excursions into the country, visited the gentlemen
in the neighbourhood, and frequently accompanied them to the chase;
all three being exceedingly caressed on account of their talents, which
could accommodate themselves with great facility to the tempers and
turns of their entertainers. The lieutenant was a droll in his way,
Peregrine possessed a great fund of sprightliness and good-humour, and
Godfrey, among his other qualifications already recited, sang a most
excellent song; so that the company of this triumvirate was courted
in all parties, whether male or female: and if the hearts of our
young gentlemen had not been pre-engaged, they would have met with
opportunities in abundance of displaying their address in the art of
love: not but that they gave loose to their gallantry without much
interesting their affections, and amused themselves with little
intrigues, which, in the opinion of a man of pleasure, do not affect his
fidelity to the acknowledged sovereign of his soul.

In the midst of these amusements, our hero received an intimation from
his sister, that she should be overjoyed to meet him next day, at five
o'clock in the afternoon, at the house of her nurse, who lived in a
cottage hard by her father's habitation, she being debarred from all
opportunity of seeing him in any other place by the severity of her
mother, who suspected her inclination. He accordingly obeyed the
summons, and went at the time appointed to the place of rendezvous,
where he met this affectionate young lady, who when he entered the room,
ran towards him with all the eagerness of transport, flung her arms
about his neck, and shed a flood of tears in his bosom before she
could utter one word, except a repetition of My dear, dear brother! He
embraced her with all the piety of fraternal tenderness, wept over her
in his turn, assured her that this was one of the happiest moments of
his life, and kindly thanked her for having resisted the example, and
disobeyed the injunctions, of his mother's unnatural aversion.

He was ravished to find, by her conversation, that she possessed a
great share of sensibility and prudent reflection; for she lamented the
infatuation of her parents with the most filial regret, and expressed
such abhorrence and concern at the villainous disposition of her younger
brother as a humane sister may be supposed to have entertained. He made
her acquainted with all the circumstances of his own fortune; and, as he
supposed