r, and nothing gave her ease. In company
she dreaded contempt, and in solitude she only found anxiety. Such was
the color of her wretchedness, when we received certain information that
Mr. Thornhill was going to be married to Miss Wilmot, for whom I always
suspected he had a real passion, though he took every opportunity before
me to express his contempt both of her person and fortune. This news
only served to increase poor Olivia's affliction; such a flagrant breach
of fidelity was more than her courage could support. I was resolved
however to get more certain information, and to defeat if possible the
completion of his designs, by sending my son to old Mr. Wilmot's with
instructions to know the truth of the report, and to deliver Miss Wilmot
a letter intimating Mr. Thornhill's conduct in my family. My son went in
pursuance of my directions, and in three days returned, assuring us of
the truth of the account; but that he had found it impossible to deliver
the letter, which he was therefore obliged to leave, as Mr. Thornhill
and Miss Wilmot were visiting round the country. They were to be
married, he said, in a few days, having appeared together at church the
Sunday before he was there, in great splendor; the bride attended by six
young ladies, and he by as many gentlemen. Their approaching nuptials
filled the whole country with rejoicing, and they usually rode out
together in the grandest equipage that had been seen in the country for
years. All the friends of both families, he said, were there,
particularly the Squire's uncle, Sir William Thornhill, who bore so good
a character. He added that nothing but mirth and feasting were going
forward; that all the country praised the young bride's beauty and the
bridegroom's fine person, and that they were immensely fond of each
other; concluding that he could not help thinking Mr. Thornhill one of
the most happy men in the world.

"Why, let him if he can," returned I; "but my son, observe this bed of
straw and unsheltering roof, those moldering walls and humid floor, my
wretched body thus disabled by fire, and my children weeping round me
for bread. You have come home, my child, to all this; yet here, even
here, you see a man that would not for a thousand worlds exchange
situations. O my children, if you could but learn to commune with your
own hearts, and know what noble company you can make them, you would
little regard the elegance and splendor of the worthless. Almost all