capital of our province allowed an opportunity of acquiring, my mother fent me to Paris, along with the son of a neighbouring family, who, though of lefs honourable defcent, was much richer than ours. Young Delaferre (that was my companion's name) was intended for the army; me, from particular circumstances which promifed fuccefs in that line, my mother and her friends had deftined for the long robe, and had agreed for the purchase of a charge for me when I fhould be qualified for it. Delaferre had a fovereign contempt for any profeffion but that of arms, and took every opportunity of infpiring me with the fame fentiments." In the capital I had this prejudice every day more and more confirmed. The fierté of every man who had ferved, the infolent fuperiority he claimed over his fellow-citizens, dazzled my ambition and awed my bashfulness. From nature I had that extreme fenfibility of fhame, which could not stand against the ridicule even of much inferior men. Ignorance would often confound me in matters of which I was perfectly well informed, from his fuperior effrontery; and the best-established principles of my mind would fometimes yield to the impudence of affuming fophiftry or of unblushing vice. To the profeffion which my relations had marked out for me, attention, diligence, and fober

manners were naturally attached; having once fet down that profeffion as humiliating, I concluded its attendant qualities to be equally dif honourable. I was afhamed of virtues to which I was naturally inclined, a bully in vices which I hated and defpifed. Delaferre enjoyed my apoftacy from innocence as a victory he had gained. At school he was much my inferior, and I attained every mark of diftinction to which he had afpired in vain. In Paris he triumphed in his turn; his fuperior wealth enabled him to command the appearances of fuperior dignity and fhow; the cockade in his hat infpired a confidence which my fituation did not allow; and, bold as he was in diffipation and debauchery, he led me as an inferior whom he had taught the art of living, whom he had first trained to independence and to manhood. My mother's ill-judged kindness fupplied me with the means of those pleasures which my companions induced me to fhare, if pleasures they might be called, which I often partook with uneafinefs and reflected on with remorse. Sometimes, though but too feldom, I was as much a hypocrite on the other fide; I was felf-denied, beneficent, and virtuous by stealth; while the time and money which I had fo employed, I boasted to my companions of having spent in debauchery, in riot, and in vice.

The

The habits of life, however, into which I had been led, began by degrees to blunt my natural feelings of rectitude, and to take from vice the reftraints of confcience. But the dangerous connection I had formed was broken off by the accident of Delaferre's receiving orders to join his regiment then quartered at Dunkirk. At his defire, I gave him the convoy as far as to a relation's houfe in Picardy, where he was to fpend a day or two in his way. "I will intro"duce you," faid he in a tone of pleafantry, "because you will be a favourite; my cousin. "Santonges is as fober and precise as you were "when I first found you." The good man whom he thus characterifed poffeffed indeed all thofe virtues of which the ridicule of Delaferre had fometimes made me afhamed, but which it had never made me entirely cease to revere. his family I regained the station which, in our diffipated fociety at Paris, I had loft. His example encouraged and his precepts. fortified. my natural difpofition to goodness; but his daughter, Emilia de Santonges, was a more interefting affiftant to it. After my experience of the few of her fex with whom we were acquainted in town, the native beauty, the unaf-fected manners of Emilia, were infinitely attractive. Delaferre, however, found them infipid and tire fome. He left his kinfman's the third

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morning

morning after his arrival, promifing, as foon as his regiment fhould be reviewed, to meet me in Paris. Except in Paris, faid he, we exist merely, but do not live. I found it very different. I lived but in the presence of Emilia de Santonges. But why fhould I recall thofe days of pureft felicity, or think of what my Emilia was! for not long after she was mine. In the winter they came to Paris, on account of her father's health, which was then rapidly on the decline. I tended him with that affiduity which was due to his friendship, which the company of Emilia made more an indulgence than a duty. Our cares, and the skill of his physicians, were fruitlefs. He died, and left his daughter to my friendship. It was then that I firft dared to hope for her love; that over the grave of her father I mingled my tears with Emilia's, and tremblingly ventured to ask, if she thought me worthy of comforting her forrows? Emilia was too innocent for difguife, too honeft for affectation. She gave her hand to my virtues, (for I then was virtuous,) to reward at the fame time, and to confirm them. We retired to Santonges, where we enjoyed as much felicity. as perhaps the lot of humanity will allow. My Emilia's merit was equal to her happiness; and I may fay without vanity, fince it is now my fhame, that the fince wretched St. Hubert was then thought to deferve the bleffings he enjoyed.

7.

N° 83. SATURDAY, Saturday 2, 1786.

Continuation of the Story of Father Nicholas.

IN

N this state of peaceful felicity we had lived fomething more than a year, when my Emilia found herself with child. On that occafion my anxiety was fuch as a husband who dotes upon his wife may be fuppofed to feel. In confequence of that anxiety, I proposed our removing for fome weeks to Paris, where she might. have abler affiftance than our province could afford in those moments of danger which the foon expected. To this fhe objected with earneftness, from a variety of motives; but most of my neighbours applauded my refolution; and one, who was the nephew of a farmer-ge-t neral, and had purchased the estate on which his father had been a tenant, told me, the danger from their country accoucheurs was such, that nobody who could afford to go to Paris would think of trufting them. I was a little tender on the reproach of poverty, and abfolutely determined for the journey. To induce