yet one in the world that will never forsake
thee; tho' thou hadst ten thousand crimes to answer for, he will forget
them all.'--'O my own dear'--for minutes she could no more--'my own
dearest good papa! Could angels be kinder! How do I deserve so much! The
villain, I hate him and myself, to be a reproach to such goodness. You
can't forgive me. I know you cannot.'--'Yes, my child, from my heart I
do forgive thee! Only repent, and we both shall yet be happy. We shall
see many pleasant days yet, my Olivia!'--'Ah! never, sir, never. The
rest of my wretched life must be infamy abroad and shame at home. But,
alas! papa, you look much paler than you used to do. Could such a thing
as I am give you so much uneasiness? Sure you have too much wisdom
to take the miseries of my guilt upon yourself.'--'Our wisdom, young
woman,' replied I.--'Ah, why so cold a name papa?' cried she. 'This is
the first time you ever called me by so cold a name.'--'I ask pardon, my
darling,' returned I; 'but I was going to observe, that wisdom makes but
a slow defence against trouble, though at last a sure one.

The landlady now returned to know if we did not chuse a more genteel
apartment, to which assenting, we were shewn a room, where we could
converse more freely. After we had talked ourselves into some degree of
tranquillity, I could not avoid desiring some account of the gradations
that led to her present wretched situation. 'That villain, sir,' said
she, 'from the first day of our meeting made me honourable, though
private, proposals.'

'Villain indeed,' cried I; 'and yet it in some measure surprizes me, how
a person of Mr Burchell's good sense and seeming honour could be guilty
of such deliberate baseness, and thus step into a family to undo it.'

'My dear papa,' returned my daughter, 'you labour under a strange
mistake, Mr Burchell never attempted to deceive me. Instead of that he
took every opportunity of privately admonishing me against the artifices
of Mr Thornhill, who I now find was even worse than he represented
him.'--'Mr Thornhill,' interrupted I, 'can it be?'--'Yes, Sir,' returned
she, 'it was Mr Thornhill who seduced me, who employed the two ladies,
as he called them, but who, in fact, were abandoned women of the town,
without breeding or pity, to decoy us up to London. Their artifices,
you may remember would have certainly succeeded, but for Mr Burchell's
letter, who directed those reproaches at them, which we all applied
to oursel