ther! and said that she shewed a too
great curiousness of modesty, to abstain from embracing his father,
and to have doubts of his person, when to all present it was evident
that he was the very real and true Ulysses.

Then she mistrusted no longer, but ran and fell upon Ulysses's neck,
and said, "Let not my husband be angry, that I held off so long with
strange delays; it is the gods, who severing us for so long time, have
caused this unseemly distance in me. If Menelaus's wife had used half
my caution, she would never have taken so freely to a stranger's bed;
and she might have spared us all these plagues which have come upon us
through her shameless deed."

These words with which Penelope excused herself, wrought more
affection in Ulysses than if upon a first sight she had given up
herself implicitly to his embraces; and he wept for joy to possess a
wife so discreet, so answering to his own staid mind, that had a depth
of wit proportioned to his own, and one that held chaste virtue at
so high a price; and he thought the possession of such a one cheaply
purchased with the loss of all Circe's delights, and Calypso's
immortality of joys; and his long labours and his severe sufferings
past seemed as nothing, now they were crowned with the enjoyment of
his virtuous and true wife Penelope. And as sad men at sea whose ship
has gone to pieces nigh shore, swimming for their lives, all drenched
in foam and brine, crawl up to some poor patch of land, which they
take possession of with as great a joy as if they had the world given
them in fee, with such delight did this chaste wife cling to her lord
restored, till the dark night fast coming on reminded her of that more
intimate and happy union when in her long-widowed bed she should once
again clasp a living Ulysses.

So from that time the land had rest from the suitors. And the happy
Ithacans with songs and solemn sacrifices of praise to the gods
celebrated the return of Ulysses: for he that had been so long absent
was returned to wreak the evil upon the heads of the doers; in the
place where they had done the evil, there wreaked he his vengeance
upon them.

MRS. LEICESTER'S SCHOOL:

OR,

THE HISTORY OF SEVERAL YOUNG LADIES,

RELATED BY THEMSELVES

(_Written 1808. 1st Edition 1809. Text of 2nd Edition 1809_)

DEDICATION.

TO

THE YOUNG LADIES AT AMWELL SCHOOL

My dear young friends,

Though released from the business of the school, the absence