arth.

"By an unworthy piece of deceit, I was sent to a relation for some
weeks; and the next day Sophia followed her infamous lover, leaving
letters for me and her father, calculated to perswade us, they were
privately married.

"My distress, and that of the unhappy parent, may more easily be
conceived than described; severe by nature, he cast her from his heart
and fortune for ever, and settled his estate on a nephew, then at the
university.

"As to me, grief and tenderness were the only sensations I felt: I
went to town, and took every private method to discover her retreat,
but in vain; till near a year after, when, being in London, with a
friend of my mother's, a servant, who had lived with my Sophia, saw me
in the street, and knew me: by her means, I discovered that she was in
distress, abandoned by her lover, in that moment when his tenderness
was most necessary.

"I flew to her, and found her in a miserable apartment, in which
nothing but an extreme neatness would have made me suppose she had ever
seen happier days: the servant who brought me to her attended her.

"She was in bed, pale, emaciated; the lovely babe you saw with me in
her arms.

"Though prepared for my visit, she was unable to bear the shock of
seeing me; I ran to her, she raised herself in the bed, and, throwing
her feeble arms round my neck, could only say, 'My Fanny! is this
possible!' and fainted away.

"Our cares having recovered her, she endeavored to compose herself;
her eyes were fixed tenderly on me, she pressed my hand between hers,
the tears stole silently down her cheeks; she looked at her child, then
at me; she would have spoke, but the feelings of her heart were too
strong for expression.

"I begged her to be calm, and promised to spend the day with her;
I did not yet dare, lest the emotion should be too much for her weak
state, to tell her we would part no more.

"I took a room in the house, and determined to give all my attention
to the restoration of her health; after which, I hoped to contrive to
make my little fortune, with industry, support us both.

"I sat up with her that night; she got a little rest, she seemed
better in the morning; she told me the particulars I have already
related; she, however, endeavored to soften the cruel behaviour of the
wretch, whose name I could not hear without horror.

"She had in the afternoon a little fever; I sent for a physician,
he thought her in danger; what did not my heart f