o such a world of
revolutions and perils as have trammelled my steps? or is my scene
indebted for variety and change to my propensity to look into other
people's concerns, and to make their sorrows and their joys mine?

"To indulge an adventurous spirit, I left the precincts of the
barn-door, enlisted in the service of a stranger, and encountered a
thousand dangers to my virtue under the disastrous influence of Welbeck.
Afterwards my life was set at hazard in the cause of Wallace, and now am
I loaded with the province of protecting the helpless Eliza Hadwin and
the unfortunate Clemenza. My wishes are fervent, and my powers shall not
be inactive in their defence; but how slender are these powers!

"In the offers of the unknown lady there is, indeed, some consolation
for Clemenza. It must be my business to lay before my friend Stevens the
particulars of what has befallen me, and to entreat his directions how
this disconsolate girl may be most effectually succoured. It may be wise
to take her from her present abode, and place her under some chaste and
humane guardianship, where she may gradually lose remembrance of her
dead infant and her specious betrayer. The barrier that severs her from
Welbeck must be high as heaven and insuperable as necessity.

"But, soft! Talked she not of Welbeck? Said she not that he was in
prison and was sick? Poor wretch! I thought thy course was at an end;
that the penalty of guilt no longer weighed down thy heart; that thy
misdeeds and thy remorses were buried in a common and obscure grave; but
it seems thou art still alive.

"Is it rational to cherish the hope of thy restoration to innocence and
peace? Thou art no obdurate criminal; hadst thou less virtue, thy
compunctions would be less keen. Wert thou deaf to the voice of duty,
thy wanderings into guilt and folly would be less fertile of anguish.
The time will perhaps come, when the measure of thy transgressions and
calamities will overflow, and the folly of thy choice will be too
conspicuous to escape thy discernment. Surely, even for such
transgressors as thou, there is a salutary power in the precepts of
truth and the lessons of experience.

"But thou art imprisoned and art sick. This, perhaps, is the crisis of
thy destiny. Indigence and dishonour were the evils to shun which thy
integrity and peace of mind have been lightly forfeited. Thou hast found
that the price was given in vain; that the hollow and deceitful
enjoyments of opule