the symmetry of
her small but exactly fashioned limbs. Her complexion, fair as it
was, appeared yet more fair, from the effect of two black eyes, the
brilliancy of which gave her face more vivacity than belonged to the
colour of it, which was only defended from paleness, by a sweetly
pleasing blush in her cheeks, that grew fainter and fainter, till at
length it died away insensibly into the overbearing white. Then her
miniature features joined to finish the extreme sweetness of it, which
was not belied by that of a temper turned to indolence, languor, and
the pleasures of love. Pressed to subscribe her contingent, she smiled,
blushed a little, and thus complied with our desires:

"My father was neither better nor worse than a miller near the city of
York; and both he and my mother dying whilst I was an infant, I fell
under the care of a widow and childless aunt, housekeeper to my lord
N..., at his seat in the county of..., where she brought me up with all
imaginable tenderness. I was not seventeen, as I am not now eighteen,
before I had, on account of my person purely (for fortune I had
notoriously none), several advantageous proposals; but whether nature
was slow in making me sensible in her favourite passion, or that I had
not seen any of the other sex who had stirred up the least emotion
or curiosity to be better acquainted with it, I had, till that age,
preserved a perfect innocence, even of thought: whilst my fears of I
did not now well know what, made me no more desirous of marrying than of
dying. My aunt, good woman, favoured my timorousness, which she loooked
on as childish affection, that her own experience might probably assure
her would wear off in time, and gave my suitors proper answers for me.

"The family had not been down at that seat for years, so that it was
neglected, and committed entirely to my aunt, and two old domestics to
take care of it. Thus I had the full range of a spacious lonely house
and gardens, situated at about half a mile distance from any other
habitation, except, perhaps, a straggling cottage or so.

"Here, in tranquillity and innocence, I grew up without any memorable
accident, till one fatal day I had, as I had often done before, left my
aunt asleep, and secure for some hours, after dinner; and resorting to a
kind of ancient summer house, at some distance from the house, I carried
my work with me, and sat over a rivulet, which its door and window faced
upon. Here I fell into a ge