His three months of absence having rendered him a kind of stranger at home, his mother-in-law used him with somewhat more civility, and his father seemed highly satisfied with him; all his kindred and friends caressed him, and made him many little presents of such things as befitted his years; but that which crowned his felicity, was the company of a young girl, a near relation of his stepmother’s, who was come to pass some time with her, and see London, which she had never been in before.

CHAP.  III.

The early influence which the difference of sex excites, is here exemplified in the fond but innocent affection of Natura and Delia.

Natura being much of the same age with Delia (for so I shall call her) and both equally playful, spirituous, and good-natured, it is hard to say which of them took the greatest delight in the society of the other.  Natura was never well out of the presence of Delia, nor Delia contented but when Natura was with her.

In walking, dancing, playing at cards, these amiable children were always partners; and it was remarkable, that in the latter of these diversions, Natura was never uneasy at losing his money to Delia, nor resented any little railleries she treated him with on account of his ill luck, or want of skill in the game, as he had been accustomed to do whenever he received the like from any of his companions.—­So forcibly does the difference of sex operate, even before that difference is considered.

Natura was yet too young by much, to know wherefore he found in himself this complaisance, or how it came to pass, that he so much preferred a beautiful and good-humoured girl, to a boy possessed of the same qualifications; but he was not ignorant that he did so, and has often wondered (as he afterwards confessed) what it was that made him feel so much pleasure, whenever, in innocently romping together, he happened to catch hold of her in his arms; and what strange impulse it was, that rendered him so reluctant to part with her out of that posture, that she was obliged to struggle with all her strength to disengage herself.

Hence it is plain, that the passion of love is part of our composition, implanted in the soul for the propagation of the world; and we ought not, in my opinion, to be too severe on the errors which, meerly and abstracted from any other motive than itself, it sometimes influences us to be guilty of.—­The laws, indeed, which prohibit any amorous intercourse between the sexes, unless authored by the solemnities of marriage, are without all question, excellently well calculated for the good of society, because without such a restriction, there would be no such thing as order in the world.  I am therefore far from thinking lightly of that truly sacred institution, when I say, that there are some cases, in which the pair so offending, merit rather our pity, than that abhorrence which those of a more rigid virtue, colder constitution, or less under the power of temptation, are apt to testify on such occasion.