men
have been taught to call life a passage, and themselves the travelers.
The similitude still may be improved, when we observe that the good are
joyful and serene, like travelers that are going towards home; the
wicked but by intervals happy, like travelers that are going into
exile."

My compassion for my poor daughter, overpowered by this new disaster,
interrupted what I had further to observe. I bade her mother support
her, and after a short time she recovered. She appeared from that time
more calm, and I imagined had gained a new degree of resolution; but
appearances deceived me, for her tranquillity was the languor of
overwrought resentment. A supply of provisions charitably sent us by my
kind parishioners seemed to diffuse new cheerfulness among the rest of
the family; nor was I displeased at seeing them once more sprightly and
at ease. It would have been unjust to damp their satisfactions merely to
condole with resolute melancholy, or to burden them with a sadness they
did not feel. Thus once more the tale went round, and the song was
demanded, and cheerfulness condescended to hover round our little
habitation.

* * * * *

The next morning the sun arose with peculiar warmth for the season; so
that we agreed to breakfast together on the honeysuckle bank; where,
while we sat, my youngest daughter, at my request, joined her voice to
the concert on the trees about us. It was in this place my poor Olivia
first met her seducer, and every object served to recall her sadness.
But that melancholy which is excited by objects of pleasure, or inspired
by sounds of harmony, soothes the heart instead of corroding it. Her
mother, too, upon this occasion felt a pleasing distress, and wept, and
loved her daughter as before. "Do, my pretty Olivia," cried she, "let us
have that little melancholy air your papa was so fond of; your sister
Sophy has already obliged us. Do, child; it will please your old
father." She complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me:

"When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?

"The only art her guilt to cover,
"To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is--to die."

As she was concluding the last stanza, to which an interruption in her
voice from sorrow gave peculiar softness, the app