he was
accosted by a man who exhibited an appearance of extreme wretchedness.
His face was wan, and his features sunken. His dimmed eye seemed hardly
able to discern the object on which it gazed; and his tottering limbs
with difficulty supported his feeble frame. His moving lips appeared to
be framing a prayer for compassion, but his hollow voice had not power
to give it sound. Adrian involuntarily stopped, regarding him with looks
of commiseration, but suddenly recollecting himself--No, said he, I will
not again be imposed upon; I must not forget that the fairy enjoins
discretion as well as charity, and hastily passed on, congratulating
himself on this effort of prudence.

It was not long before he learned that the unfortunate being had, in
despair of obtaining any relief of his sufferings, sought an obscure
shelter, in which he soon terminated his miserable existence.

Adrian's heart smote him severely; he felt that he would have given half
his possessions to have recalled the past hours; and the circumstance
for a short period dwelt heavily on his mind; but contrition was soon
effaced by dissipation.

When this brother and sister, who had suddenly burst in such radiance
upon the astonished neighbourhood, had ceased to be novelties, it was
not long before they ceased also to excite the interest and good liking
that their first appearance had created.

All the rational members of their acquaintance, who had been agreeably
struck with Adrian's good humoured vivacity and generous spirit, grew
disappointed and displeased at finding they must look for nothing
beyond. Uninformed in almost every branch of knowledge, destitute of the
acquirements generally possessed by, and absolutely indispensable in a
young man at his time of life, and of the rank in which he appeared in
it, they discovered that though he could laugh with the joyous, he was
incapable of conversing with the serious, and it was chiefly by the idle
and ignorant like himself, that his society continued to be sought.

The astonishment that the outward attractions of Amaranthe had produced
in all beholders, was soon succeeded by astonishment that she possessed
no others. No improved understanding, no cultivated taste, accompanied
the charms of person, and it was agreed that she must be looked at, and
not listened to. The graces of figure could not compensate for the want
of graces of mind, nor a polished skin be deemed a substitute for a
polished manner. The