or pleasure.

But it was not for any longtime he remained in this state of
insensibility.--Charlotte had graces which could not fail of conquest,
sooner or later:--where those of her eyes wanted the power to move,
her tongue came in to their assistance, and was sure of gaining the
day:--there was something so resistless in her wit, and manner of
conversation, that none but those by nature, or want of proper
education, were too dull and stupid to understand, but must have felt
an infinity of satisfaction in it.

Besides all this, there was a sympathy of humour between this lady and
Natura, which greatly contributed to make them pleased with each
other:--both were virtuous by nature, by disposition gay and
chearful:--both were equally lovers of reading; had a smattering of
philosophy, were perfectly acquainted with the world, and knew what in
it was truly worthy of being praised or contemned; and what rendered
them still more conformable, was the aversion which each testified to
marriage.--Natura's treatment from his wife, had made him speak with
some bitterness against a state, which had involved him in so many
perplexities; and Charlotte, though so short a time a wife, having
been married against her inclination, and to a man who, it seems, knew
not her real value, had found in it the beginning of disquiets, which
prognosticated worse mischiefs, had not his death relieved her from
them, and made her too thankful for the deliverance, to endure the
thoughts of venturing a second time to give up her freedom.

This parity of sentiments, inclinations, and dispositions, it was
which, by degrees, endeared them to each other, without knowing they
were so.

Natura became at last impatient out of the company of Charlotte, and
Charlotte found a restlessness in herself whenever Natura was absent;
but this indeed happened but seldom:--the mutual desire they had of
being together, made each of them industriously avoid all those
parties of pleasure, in which both could not have a share:--Natura
excused himself from accompanying his brother-in-law in any of those
diversions where women were not admitted; and Charlotte always had
some pretence for staying at home when the sister of Natura made her
visits to the ladies of the country;--yet was this managed on both
sides with such great decency and precaution, that neither the one nor
the other perceived the motive which occasioned their being so rarely
separated; much less had the f