will never forsake thee; tho’ thou hadst ten thousand crimes to answer for, he will forget them all.’—‘O my own dear’—for minutes she could no more—‘my own dearest good papa! Could angels be kinder! How do I deserve so much! The villain, I hate him and myself, to be a reproach to such goodness. You can’t forgive me. I know you cannot.’—‘Yes, my child, from my heart I do forgive thee! Only repent, and we both shall yet be happy. We shall see many pleasant days yet, my Olivia!’—‘Ah! never, sir, never. The rest of my wretched life must be infamy abroad and shame at home. But, alas! papa, you look much paler than you used to do. Could such a thing as I am give you so much uneasiness? Sure you have too much wisdom to take the miseries of my guilt upon yourself.’—‘Our wisdom, young woman,’ replied I.—‘Ah, why so cold a name papa?’ cried she. ‘This is the first time you ever called me by so cold a name.’—‘I ask pardon, my darling,’ returned I; ‘but I was going to observe, that wisdom makes but a slow defence against trouble, though at last a sure one.
The landlady now returned to know if we did not chuse a more genteel apartment, to which assenting, we were shewn a room, where we could converse more freely. After we had talked ourselves into some degree of tranquillity, I could not avoid desiring some account of the gradations that led to her present wretched situation. ‘That villain, sir,’ said she, ‘from the first day of our meeting made me honourable, though private, proposals.’
‘Villain indeed,’ cried I; ‘and yet it in some measure surprizes me, how a person of Mr Burchell’s good sense and seeming