensible. Since I began this letter she came into my closet, and, with a flood of tears, begged me to contrive some way to free her from this dangerous place.

"But whither," she said, "can I fly? My friends "will never receive me; nor have I the confidence "to meet their reproaches; my crime has sent a "tender mother weeping to her grave; it loads ་་ my father's hoary head with a heavier weight of sorrow than all his other misfortunes. Love was not my excuse, I am yet a stranger to that passion; it was a cowardice, it was fear of poverty, a criminal distrust of celestial Providence. "I should have begged, I should have starved, ra"ther than have parted with my innocence on "such mercenary terms. However sincere my

repentance is, it can signify nothing with regard "to the world; the scandal will never be oblite"rated: I must either face the public contempt,

"or waste my days in a joyless obscurity. Put 66 my condition in the best light. Would this "false man, as he promised, marry me, what op"probrious language, what terms of infamy, must "I expect, in his intervals of chagrin ! Besides. "this, the impiety of his conversation terrifies me, "while I hear him make a jest of those sacred sub "jects for which I have been taught the highest "veneration. I should live happier with a wild "American."

I made her no reply; the reasoning was too just to admit a contradiction; but this melancholy instance makes me more than ever resolved not to surrender, nor even capitulate, on any other terms but those of a lawful English wife. Adieu.

LAURA.

LETTER III

To AURELIA.

WHAT mutable things we are! You will be surprised to hear I am grown fond of the country, and have acquired a relish for its harmless delights: I can talk to an echo, or

listen with great attenI am in a fair way to

tion to a purling stream. make garlands, invoke the Muses, and write pastorals. Since you heard last from me I have met with an agreeable adventure, that has given a sort

As I was taking my constant diversion of riding on the downs, the evening being exceeding pleasant, I wandered some miles beyond my usual limits, 'till I came in sight of a venerable pile of building, which could be distinguished from a church by nothing but the want of a steeple; every thing about it had an air of grandeur and antiquity. At some distance from the house there was a thick wood, with several fine walks cut through it.

I had a great inclination to ramble in those agreeable shades; and alighting, ordered my footman to wait at the place where I left him It was not long before I came to the centre of the forest, in which was a large grass plat of a circular figure, with a double row of high elmes growing in the same form round it: in the middle of the green was a little mount, that, by easy steps of turf, had a winding ascent to the top, where stood an arbour of jessamine, woodbine, and roses, twisted together with a sort of elegant disorder; the gaudy blossoms pleased the sight, while their mingled sweets perfumed the ambient air. On the lower branches of the circling elms hung several gilt cages, with a variety of singing birds in them, which were now chanting their evening songs, while a musical flagelet, in clear and shrill responses, answered from the delicious arbour.

I began to think there were indeed such things