dreadful consequences of such a misfortune.

He advised that she should be blooded, to prevent any ill effects from
so severe a shock; for as she felt it as strongly as one of a more
mature age, the same precautions should be used. In this he was obeyed;
and it gave her such relief that she burst into a flood of tears; a
change which appeared so salutary, that Mr Hintman would not immediately
interrupt her. But his curiosity did not suffer him long to forbear
asking her name, and many other particulars; several of which she could
not answer; all the account she was able to give of herself was, that
her name was Mancel, that the person for whom she grieved was her aunt;
but had had the sole care of her from her earliest remembrance. This
aunt, she said, had often told her she had a father and mother living;
but when she enquired why she never saw or heard from them she could get
no satisfactory answer, but was put off with being told they were not in
England; and that she should know when she grew older.

This person had bred her up with the utmost tenderness, and employed the
most assiduous care in her education; which was the principal object of
her attention. They had lived in a neat cottage in the most retired part
of Surrey from Miss Mancel's earliest remembrance, till her aunt, after
having been some time in a bad state of health, fell into a galloping
consumption. As soon as she apprehended the danger with which her life
was threatened, she prepared every thing for her removal to London; but
as she did not expect ever to return, this took more time than the
quickness of her decay could well allow. The hasty approach of her
dissolution affected her extremely on the account of her little niece,
and she often expressed her concern in terms intelligible to her who was
the occasion of it, who gathered from the expressions which fell from
her aunt, that the motive for the journey was to find out some of Miss
Mancel's relations, to whom she might deliver her before death had put
a period to her own life; and where she might safely remain till the
return of her parents into England.

In this resolution she discharged the only servant she kept, delivered
up her house to her landlord, and after having settled all her pecuniary
affairs, she set out on her journey with her little charge; but grew so
ill on the road that she desired to be set down at the first inn; and
her illness increased so fast she had no thought of remo