The tea equipage was set, and the ceremony of that being over, cards were proposed; as they were three, Ombre was the game, at which they played some hours, and Natura was asked to sup.—­After what I have said, I believe the reader has no occasion to be told that he complied with a pleasure which was but too visible in his eyes.—­The time passed insensibly on, or at least seemed to do so to the friend of Harriot, till the watchman reminding her it was past eleven, she started up, and pretending a surprize, that the night was so far advanced, told Natura that she must exact a second proof of that gallantry he had shewn the night before, for she had not courage to go either in a chair or a coach alone at that late hour:—­this doubtless was what he would have offered, had she been silent on the occasion; and a coach being ordered to the door, he took leave of miss Harriot, though not till he had obtained leave to testify his respects in some future visits.

Had Natura appeared to have more experience of the town, the lady he gallanted home would certainly not have entertained him with the discourse she did; but his extreme youth, and the modest manner of his behaviour on the first sight of him, convinced them he was a person such as they wished to have in their power, and to that end had concerted measures between themselves, to perfect the conquest which, it was easy to perceive, one of them had begun to make over him.

Harriot being the person with whom they found he was enamoured, it was the business of the other to do for her what, it may be supposed, she would have done for her on the like occasion.—­Natura was no sooner in the coach with her, than she began to magnify the charms of her fair friend, but above all extolled her virtue, her prudence, and good humour:—­then, as if only to give a proof of her patience and fortitude, that her parents dying when she was an infant, had left her with a vast fortune in the hands of a guardian, who attempting to defraud her of the greatest part, she was now at law with him, ’and is obliged to live, till the affair is decided,’ said this artful woman, ’in the narrow manner you see,—­without a coach,—­without any equipage; and yet she bears it all with chearfulness:—­she has a multiplicity of admirers,’ added she, ’but she assures all of them, that she will never marry, till she knows what present she shall be able to give with herself to the man she shall make choice of.’

Till now Natura had never asked himself the question how far his passion for Harriot extended, or with what view he should address her; but when he heard she was a woman of condition, and would have a fortune answerable to her birth, he began to think it would be happy for him if he could obtain her love on the most honourable terms.

It would be too tedious to relate all the particulars of his courtship; so I shall only say, that humble and timid as the first emotions of a sincere passion are, he was emboldened, by the extraordinary complaisance of Harriot, to declare it to her in a few days.—­The art with which she managed on this occasion, might have deceived the most knowing in the sex; it is not, therefore, surprizing, that he should be caught in a snare, which, though ruinous as it had like to have been, had in it allurements scarce possible to be withstood at his time of life.