I was received with kindness and hospitality. Among
people thus remote from the bustle of human life there is an open spirit
of confidence, by means of which a stranger easily finds access to their
benevolence and good-will. My manners had never been greatly debauched
from the simplicity of rural life by the scenes through which I had
passed; and the hardships I had endured had given additional mildness to
my character. In the theatre upon which I was now placed I had no rival.
My mechanical occupation had hitherto been a non-resident; and the
schoolmaster, who did not aspire to the sublime heights of science I
professed to communicate, was willing to admit me as a partner in the
task of civilising the unpolished manners of the inhabitants. For the
parson, civilisation was no part of his trade; his business was with the
things of a better life, not with the carnal concerns of this material
scene; in truth, his thoughts were principally occupied with his oatmeal
and his cows.

These however were not the only companions which this remote retirement
afforded me. There was a family of a very different description, of
which I gradually became the chosen intimate. The father was a shrewd,
sensible, rational man, but who had turned his principal attention to
subjects of agriculture. His wife was a truly admirable and
extraordinary woman. She was the daughter of a Neapolitan nobleman, who,
after having visited, and made a considerable figure, in every country
in Europe, had at length received the blow of fate in this village. He
had been banished his country upon suspicion of religious and political
heresy, and his estates confiscated. With this only child, like Prospero
in the Tempest, he had withdrawn himself to one of the most obscure and
uncultivated regions of the world. Very soon however after his arrival
in Wales he had been seized with a malignant fever, which carried him
off in three days. He died possessed of no other property than a few
jewels, and a bill of credit, to no considerable amount, upon an English
banker.

Here then was the infant Laura, left in a foreign country, and without
a single friend. The father of her present husband was led by motives of
pure humanity to seek to mitigate the misfortunes of the dying Italian.
Though a plain uninstructed man, with no extraordinary refinement of
intellect, there was something in his countenance that determined the
stranger in his present forlorn and melancholy situ