Being animated with exactly the same sentiments Natura was, that inclination which led him to wish her coming, influenced her also to be pleased with it, and rendered the fatigue of the journey, and those others she expected to find on her arrival, of no consequence, when balanced against the happiness she proposed, in re-enjoying the conversation of her aimable and worthy friend.

But all this Natura was ignorant of; nor did his vanity suggest to him the least part of what passed in his favour in the bosom of his lovely Charlotte; but he needed no more than the knowledge she was coming to a place where he should have her company, with less interruption than he had hitherto the opportunity of, to make him the most transported man alive.  As he had no house of his own in town to accommodate her with, he provided lodgings, and every thing necessary for her reception, with an alacrity worthy of his love, and the confidence she reposed in him; and went in his own coach to take her from the stage some miles on the road.  She testified her gratitude for the care he took of her affairs, in the most obliging and polite acknowledgments; and he returned the thanks she gave him, with the sincerest assurances, that the thoughts of having it in his power to do her any little service, afforded him the most elevated pleasure he had ever known in his whole life.

What they said to each other, however, on this score, was taken by each, more as the effects of gallantry and good breeding, than the real motives from which the expressions they both made use of, had their source:—­equal was their tenderness, equal also was their diffidence, it being the peculiar property of a true and perfect love, always to fear, and never to hope too much.

Natura had taken care to chuse her an apartment very near the place where he lodged himself, which luckily happened to be in an extreme airy and genteel part of the town; so that he had the pleasure of seeing her, not only every day, but almost every hour in the day, on one pretext or other, which his industrious passion dictated; and this almost continual being together, and, for the most part, without any other company, very much increased the freedom between them, though that freedom never went farther, even in a wish, on either side, for a long time at least, than that of a brother and sister.

Though all imaginable diligence was used to bring the law-suit to an issue, those with whom Charlotte contested, found means to put it off for yet one more term, she was obliged to stay that time; but neither felt in herself, nor pretended to do so, any repugnance at it:—­Natura had enough to do to conceal his joy on this occasion; and when he affected a concern for her being detained in a place she had so often declared an aversion for, he did it so awkwardly, that had she not been too much taken up with endeavouring to disguise her own sentiments on this account, she could not but have seen into his.