be idle, as your
fancy shall prompt: only you will conform to our domestic system as to
eating and sleep; the servants will inform you of this. Next week we
will enter on the task for which I designed you. You may now withdraw."

I obeyed this mandate with some awkwardness and hesitation. I went into
my own chamber not displeased with an opportunity of loneliness. I threw
myself on a chair and resigned myself to those thoughts which would
naturally arise in this situation. I speculated on the character and
views of Welbeck. I saw that he was embosomed in tranquillity and
grandeur. Riches, therefore, were his; but in what did his opulence
consist, and whence did it arise? What were the limits by which it was
confined, and what its degree of permanence? I was unhabituated to ideas
of floating or transferable wealth. The rent of houses and lands was the
only species of property which was, as yet, perfectly intelligible. My
previous ideas led me to regard Welbeck as the proprietor of this
dwelling and of numerous houses and farms. By the same cause I was fain
to suppose him enriched by inheritance, and that his life had been
uniform.

I next adverted to his social condition. This mansion appeared to have
but two inhabitants besides servants. Who was the nymph who had hovered
for a moment in my sight? Had he not called her his daughter? The
apparent difference in their ages would justify this relation; but her
guise, her features, and her accents, were foreign. Her language I
suspected strongly to be that of Italy. How should he be the father of
an Italian? But were there not some foreign lineaments in his
countenance?

This idea seemed to open a new world to my view. I had gained, from my
books, confused ideas of European governments and manners. I knew that
the present was a period of revolution and hostility. Might not these be
illustrious fugitives from Provence or the Milanese? Their portable
wealth, which may reasonably be supposed to be great, they have
transported hither. Thus may be explained the sorrow that veils their
countenance. The loss of estates and honours; the untimely death of
kindred, and perhaps of his wife, may furnish eternal food for regrets.
Welbeck's utterance, though rapid and distinct, partook, as I conceived,
in some very slight degree of a foreign idiom.

Such was the dream that haunted my undisciplined and unenlightened
imagination. The more I revolved it, the more plausible it seemed. On