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CHAP. XI.

MARIA.

FIRST PART.

THEY were the sweetest notes I ever heard; and instantly let down the fore glass to hear them more dis tinctly-Tis Maria; said the postillion, observing was listening-Poor Maria, continued he, (leaning his body on one side to let me see her, for he was in a line between us) is sitting upon a bank playing her vespers upon her pipe with her little goat beside her.

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The young fellow uttered this with an accent and a look so perfectly in tune to a feeling heart, that I instantly made a vow, I would give him a four and twen ty sous piece, when I got to Moulines

-And who is poor Maria? said I.

The love and pity of all the villagers around us, said the postillion-it is but three years ago, that the sun did not shine upon so fair, so quick-witted, and amiable a maid; and better fate did Maria deserve, than to have her banns forbid, by the intrigues of the curate of the parish who published them

He was going on, when Maria, who had made a short pause, put the pipe to her mouth and began the air again-they were the same notes ;-yet were ten times sweeter: It is the evening service to the virgin, said the young man-but who has taught her to play it-orhow she came by her pipe, no one knows; we think that Heaven has assisted her in both; for ever since she has been unsettled in her mind, it seems her only consolation she has never once had the pipe out of her. hand, but plays that service upon it almost night and day.

The postillion delivered this with so much discretion.

and natural eloquence, that I could not help decyphering something in his face above his condition, and should have sifted out his history, had not poor Maria taken such full possession of me.

We had got up by this time almost to the bank where Maria was sitting: she was in a thin white jacket, with her hair, all but two tresses, drawn up in a silk net, with a few olive leaves twisted a little fantastically on one side she was beautiful; and if ever I felt the full force of an honest heartach, it was the moment I saw her

God help her! poor damsel! above a hundred masses, said the postillion, have been said in the several parish churches and convents around for her-but without effect; we have still hopes, as she is sensible for short intervals, that the virgin at last will restore her to herself; but her parents, who know her best, are hopelessupon that score, and think her senses are lost for

ever,

As the postillion spoke this, Maria made a cadence so melancholy, so tender and querulous, that I sprung out of the chaise to help her, and found myself sitting betwixt her and her goat hefore I elapsed from my enthusiasm..

Maria looked wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goat and then at me and then at her goat a- gain, and so on alternately

---Well, Maria, said I softly-What resemblance do you find?

I do intreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the humblest conviction of what a beast man, is, that I asked the question; and that I would not have let fallen an unseasonable pleasantry in the venerable presence of Misery, to be entitled to all the wit that ever Rabelais scattered.

Adieu, Maria!adieu, poor hapless damsel!→→→ some time, but not now, I may hear thy sorrows from thy own lips but I was deceived; for that moment she took her pipe, and told me such a tale of woe with

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it, that I rose up, and with broken and irregular steps walked softly to my chaise.

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. WHEN we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under a poplar-she was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand—a small brook run at the foot of the tree.

I bade the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines and La Fleur to bespeak my supper-and that I would walk after him.

She was dressed in white, and much as my friend described her, except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted with a silk net. She had, superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green ribband which fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe. Her goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she had kept ied by a string to her girdle; as I looked at her dog she drew him towards her with the string-"Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio," said she. I looked in Maria's eyes, and saw she was thinking more of her father than of her lover or her little goat; for as she uttered them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.

I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they fell, with my handkerchief. I then steeped it in my own and then in her's-and then in mine-and then I wiped her's again-and as I did it, I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not be accounted for from any combination of mat ter and motion.

I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pestered the world ever convince me of the contrary.

When Maria had come a little to herself, I asked her if she remembered a pale thin person of a man who had sat down betwixt her and her goat about two years before? She said, she was unsettled much at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts-that ill as she was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, that her goat had stolen his handkerchief, and she had beat him for the theft-she had washed it, she said, in the brook, and kept it ever since in her pocket, to restore it to him in case she should ever see him again, which, she added, he had half promised her. As she told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket to let me see it ; she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine leaves, tied round with a tendril-on opening it, I saw an S marked in one of the corners.

She had since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, and walked round St. Peter's once and returned back that she found her way alone across the Appennines-had travelled over all Lombardy without money and through the flinty roads of Savoy without shoes: how she had borne it, and how she had got supported, she could not tell-but God tempers the wind, said Maria, to the shorn lamb.

Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I; and wast thou in my own land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it and shelter thee; thou shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup-I would be kind to thy Sylvio-in all thy weakness and wanderings would seek after thee, and bring thee back-when the sun went down I would say my prayers, and when I had done, thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe; nor would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted, for entering heaven along with that of a broken heart.

Nature melted within me, as I uttered this; and Ma ria observing as I took out my handkerchief, that it wa steeped to much already to be of use, would needs g wash it in the streamAnd where will you dry it Ma ria? said I will dry it in my bosom, said she-i will do me good..

And is your heart still so warm, Maria ? said F.

I touched upon the string on which hung all her sor rows-she looked with a wistful disorder for some time in my face; and then without saying any thing, took her pipe, and played her service to the Virgin-The string I had touched ceased to vibrate-in a moment or two Maria returned to herself-let her pipe fall-and rose up.

And where are you going, Maria? said I.-She said, to Moulines,-Let us go, said I, together.-Maria put her arm within mine, and lengthening the string to let the dog follow-in that order we entered Moulines.

Though I hate salutations and greetings in the marketplace, yet when we got into the middle of this, I stopped to take my last look and last farewel of Maria.

Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless- of the first order of fine forms affliction had touched her looks with something that was scarce earthly-still she was feminine and so much was there about her of all that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in woman, that could the traces be ever worn out of her brain, and those of Eliza's out of mine, she should not only eat of my bread and drink of my own cup, but Maria should lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.

Adieu, poor luckless maiden!-imbibe the oil and wine which the compassion of a stranger, as he journey. eth on his way, now pours into thy wounds-The Being who has twice bruised thee can only bind them up for

ever.

STERNE

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