ing the legs of his father, with a
transport, I know not whether to say of grief or joy; continued in
that posture for a considerable time, overwhelmed at once with shame,
with gratitude, and love:--at length, gaining the power of
utterance,--'O sir,' cried he, 'how unworthy am I of your
goodness!'--but then recollecting as it were somewhat more; 'yet
sure,' pursued he, 'it is not possible you can forgive me all.--I have
been guilty of worse than, perhaps, you yet have been informed of:--I
am a wretch who have devoted myself to infamy and destruction, and you
cannot, nay ought not to forgive me.'

The father was indeed very much alarmed at this expression, as fearing
it imported his distresses had drove him to be guilty of some crime of
which the law takes cognizance.--'I hope,' said he, 'your having
signed a contract with an abandoned prostitute, is the worst action of
your life?'

It is impossible to describe the pleasure with which Natura found his
father was apprized of this affair, without being obliged to relate it
himself, as he was now determined to have done:--all his obduracy
being now intirely vanquished, and converted into the most tender,
affectionate, and dutiful submission.

'Can there be a worse?' replied he, renewing his embraces, 'and can
you know it, and yet vouchsafe to look on me as your son!'--'If your
penitence be sincere,' said the good old gentleman, 'I neither can,
nor ought refuse to pardon all:--but rise,' continued he, 'and freely
give this worthy friend and myself, the satisfaction we require;--a
full confession of all your misbehaviour, is the only attonement you
can make, and that I can expect from you:--remember I have signed your
pardon for all that is past, but shall not include in it any future
acts of disobedience, among which, dissimulation, evasion or
concealment, in what I demand to be laid open, I shall look upon as of
the worst and most incorrigible kind.'

He needed not have laid so strong an injunction on the now truly
contrite Natura;--he disguised nothing of what he had done, even to
the mean arts of gaming, to which he had been obliged to have recourse
after his voluntary banishment from all his friends; and then painted
the horrors he conceived at the things he daily saw, and the despair
which had induced him to leave England, in such lively colours, that
not only his father, but the merchant, were affected by it, even to
the letting fall some tears.

But not to be