earful of being deceived by her own vanity, or willing he
should be more explicit, answered, 'I have too high an opinion of your
good sense, and too flattering an idea of your friendship to me, to
imagine your heart will ever suggest any thing which would be
offensive to me from your tongue.'

'Suppose, madam,' said he, 'it should not be in my power to restrain
my wishes in those bounds prescribed by you, to all who have the
happiness of conversing with you; and that I were encroaching enough
not to be content with the marks of friendship you are pleased to
honour me':--'in fine,' continued he, 'suppose I were guilty of the
very same presumption, you have so severely censured in the
councellor!'

'That is impossible,' replied she, 'since you are a foe professed to
marriage, as well as myself';--she was about to add something more,
but was prevented by emotions, which she attempted, but in vain, to
conceal; and Natura saw enough to keep him from despairing he had
forfeited her _esteem_ by aiming at her _love_.

Having thus made a beginning, it was easy for him to prosecute a suit,
which he soon discovered he had a friend in her bosom to plead in
favour of:--in a word, he left her not, till he had obtained her
permission to entertain her on the same theme, and to use his
endeavours to prevail on her to exchange the friendship she confessed
for him into a warmer passion.

It would be altogether needless to make any repetition of the
particulars of this courtship; the reader will easily believe, that
both parties being animated with the same sentiments I have described,
it could not be very tedious;--love had already done his work in their
hearts, and required little the labour of the tongue. Charlotte had
entirely compleated every thing appertaining to her law-suit, yet she
seemed not in a hurry to quit the town; a business of a more tender
nature now detained her;--she had resolved, or rather she could not
help resolving, to give herself to Natura, and the shame of doing what
she had so often, and so strenuously declared against, rendered the
thoughts of returning into the country in a different state, from that
with which she had left it, insupportable to her.

After having agreed to the sollicitations of her importunate lover,
she expressed her sentiments to him on this head; on which it was
concluded, that their nuptials should be solemnized as privately as
possible in London, and that they should set out immedia