Virtue consists in endeavouring to do all the
good we can to others, with an ultimate intention of pleasing God alone.

_Paul._--Oh! how virtuous, then, is Virginia! Virtue led her to seek for
riches, that she might practise benevolence. Virtue induced her to quit
this island, and virtue will bring her back to it.

The idea of her speedy return firing the imagination of this young man,
all his anxieties suddenly vanished. Virginia, he was persuaded, had not
written, because she would soon arrive. It took so little time to come
from Europe with a fair wind! Then he enumerated the vessels which had
made this passage of four thousand five hundred leagues in less than
three months; and perhaps the vessel in which Virginia had embarked
might not be more than two. Ship-builders were now so ingenious, and
sailors were so expert! He then talked to me of the arrangements he
intended to make for her reception, of the new house he would build for
her, and of the pleasures and surprises which he would contrive for her
every day, when she was his wife. His wife! The idea filled him with
ecstasy. "At least, my dear father," said he, "you shall then do no more
work than you please. As Virginia will be rich, we shall have plenty of
negroes, and they shall work for you. You shall always live with us, and
have no other care than to amuse yourself and be happy;"--and, his heart
throbbing with joy, he flew to communicate these exquisite anticipations
to his family.

In a short time, however, these enchanting hopes were succeeded by the
most cruel apprehensions. It is always the effect of violent passions to
throw the soul into opposite extremes. Paul returned the next day to my
dwelling, overwhelmed with melancholy, and said to me,--"I hear nothing
from Virginia. Had she left Europe she would have written me word of her
departure. Ah! the reports which I have heard concerning her are but
too well founded. Her aunt has married her to some great lord. She,
like others, has been undone by the love of riches. In those books which
paint women so well, virtue is treated but as a subject of romance. If
Virginia had been virtuous, she would never have forsaken her mother
and me. I do nothing but think of her, and she has forgotten me. I am
wretched, and she is diverting herself. The thought distracts me; I
cannot bear myself! Would to Heaven that war were declared in India! I
would go there and die."

"My son," I answered, "that courage which p