the choice of his sisters, if I had any thoughts of marriage; and promised a dowry with her to my own content. One of them, he said, was privately bred a Christian by her mother, a beautiful woman of Armenia. I was pleased with the proposal, and impatient to see my fair mistress. In the mean time, he made me a present of several rich habits, and two negroes to attend me. The next day he conducted me to a fair summerhouse, whither he sent for his sisters; who were all so handsome, that I was distressed with my own liberty; nor knew where to chuse, had not a principle of piety determined me to the young Armenian; who was not superior in beauty to the rest, but there was a decorum in her behaviour which the others wanted. She had more of the modesty and politeness of the European women, to whom, you know, I was always partial. My choice was fixed; and the more I conversed with my fair mistress, the more reason I found to approve it. We were privately married by a chaplain to the British envoy. My generous friend gave her a fortune which abundantly repaid all my losses; and, after a prosperous voyage, I am safely landed in Holland. I have sent you this relation, as a memorial of my gratitude to Heaven; whose clemency has returned memore than measure for measure, and largely recompensed that liberality it first inspired, Adicu LETTERS LETTERS MORAL AND ENTERTAINING. PART 111. LETTER I. To Lady Sophia-The Sequel of the Story of You will find me, dear Lady Sophia, in a more gay disposition than when I writ my last letter. Perhaps the fair season has some influence on my temper. The spring is now in its prime, and blooming nature appears in all her various pride: the fields and groves resound with artless harmony: the linnet and warbling lark invite me often to rise with the fragrant morning: aor am I unwilling to obey the gentle summons; though, till I came here, I had never beheld the rising sun. The sight was as great a novelty to me as a blazing star would have been. The opening dawn was one of the arcana of nature, into which my curiosity had never pried. Indeed I had read many poetical descriptions of the rosy-fingered morning unbarring the gates of light, and decked in golden vestments, beginning her progress over the eastern hills; but I left Aurora to her rural hours, without the least inclination to trace her footsteps in the pearly dew. She was no precedent for me: I was too polite to open my eyes at such ungenteel seasons. The sun shone in vain; its beams were useless till the modish world appeared. But I have now conquered these refinements, and can bear the aukward custom of rising with the fresh morning, and going to bed when the dusky evening closes: or, I might keep myself awake while every other intelligent being on this part of the globe sleeps: when human affairs cease, and the calm creation seems lulled in a peaceful slumber, except elves and fairies. I cannot precisely determine what hours they keep; but here is a nurse in the family, who is intimately acquainted (as she says) with the sprightly phantoms. She has been admitted to their moonlight revels and has led me to many a circle, distinguished with perpetual ver, dure, where they used to dance their light fantastic rounds. Bridget and Joyce, our two dairy-maids, add their testimony to the nurse's, and relate their own visionary experience. I am no great infidel: sometimes I believe, and always wish the pretty stories they tell me were true: but I dare not object against any of those relations, for fear of being thought a heathen by the whole village. My circumstances are now very easy. My mistress is fully persuaded my education has been superior to my present station, and treats me more like a sister than a servant. I am under no restraints but those of gratitude and justice, which will not suffer me to be idle where I know myself to be dependent. For a damsel of quality, I can work well enough with my needle; and as this is all my mistress will suffer me to do, I carry my work to some verdant retreat, of which here are great variety, in a large garden, and wide range of orchard joining to the house. I am delighted with old fashioned bowers, covered with woodbine and sweet-briar, and can sit as much at my ease on a bank of camomile shaded with laurel, as ever I did on a painted alcove. Maple-trees and box, with bushes of roses, are placed about in a very agreeable disorder: The whole scene appears gay, but wild above rule or The orchard joining to it is spacious and fair as the Hesperian inclosures; violets, primroses, and crocus, embroider the level green on which you tread: The trees are set in rows; their branches mingle above, and are now in their gaudy blossoms: The birds sit careless on the flowery sprays, and from their little throats pour a stream of harmony; while fragrant gales refresh the sense, and with their aromatic breath diffuse gladness to the soul. Just at the bounds of this luxuriant retreat stands an ancient oak; the extended boughs are a shelter from the mid-day sun, which perhaps your Ladyship would en dure rather than screen your beauty in such a rustic shade. Elysian groves and myrtle bowers are better suited to the delicacy of your imagination: But I am now recon ciled to nature in its greatest negligence; and, seated in this venerable recess, find virtue and liberty the prin cipal springs of human happiness. My hours are here at my own disposal; nor am I obliged to devote them to ceremony or vain amusements I find myself under no necessity to court the impertinent, or flattter the ambitious; nor to do a thousand unreasonable things, for fear of being singular, and out of the mode. The only intimacy I have contracted is with a daughter of the minister of this parish. They call her Sally. Her conversation is perfectly innocent and agreeable, and has something in it charming beyond all the specious rules and studied elegance of the beau-monde. She has spent her leisure in reading, and has certainly perused all the good books in her father's study, having never opened a page on any subject but religion, except Argalus and Parthenia. Her preciseness is all natural and unaffected. Her looks, her words, her whole behaviour, has an air of sanctity. One can hardly believe her an inhabitant of this world, but rather a native of some more refined and holy region. The sweetness of her countenance, with the surprising beauty of her whole person, would confirm this thought, if some evidence of her mortality did not appear in her declining health. She believes herself in a consumption, and talks of dying as calmly as most people talk of going to sleep. However, this indifference is not, perhaps, entirely the effect of piety. A tender passion seems to have some share in it. Her health began to decline from the time her lover died. He was the son of a neighbouring clergyman: their marriage was concluded by the consent of both their parents. There had been an innocent tender ness between them from their childhood; and just at the period set to crown their mutual passion, the youth was seized with a fever, which ended his life, and left the gentle maid to mourn her disappointed joys. Since that, she has no attachment to this world; all her schemes of happiness are in a future state, on which her whole attention is fixed; and nothing can be more sparkling than her conversation on these subjects. As some people grow dull and morose in talking of religion, it brightens her countenance, gives a vivacity to her thoughts, and heavenly eloquence to her tongue. The beauty of the spangled firmament in a clear summer-evening gives her an apparent pleasure. In a little 'time,' she often says, I shall have a nearer view of 'those radiant wonders, and shall myself outshine their 'glimmering lustre.' You would be glad, Lady Sophia, if I would leave Sally with the angels, and talk to you of knights of the garter, blue ribbands, embroidered coats, and other sublunary things. There is such a wide extreme betwixt these subjects and heavenly themes, that I cannot introduce your tender affairs with any manner of decorum; the descent is too precipitate. But, if I must talk of love, my own amour is somewhat more of the ethereal kind than yours, and the transition will not be so difficult. Nor will it displease you to hear that my lover continues constant, with the addition of six thousand a-year to his estate. It was left him by one of the S-r family, who lately died without an heir. My mistress has been a constant advocate for the lovely youth, believing his proposal a vast preferment for me; while my generous lover makes his addresses with greater warmth and assurance than when his estate was less, thinking it now in his power to offer me a repara-. tion for whatever misfortune hath reduced me to a state |