Two days before that prefixed for his marriage, Natura received a packet from Gibralter, which brought him an account of the death of his brother.—­That unfortunate young gentleman, being convinced by his sufferings, and perhaps too by his own remorse, and stings of conscience of the foulness of the crime he had been guilty of, fell into a languishing disorder, soon after his arrival in that country, which left those about him no expectations of his ever getting the better of.—­Finding his dissolution near, he wrote a letter to Natura, full of contrition, and intreaties for forgiveness.  This epistle accompanied that which related his death, and both together plunged Natura into very melancholly thoughts.—­The offence his brother had been guilty of, was indeed great; but, when he remembered that he had repented, and was now no more, all resentment, all revenge, against him ceased with his existence, and a tender pity supplied their place:—­what, while living, he never would have forgave, when dead lost great part of its atrocity, and he bewailed the fate of the transgressor, with unfeigned tears and lamentations.

This event putting an end to the motive which had induced Natura to think of marriage, put an end also to his desires that way;—­he was sorry he had gone so far with Laetitia, was loth to appear a deceiver in her eyes, or in those of her father; but thought it would be the extremest madness in him to prosecute his intent, as his beloved sister had a son, who would now be his heir, and only had desired to be the father of one himself to hinder him from being so, whose crimes had rendered him unworthy of it.

The emotions of this revenge having entirely subsided, he now had leisure to consider how oddly the world would think and talk of him, if he perpetrated a marriage with a girl such as Laetitia;—­he almost wondered at himself, that the just displeasure he had conceived against his brother, should have transported him so far as to make him forgetful of what was owing to his own character; and when he reflected on the miseries, vexations, and infamy, his last marriage had involved him in, he trembled to think how near he had been to entering into a state, which tho’ he had a very good opinion of Laetitia’s virtue, might yet possibly, some way or other, have given him many uneasinesses.

He was, however, very much embarrassed how to break with her handsomely; and it must be confessed, that after what had passed, this was no very easy matter to accomplish.—­Make what pretence he would, he could not expect to escape the censure of an unstable fluctuating man.—­This is indeed a character, which all men are willing, nay industrious, to avoid, yet what there are few men, but some time or other in their lives, give just reason to incur.—­Natura very well knew, that to court a woman for marriage, and afterwards break his engagements with her, was a thing pretty common in the world; but then, it was