ever, I was supplied with amusements of this kind by my Lady Worthy's youngest daughter, who was our neighbour, and was pleased to honour me with some degree of intimacy. But I perused these authors with great secrecy, and not without some inward remorse; this sort of reading being against my father's severe injunctions, and the pious rules I had been taught.

This was my manner of life 'till I was fifteen, when a brother of my mother's, a Turkey merchant, died, and having no child, left me twenty thousand pounds, with only some small legacies to my sisters. This advance of fortune gave me some distinction with my Lady Worthy, who, about the same time had a fine summer-house painting; the story was, Diana hunting with her nymphs. Her Ladyship desired my mother that I might be drawn for one of the virgin train.

Some time after this painting was finished, my Lord came accidently into these parts of the country; and waiting on my Lady Worthy, as they were in the summer-house he took particular notice (I know not why) of the nymph for whom I had sat to the painter. Her Ladyship, finding my Lord a little inquisitive, ordered a servant to call me to drink tea with them: I obeyed, without the least suspicion what was the motive of her command.

I had hitherto looked on every mortal man with equality and indifference, nor found any thing to

answer the description of poetical heroes and dramatic beaus: but the moment I saw my Lord, every grace, every charm, appeared real, which before had pleased my imagination in agreeable fictions; the enchanting form, the fatal glance, the resistless smile, the gentle, the prevailing accent; Love, with his whole artillery, seemed to insult me, and never more entirely subdued a mind so artless and unexperienced; however, to conceal my disorder, I withdrew as soon as the company would permit.

But how transformed was my soul from that guiltless calm I had 'till now enjoyed! The equality of my temper was broken, my thoughts had all a different turn; I went to church, indeed, but said my prayers as mechanically as the clock strikes; I joined in singing the psalms, but with no more understanding than the chimes repeat a tune to which they are set: not only the next world, but this, was effaced from my memory; there were no flowers in the field, nor stars in the sky; my whole attention was fixed on the lovely youth, his ideas was still in view; or if any other object interrupted the pleasing reverie, it was only to give me vexation. I was angry with every mortal for not. looking so handsome, nor talking so agreeably, as the charming man I admired.

I was some tedious days in suspence whether my Lord had one favourable thought of me; but my

doubts were agreeably satisfied, when I found he had desired my Lady Worthy to procure my father's consent in order to make his addresses to me; my father embraced the offer with a just sense of the honour that was done him.

For my part, I had never practised any disguise, and was unacquainted with all forms but such as were the dictates of Nature and Virtue; nor was it possible for me to conceal the tender inclination; it was as visible in my silence as the most pathetic words could have made it. After I knew my Lord's character, and was convinced of his affection for me, I had a sort of vanity in owning a sense of his merit; this, I thought, justified the height of my passsion; nor could I find any reason to violate my native sincerity, and affect indifference, where it would have been a crime to have been really insensible.

My noble lover expressed some impatience to conclude the affair, which was done with great secrecy and expedition. He suffered but one servant to attend him; and was so obliging to stay a month after our marriage in my father's family. The scenes of low life were a diverting novelty to him, while love and innocence made the hours glide smoothly on. This period was all pastoral and romantic; the Golden Age seemed to be renewed with Ovid's Oenone: I could have wished the no

sesed only of a snowy flock, and graced with no distinction but that of the lovely Swain:

Then unmolested we had liv'd, and free

From those vexatious forms which greatness brings;
While rocks and meadows, shades, and purling springs,
The flow'ry valley, and the gloomy grove,

Had heard of no superior name to Love.

However, I did not yet know the toils of grandeur, nor feel the effects of my splendid vassalage; I lived my own way, dressed and undressed myself. My mother, since the advance of my fortune, had kept me in fine lace caps, and clean silk nightgowns; and, as I had plenty of flaxen hair falling into natural curls, my dress was easily adjusted, and seemed to please my Lord exceedingly. The little waiting on I had was by Cicely, my mother's head servant; I had no notion of the grand monde, nor the part I was to act in it.

I had never seen London; the Mall, Hyde-park, the Drawing-room, and Theatre, were less known to me than than the planetary worlds.

In this state of nature, of darkness, and original simplicity, imagine to yourself what must be my perplexity, when.my Lord carried me with him to make my first appearance in town, among the con gratulations of his numerous friends! I found myself among a rank of people to whose language, habits, and manners, I was as much a stranger as if I had been in a foreign country.

My Lord had desired a sister, who lived with him, to procure every thing proper for me to appear with, and she spared no cost in jewels, or whatever else vanity itself could wish. She had been solicitous in her choice of a woman and chamber-maid for me, and they were really two of the finest people I had ever seen in my life. My woman (being much older than myself) I looked on her as my superior, and could hardly forbear making an apology for the trouble I gave her; I spoke to her in very gentle and submissive terms; nor was it possible for me to get rid of the secret veneration which the gravity of her countenance gave me; however, my lively temper was apt to make some gay excursions; when I was at first initiated into the mysteries of dress, I was not quite so serious as she seemed to think the importance of the affair required.

While my head was dressing I was merely passive, as long as Mrs Dupin suffered me to sit reading; I left the ball on my shoulders to be adorned as she thought fit; which, after two hours toil, I sometimes found swelled to such an enormous size, with flowers, feathers, and bits of ribbon, that I could not help begging her to reduce it to a dimension more agreeable to my shape, which, being slender, did not require a globe of that magnitude to adorn it.