cation of being forsaken,
without feeling great part of the pain he was about to inflict on her.

All he now wished was, that she might be possessed of as little warmth
of inclination for him as he had known for her, and that the disparity
of years between them, might have made her consent to the proposed
marriage, intirely on the motive of interest, without any mixture of
love, in order that the disappointment she was going to receive, might
seem the less severe: as the regard he had for her made him earnestly
wish this might be the case, he carefully recollected all the passages
of her behaviour, her looks, her words, nay, the very accents of her
voice, were re-examined, in hope to find some tokens of that happy
indifference, which alone could make him easy in this affair; but all
this retrospect afforded him no more than uncertain conjectures, and
imaginations which frequently contradicted each other, and indeed
served only to increase his doubts, and add to his disquiets.

The mourning for his brother was, however, a very plausible pretence
for delaying the marriage; and as he was willing the disappointment
should come on by degrees, thinking by that means to soften the
asperity of it, he contrived to let both father and daughter have room
to guess the event before hand.--He seldom went to their house, and
when he did, made very short visits, talked as if the necessity of his
affairs would oblige him to leave the country, and settle again
entirely in town:--rather avoided, than sought any opportunity of
speaking to Laetitia in private, and in all his words and actions,
discovered a coldness which could not but be very surprizing to them
both, though they took not the least notice that they were so before
him, but behaved towards him in the same manner, as when he appeared
the most full of affection.

This was a piece of prudence Natura had not expected from persons of
their low education and way of life:--he had imagined, that either the
one or the other of them would have upbraided this change in him, and
by avowing a suspicion, that he had repented him of his promises,
given him an opportunity either of seeming to resent it, or by some
other method, of breaking off: but this way of proceeding frustrated
his measures in that point, and he found himself under a necessity of
speaking first, on a subject no less disagreeable to himself, than he
knew it would be to those to whom his discourse should be directed.

H