forgot she was not alone, and when an air full of
the most inchanting tenderness was singing, was so much dissolved in
extasy, that crying out, 'O God, 'tis insupportable!' she threw her
arms over Natura's neck, who was still in the same posture I just
mentioned;--he spoke not a word, but was not so absorbed in the
gratification of one faculty, as to let slip the gratification of the
others:--he seized the lucky moment;--he pressed her close, and in
this trance of thought, this total absence of mind, stole himself, as
it were, into the possession of a bliss, which the assiduity of whole
years would perhaps never have been able to obtain.

Reason and thought at last returned; she opened her eyes, she knew to
what the rapture she had been in had exposed her, and was struck with
the most poignant shame and horror:--she broke with all her force from
that strict embrace in which he had continued to hold her; and being
withdrawn to the farther corner of the closet,--'What have I done,'
cried she, 'What have I done!'--these words she repeated several
times, and accompanied them with tears, wringing her hands, and every
testimony of remorse.--It was in vain for him to attempt to pacify
her, much less to prevail on her to suffer any second proofs of his
tenderness;--she would not even give him leave to touch her hand, and
on his offering it, pushed him back, saying, 'No, stranger! you have
taken the advantage of my _insensibility_ but shall never triumph over
my _reason_, which enables me to hate you,--to fly from you for ever,
as from a serpent.'

Natura said every thing that love and wit could inspire, to reconcile
her to what had past; but she remained inflexible, and only
condescended to request him to leave the place before the opera was
ended, that they might not be seen coming out together, and that he
would tell signior Carrana, that having unexpectedly found a lady in
the box, he had withdrawn without entering.--He then begged she would
entertain a more favourable opinion of an action, which her beauty,
the bewitching softness of the entertainment, and the place they were
in, had all concurred to make him guilty of; but she would listen to
nothing on that head, insisted on his never taking the least notice of
her, wherever they might chance to meet; and only told him, that tho'
she was unalterably fixed in this resolution, yet he might depend upon
it she hated him less than she did herself.

Finding she was not to be