elancholy.

The cheerful smile that was wont to adorn the face of Mrs. Temple was
fled, and had it not been for the support of unaffected piety, and a
consciousness of having ever set before her child the fairest example,
she must have sunk under this heavy affliction.

"Since," said she, "the severest scrutiny cannot charge me with any
breach of duty to have deserved this severe chastisement, I will bow
before the power who inflicts it with humble resignation to his will;
nor shall the duty of a wife be totally absorbed in the feelings of the
mother; I will endeavour to appear more cheerful, and by appearing in
some measure to have conquered my own sorrow, alleviate the sufferings
of my husband, and rouse him from that torpor into which this misfortune
has plunged him. My father too demands my care and attention: I must
not, by a selfish indulgence of my own grief, forget the interest those
two dear objects take in my happiness or misery: I will wear a smile on
my face, though the thorn rankles in my heart; and if by so doing, I in
the smallest degree contribute to restore their peace of mind, I shall
be amply rewarded for the pain the concealment of my own feelings may
occasion."

Thus argued this excellent woman: and in the execution of so laudable
a resolution we shall leave her, to follow the fortunes of the hapless
victim of imprudence and evil counsellors.

CHAPTER XVI.

NECESSARY DIGRESSION.

ON board of the ship in which Charlotte and Mademoiselle were embarked,
was an officer of large unincumbered fortune and elevated rank, and whom
I shall call Crayton.

He was one of those men, who, having travelled in their youth, pretend
to have contracted a peculiar fondness for every thing foreign, and to
hold in contempt the productions of their own country; and this affected
partiality extended even to the women.

With him therefore the blushing modesty and unaffected simplicity of
Charlotte passed unnoticed; but the forward pertness of La Rue, the
freedom of her conversation, the elegance of her person, mixed with a
certain engaging JE NE SAIS QUOI, perfectly enchanted him.

The reader no doubt has already developed the character of La Rue:
designing, artful, and selfish, she had accepted the devoirs of Belcour
because she was heartily weary of the retired life she led at the
school, wished to be released from what she deemed a slavery, and to
return to that vortex of folly and dissipation which had o