ally terrible
to each; and the event had doubtless proved as they imagined, had not
the latent fires which glowed in both their breasts, been kindled into
a flame by foreign means, and not the least owing to themselves.

One of those gentlemen who had been council for Charlotte, and had
behaved with extraordinary zeal in her behalf, had been instigated
thereto, more by the charms of her person, than the fees he received
from her;--in fine, he was in love with her; but his passion was not
of that delicate nature, which fills the mind with a thousand timid
apprehensions, and chuses rather to endure the pains of a long
smothered flame, than run the hazard of offending the adored object,
by disclosing it.

He had enquired into her family and fortune, and finding there was
nothing of disparity between them, he declared his passion to her, and
declared it in terms which seemed not to savour of any great fears of
being rejected.--He was in his prime of life, had an agreeable person,
and a good estate, the consciousness of which, together with his being
accustomed to plead with success at the bar, made him not much doubt,
but his eloquence and assurance would have the same effect on his
mistress, as it frequently had on the judges: but the good opinion he
had of himself, greatly deceived him in this point; he met with a
rebuff from Charlotte, which might have deterred some men from
prosecuting a courtship she seemed determined never to encourage: but
though he was a little alarmed at it, he could not bring himself to
think she was enough in earnest to make him desist: in every visit he
paid her, he interlarded his discourse on business with professions of
love, which at length so much teized her, that she told him plainly,
she would sooner suffer her cause to be lost, than suffer herself to
be continually persecuted with sollicitations, which she had ever
avoided since her widowhood, and ever should do so.

Natura came in one day just as the counsellor was going out of her
apartment; he observed a great confusion in his face, and some
emotions in her's, which shewed her mind a little ruffled from that
happy composure he was accustomed to find it in. On his testifying the
notice he took of this change in her countenance, 'It is strange
thing,' said she, 'that people will believe nothing in their own
disfavour!--I have told this man twenty times, that if I were disposed
to think of a second marriage, which I do not believe I e