CHAP.  XXIV.

The history of Dorilaus and Matilda, with other circumstances very important to Louisa.

You know, said he, that I am descended of one of the most illustrious families in England, tho’, by some imprudencies on the one side, and injustice on the other, my claim was set aside, and I deprived of that title which my ancestors for a long succession of years had enjoyed, so that the estate I am in possession of, was derived to me in right of my mother, who was an heiress.  It is indeed sufficient to have given me a pretence to any lady I should have made choice on, and to provide for what children I might have had by her:  but the pride of blood being not abated in me by being cut off from my birthright, inspired me with an unconquerable aversion to marriage, since I could not bequeath to my posterity that dignity I ought to have enjoyed myself:—­I resolved therefore to live single, and that the misfortune of my family should dye with myself.

In my younger years I went to travel, as well for improvement, as to alleviate that discontent which was occasioned by the sight of another in possession of what I thought was my due.—­Having made the tour of Europe, I took France again in my way home:—­the gallantry and good breeding of these people very much attached me to them; but what chiefly engaged my continuance here much longer than I had done in any other part, was an acquaintance I had made with a lady called Matilda:  she was of a very good family in England, was sent to a monastry merely for the sake of well-grounding her in a religion, the free exercise of which is not allowed at home, and to seclude her from settling her affections on any other than the person she was destined to by the will of her parents, and to whom she had been contracted in her infancy:—­she was extremely young, and beautiful as an angel; and the knowledge she was pre-engaged, could not hinder me from loving her, any more than the declarations I made in her hearing against marriage, could the grateful returns she was pleased to make me:—­in fine, the mutual inclination we had for each other, as it rendered us deaf to all suggestions but that of gratifying it, so it also inspired us with ingenuity to surmount all the difficulties that were between our wishes and the end of them.—­Tho’ a pensioner in a monastry, and very closely observed, by the help of a confidant she frequently got out, and many nights we passed together;—­till some business relating to my estate at length calling me away, we were obliged to part, which we could not do without testifying a great deal of concern on both sides:—­mine was truly sincere at that time, and I have reason to believe her’s was no less so; but absence easily wears out the impressions of youth:  as I never expected to see her any more, I endeavoured not to preserve a remembrance which would only have given me disquiet, and, to confess the truth, soon forgot both the pleasure and the pain I had experienced in this, as well as some other little sallies of my unthinking youth.