6

reminded him, that she had undertaken an office with reluctance which he had pressed upon her; and that she had done nothing in it to which he had not bound her by a promise; that she was extremely sorry to communicate her discoveries; but that he was a worthy gentleman, and, indeed, ought to know them. She then told him, that the child was born within less than eight months after his last return from abroad; that it was said to have come before its time, but that having pressed to see it she was refused.' This, indeed, was true, and confirmed the good woman in her suspicion; for Flavilla, who had still resented the freedom which she had taken in her remonstrance, had kept her at a great distance: and the servants, to gratify the mistress, treated her with the utmost insolence and contempt.

At this relation, Mercator turned pale. He now recollected, that his question concerning the child's birth had been evaded; and concluded, that he had been shedding tears of tenderness and joy over a strumpet and a bastard, who had robbed him of his patrimony, his honour, and his peace. He started up with the furious wildness of sudden frenzy ; but she with great difficulty prevailed upon him not to leave the room. He sat down and remained some time motionless, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his hands locked in each other. In proportion as he believed his wife to be guilty, his tenderness for his father revived; and he resolved, with yet greater zeal, to prosecute his purpose of immediately attempting a reconciliation.

In this state of confusion and distress, he went to the house; where he learned that his father had died early in the morning, and that his relations were then assembled to read his will. Fulvius, a brother of Mercator's mother, with whom he had always

been a favourite, happening to pass from one room to another, heard his voice. He accosted him with great ardour of friendship; and, soothing him with expressions of condolence and affection, insisted to introduce him to the company. Mercator tacitly consented: he was received at least with civility by his brothers, and, sitting down among them, the will was read. He seemed to listen like the rest; but was, indeed, musing over the story which he had just heard, and lost in the speculation of his own wretchedness. He waked as from a dream, when the voice of the person who had been reading was suspended; and finding that he could no longer contain himself, he started up and would have left the company.

Of the will which had been read before him, he knew nothing: but his uncle believing that he was moved with grief and resentment at the manner in which he had been mentioned in it, and the bequest only of a shilling, took him into another room; and, to apologize for his father's unkindness, told him, that the resentment which he expressed at his marriage, was every day increased by the conduct of his wife, whose character was now become notoriously infamous; for that she had been seen at the lodgings of a known prostitute, with whom she appeared to be well acquainted.' This account threw Mercator into another agony; from which he was, however, at length recovered by his uncle, who, as the only expedient by which he could retrieve his misfortune and sooth his distress, proposed that he should no more return to his lodgings, but go home with him; and that he would himself take such measures with his wife, as could scarce fail of inducing her to accept a separate maintenance, assume another name, and trouble him no more. Mercator, in

the bitterness of his affliction, consented to this proposal, and they went away together.

Mercator, in the mean time, was expected by Flavilla with the most tender impatience. She had put her little boy to bed, and decorated a small room in which they had been used to sup by themselves, and which she had shut up in his absence; she counted the moments as they passed, and listened to every carriage and every step that she heard. Supper now was ready her impatience was increased; terror was at length mingled with regret, and her fondness was only busied to afflict her: she wished, she feared, she accused, she apologized, and she wept. In the height of these eager expectations and this tender distress, she received a billet which Mercator had been persuaded by his uncle to write, in which he upbraided her in the strongest terms, with abusing his confidence and dishonouring his bed; of this,' he said, he had now obtained sufficient proof to do justice to himself, and that he was determined to see her no more.'

To those whose hearts have not already acquainted them with the agony which seized Flavilla upon the sight of this billet, all attempts to describe it would be not only ineffectual but absurd. Having passed the night without sleep, and the next day without food, disappointed in every attempt to discover what was become of Mercator, and doubting, if she should have found him, whether it would be possible to convince him of her innocence; the violent agitation of her mind produced a slow fever, which, before she considered it as a disease, she communicated to the child, while she cherished it at her bosom, and wept over it as an orphan, whose life she was sustaining with her own.

After Mercator had been absent about ten days,

his uncle, having persuaded him to accompany some friends to a country-seat at the distance of near sixty miles, went to his lodgings in order to discharge the rent, and try what terms he could make with Flavilla, whom he hoped to intimidate with threats of a prosecution and divorce: but when he came, he found that Flavilla was sinking very fast under her disease, and that the child was dead already. The woman of the house, into whose hands she had just put her repeating watch and some other ornaments as a security for her rent, was so touched with her distress, and so firmly persuaded of her innocence, by the manner in which she had addressed her, and the calm solemnity with which she absolved those by whom she had been traduced, that as soon as she had discovered Fulvius's business, she threw herself on her knees, and entreated, that if he knew where Mercator was to be found, he would urge him to return, that if possible the life of Flavilla might be preserved, and the happiness of both be restored by her justification. Fulvius, who still suspected appearances, or at least was in doubt of the cause that had produced them, would not discover his nephew; but, after much entreaty and expostulation, at last engaged upon his honour for the conveyance of a letter. The woman, as soon as she had obtained this promise, ran up and communicated it to Flavilla; who, when she had recovered from the surprise and tumult which it occasioned, was supported in her bed, and in about half an hour, after many efforts and many intervals, wrote a short billet, which was sealed and put into the hands of Fulvius.

Fulvius immediately enclosed and despatched it by the post, resolving, that in a question so doubtful, and of such importance, he would no further interpose. Mercator, who the moment he cast his eye

upon the letter knew both the hand and seal, after pausing a few moments in suspense, at length tore open, and read these words:

it

Such has been my folly, that, perhaps, I should not be acquitted of guilt in any circumstances but those in which I write. I do not, therefore, but for your sake, wish them other than they are. The dear infant, whose birth has undone me, now lies dead at my side, a victim to my indiscretion and your reI am scarce able to guide my pen.

sentment.

But I most earnestly entreat to see you, that you may at least have the satisfaction to hear me attest my innocence with the last sigh, and seal our reconciliation on my lips while they are yet sensible of the impression.'

Mercator, whom an earthquake would have less affected than this letter, felt all his tenderness revive in a moment, and reflected with unutterable anguish upon the rashness of his resentment. At the thought of his distance from London, he started as if he had felt a dagger in his heart: he lifted up his eyes to heaven, with a look that expressed at once an accusation of himself, and a petition for her; and then rushing out of the house, without taking leave of any, or ordering a servant to attend him, he took post horses at a neighbouring inn, and in less than six hours was in Leicester-fields. But notwithstanding his speed, he arrived too late; Flavilla had suffered the last agony, and her eyes could behold him no more. Grief and disappointment, remorse and despair, now totally subverted his reason. became necessary to remove him by force from the body; and after a confinement of two years in a madhouse he died.

It

May every lady, on whose memory compassion shall record these events, tremble to assume the le