Folks prone to leasing Say things at first, because they're pleating; "Till their own dreams at length deceive 'em, PRIOR. THE miferies of war, of famine, and of peftilence, had all been experienced by Captain Delmond; but the combined horrors of this triple fcourge of human kind fell fhort of what he endured the night of Julia's misfortune. At one time, exafperated into madness at the idea of her clandeftine correfpondence with a perfon whom, as a vifitor of Glib's, he could VOL. II. B not not imagine to be a gentleman, he breathed forth threatenings and invectives. The artifice she had used to deceive him-the ingratitude which gave birth to that artifice-was a thought which rankled in his foul, and like the barbed dart peculiar to fome favage tribes, could not even be touched without the extreme of torture Anon he faw his darling child in pain! her life perhaps in danger! in a moment her errors were forgotten, and his whole foul melted into an agony of tenderness. The sharp pangs of bodily pain were foon added to the poignancy of mental fuffering. By the agitation of his mind the gout was thrown into his ftomach, and he became fo dangerously ill, that about four in the morning Mrs. Delmond was obliged to fend for Mr. Gubbles, who administered a cordial draught, which tended to quiet the pain; and, as day advanced, exhausted nature fought relief in fleep. He 1 He awoke fomewhat more compofed, and inftantly enquired for Julia. No account of her had yet been received. Fretted at his wife's neglect, in not hav ing dispatched fome one to know how she had paffed the night, he defired that Mrs. Delmond might herself instantly set out to fee her daughter, and to order her every neceffary attendance, and every comfort that it was poffible to administer in her present fituation. "I have, perhaps, blamed my poor girl too much," said he. "She told me the had seen this gentleman at Mrs. Botherim's; it may be only accident that has now thrown him in her way. Do not, therefore, drop a hint of my having suspected her of deceit; it would wound the poor child too feverely to think that I could impute to her a deviation from those principles of honour which I have fo carefully inculcated, and which fhe has ever fo invariably maintained. Give her my bleffing, B 2 1 bleffing, and tell her that I live but in her happiness and safety." Mrs. Delmond haftily prepared to obey her husband's orders. She indeed felt more anxiety herself concerning Julia than the had ever experienced on any former event of her life. Though fometimes inclined to be a little jealous of the manifeft partiality of her husband for his daughter, which extended fo far, that though the could feldom please him in fettling the little accommodations with which his vafetudinary state required him to be furrounded, no fooner did Julia place the footstool, or adjust the cushion, than all was right; and fuch praises bestowed on the dexterity of the daughter, as glanced a reproach upon the wife. Yet was the jealoufy thus excited divefted of its fting by the demeanour of Julia. Such was the sweetness of her temper, fuch the generous pains the always took to put every thing her mother did in the most advantageous 4 point |