o throw
her into a swoon. The perfections she saw in the person of her
lover;--the respect he treated her with, notwithstanding the violence of
the passion he was possessed of;--the sincerity that appeared in all his
looks and words;--the generosity of his behaviour in regard to her
fortune;--all the qualifications that would have made any other woman
blessed in the offer of such a heart, served but to make her wretched,
since she could not look on herself in a condition capable of
accepting it.

Alas! du Plessis, cried she, little do you think to whom you would ally
yourself:--you would, you say, despise a portion, but would you marry a
foundling, a child of charity, one that has neither name nor friends,
and who, in her best circumstances, is but a poor dependant, a servant
in effect, tho' not in shew, and owes her very cloaths to the bounty of
another?--Oh! why did the mistaken goodness of Dorilaus give me any
other education than such as befitted my wretched fortune! Better I had
been bred an humble drudge, and never been taught how to distinguish
merit:--What avail the accomplishments that cost him so much money, and
me so much pains to acquire, but to attract a short-liv'd admiration,
which, when I am truly known, will be succeeded with an adequate
derision:--Could I but say I was descended from honest, tho' mean
parents, I would not murmur at my fate, but I have none,--none to own
me;--I am a nothing,--a kind of reptile in humanity, and have been shewn
in a genteel way of life only to make my native misery more conspicuous.

Thus did love represent her unhappy circumstances in their worst
colours, and render her, which till now she had never been, thankless to
heaven for all the good she had received, since it seemed to deny her
the only good her passion coveted, that of being in a condition to
reward the affection of her dear du Plessis.

A torrent of tears at length somewhat mitigated the violence of her
passion, and unwilling to be seen by Melanthe in the present confusion
of her thoughts, she went to bed, leaving the same orders as she had
done the night before.

CHAP. XIV.

_The base designs of the count de Bellfleur occasion a melancholy change
in Louisa's way of life; the generous behaviour of monsieur du Plessis
on that occasion._

Had the agonies Louisa suffered been of very long continuance, she must
have sunk under them; but grief is easily dissipated in a young heart,
and she awoke more tr