bly on, or at least seemed to do so to the friend of
Harriot, till the watchman reminding her it was past eleven, she
started up, and pretending a surprize, that the night was so far
advanced, told Natura that she must exact a second proof of that
gallantry he had shewn the night before, for she had not courage to go
either in a chair or a coach alone at that late hour:--this doubtless
was what he would have offered, had she been silent on the occasion;
and a coach being ordered to the door, he took leave of miss Harriot,
though not till he had obtained leave to testify his respects in some
future visits.

Had Natura appeared to have more experience of the town, the lady he
gallanted home would certainly not have entertained him with the
discourse she did; but his extreme youth, and the modest manner of his
behaviour on the first sight of him, convinced them he was a person
such as they wished to have in their power, and to that end had
concerted measures between themselves, to perfect the conquest which,
it was easy to perceive, one of them had begun to make over him.

Harriot being the person with whom they found he was enamoured, it was
the business of the other to do for her what, it may be supposed, she
would have done for her on the like occasion.--Natura was no sooner in
the coach with her, than she began to magnify the charms of her fair
friend, but above all extolled her virtue, her prudence, and good
humour:--then, as if only to give a proof of her patience and
fortitude, that her parents dying when she was an infant, had left her
with a vast fortune in the hands of a guardian, who attempting to
defraud her of the greatest part, she was now at law with him, 'and is
obliged to live, till the affair is decided,' said this artful woman,
'in the narrow manner you see,--without a coach,--without any
equipage; and yet she bears it all with chearfulness:--she has a
multiplicity of admirers,' added she, 'but she assures all of them,
that she will never marry, till she knows what present she shall be
able to give with herself to the man she shall make choice of.'

Till now Natura had never asked himself the question how far his
passion for Harriot extended, or with what view he should address her;
but when he heard she was a woman of condition, and would have a
fortune answerable to her birth, he began to think it would be happy
for him if he could obtain her love on the most honourable terms.

It would be too tedi