experienced very considerable losses; and I so piqued his
generosity that he began by giving her four hundred crowns. I told him
that was well enough for a commencement, but that my sister would have,
for the future, many demands for money; that she had the charge of a
young brother, who had been thrown upon her hands since the death of
our parents; and that, if he wished to prove himself worthy of her
affections, he would not allow her to suffer uneasiness upon account of
this child, whom she regarded as part of herself. This speech produced
its effect, he at once promised to take a house for you and Manon, for
you must know that you are the poor little orphan. He undertook to set
you up in furniture, and to give you four hundred livres a month, which
if I calculate rightly, will amount to four thousand eight hundred per
annum. He left orders with his steward to look out for a house, and to
have it in readiness by the time he returned. You will soon,
therefore, again see Manon, who begged of me to give you a thousand
tender messages, and to assure you that she loves you more dearly than
ever.'"

V

Infected with that leprosy of lust,
Which taints the hoariest years of vicious men
Making them ransack to the very last
The dregs of pleasure for their vanished joys.
BYRON.

"On sitting down to reflect upon this strange turn of fate, I found
myself so perplexed, and consequently so incapable of arriving at any
rational conclusion, that I allowed Lescaut to put repeated questions
to me without in the slightest degree attending to their purport. It
was then that honour and virtue made me feel the most poignant remorse,
and that I recalled with bitterness Amiens, my father's house, St.
Sulpice, and every spot where I had ever lived in happy innocence. By
what a terrific interval was I now separated from that blessed state!
I beheld it no longer but as a dim shadow in the distance, still
attracting my regrets and desires, but without the power of rousing me
to exertion. 'By what fatality,' said I, 'have I become thus degraded?
Love is not a guilty passion! why then has it been to me the source of
profligacy and distress? Who prevented me from leading a virtuous and
tranquil life with Manon? Why did I not marry her before I obtained
any concession from her love? Would not my father, who had the
tenderest regard for me, have given his consent, if I had taken the
fair and candid course of solic