he had taken, was to get the
contract out of her hands.

The transported Natura no sooner heard he had done so, than he cried
out, 'By what means, dear sir, was she prevailed upon to relinquish a
title, by which she certainly hoped to make one day a very great
advantage?'

'Indeed,' said the father, 'I know not whether all the efforts I made
for that purpose, would have been effectual, if fortune had not
seconded my design:--she withstood all the temptations I laid in her
way, rejected the sum I offered, and only laughed at the menaces I
made, when I found she was not to be won by gentle means; and I began
to despair of success, so much as to give over all attempts that way,
when I was told she was in custody of an officer of the _compter_, on
account of some debts she had contracted:--on this your uncle put it
into my head to charge her with several actions in fictitious names;
so that being incapable of procuring bail, and going to be carried to
prison, when I sent a person to her with an offer to discharge her
from all her present incumbrances, on condition she gave up the
contract, which I assured her, at the same time, she would not be the
better for, it being my intention you should settle abroad for life.'

'This,' continued he, 'in the exigence she then was, she thought it
best to accept of, and I got clear of the matter, with much less
expence than I had expected; her real debts not amounting to above
half what I had once proposed to give her.'

Natura was charmed to find himself delivered from all the scandal, and
other vexations, with which he might otherwise have been persecuted
his whole life long, both by herself and the emissaries she had always
at hand, might have employed against him: nor was he much less
delighted to hear that she had also received some part of the
punishment her crimes deserved, in the disappointment of all her
impudent and high-raised expectations.

Having nothing now to disturb him in the prosecution of his purpose,
he set about it with the utmost diligence; and as he had a
considerable quantity of ready money by him to offer either by way of
praemium, or purchase, there was not, indeed, any great danger of his
continuing long without employment, nor that, so qualified, he might
not also be able to chuse out of many, one which should be most
agreeable to his inclinations.

Accordingly he in a little time hearing of a genteel post under the
government that was to be disposed