convent:—­the faithful creature did her utmost to console me for an evil which was without a remedy:—­to complete my confusion, my father commanded me home; my lord M——­e was returned from his travels:—­we were both of an age to marry; and it was resolved, by our parents, no longer to defer the completion of an affair long before agreed upon.—­I was ready to lay violent hands on myself, since there seemed no way to conceal my shame; but my good nurse having set all her wits to work for me, found out an expedient which served me, when I could think of nothing for myself.—­She bid me be of comfort; that she thought being sent for home was the luckiest thing that could have happened, since nothing could be so bad as to have my pregnancy discovered in the convent, as it infallibly must have been had I stayed a very little time longer:  she also assured me she would contrive it so, as to keep the thing a secret from all the world.—­I found afterwards she did not deceive me by vain promises.—­We left Paris, according to my father’s order, and came by easy journeys, befitting my condition, to Calais, and embarked on board the packet for Dover; but then, instead of taking coach for London, hired a chariot, and went cross the country to a little village, where a kinswoman of my nurse’s lived.—­With these people I remained till Horatio and Louisa came into the world:—­I could have had them nursed at that place, but I feared some discovery thro’ the miscarriage of letters, which often happens, and which could not have been avoided being sent on such occasions;—­so we contrived together that my good confident and adviser should carry them to your house, and commit the care of them to you, who, equal with myself, had a right to it:—­she found means, by bribing a man that worked under your gardener, to convey them where I afterwards heard you found and received them as I could wish, and becoming the generosity of your nature.—­I then took coach for London, pretending, at my arrival, that I had been delayed by sickness, and to excuse my nurse’s absence, said she had caught the fever of me;—­so no farther enquiry was made, and I soon after was married to a man whose worth is well deserving of a better wife, tho’ I have endeavoured to attone for my unknown transgression by every act of duty in my power:—­nurse stayed long enough in your part of the world to be able to bring me an account how the children were disposed of.—­That I never gave you an account they were your own, was occasioned by two reasons, first, the danger of entrusting such a thing by the post, my nurse soon after dying; and secondly, because, as I was a wife, I thought it unbecoming of me to remind you of a passage I was willing to forget myself.—­A long sickness has put other thoughts into my head, and inspired me with a tenderness for those unhappy babes, which the shame of being their mother hitherto deprived them of.—­I hear, with pleasure, that you are not married, and are therefore at full liberty to make some provision for them, if they are yet living, that may alleviate the misfortune of their birth.  Farewell; if I obtain this first and last request, I shall dye well satisfied.”