ter the young lady. For a time, my exertions were
fruitless.

"Meanwhile, the possessor of this house thought proper to embark with
his family for Europe. The sum which he demanded for his furniture,
though enormous, was precipitately paid by me. His servants were
continued in their former stations, and in the day at which he
relinquished the mansion, I entered on possession.

"There was no difficulty in persuading the world that Welbeck was a
personage of opulence and rank. My birth and previous adventures it was
proper to conceal. The facility with which mankind are misled in their
estimate of characters, their proneness to multiply inferences and
conjectures, will not be readily conceived by one destitute of my
experience. My sudden appearance on the stage, my stately reserve, my
splendid habitation, and my circumspect deportment, were sufficient to
entitle me to homage. The artifices that were used to unveil the truth,
and the guesses that were current respecting me, were adapted to gratify
my ruling passion.

"I did not remit my diligence to discover the retreat of Mademoiselle
Lodi. I found her, at length, in the family of a kinsman of the captain
under whose care she had come to America. Her situation was irksome and
perilous. She had already experienced the evils of being protectorless
and indigent, and my seasonable interference snatched her from impending
and less supportable ills.

"I could safely unfold all that I knew of her brother's history, except
the legacy which he had left. I ascribed the diligence with which I had
sought her to his death-bed injunctions, and prevailed upon her to
accept from me the treatment which she would have received from her
brother if he had continued to live, and if his power to benefit had
been equal to my own.

"Though less can be said in praise of the understanding than of the
sensibilities of this woman, she is one whom no one could refrain from
loving, though placed in situations far less favourable to the
generation of that sentiment than mine. In habits of domestic and
incessant intercourse, in the perpetual contemplation of features
animated by boundless gratitude and ineffable sympathies, it could not
be expected that either she or I should escape enchantment.

"The poison was too sweet not to be swallowed with avidity by me. Too
late I remembered that I was already enslaved by inextricable
obligations. It was easy to have hidden this impediment from the eyes o