The person, after the affair which brought him there was over, took leave of the father of Natura, who having thrown the money into his bureau, to a large heap was there before, waited on him down stairs, without staying to lock the drawer.

Often had Natura been present when his father received larger sums than this, and doubtless had the same opportunity as now to make himself master of some part, or all of it; but never till this unhappy exigence had the least temptation to do so.—­It came into his head that the accident was perfectly providential, and that he ought not to neglect the only means by which he could perform his promise;—­that his father could very well spare the sum he wanted, and that it was only taking before the time what by inheritance must be his own hereafter.—­In this imagination he opened the drawer, and was about to pursue his intention, when he recollected that the money would certainly be missed, and either the fault be laid upon some innocent person, who might suffer for his crime; or he himself would be suspected of a thing, which, in this second thought, he found so mean and wicked, that he was shocked almost to death, for having been capable of even a wish to be guilty of it.—­He shut the drawer again,—­turned himself away, and was in the utmost confusion of mind, when his father returned into the room; which shews that there is a native honesty in the human nature, which nothing but a long practice of base actions can wholly eradicate:  and I dare believe that even those we see most hardened in vice, have felt severe struggles within themselves at first, and have often looked back upon the paths of virtue, wishing, tho’ fruitlesly, to return.

Natura, however, did not give over his pursuit of the means of performing his promise:  on the contrary, he thought himself obliged by all the ties of love, honour, and even self-interest, to do it; but difficult as he believed the task would be, he found it much more so than he could even have imagined:  his intimacy being only with such, as being much of his own age, and like him were at an allowance from their parents or guardians, it was not in the power of any of them to contribute a large sum toward making up that he wanted; the most he got from any one being no more than five guineas, and all he raised among the whole amounted to no more than twenty, and some odd pounds.

Distracted with his ill fortune, he ventured to go to an uncle he had by the mother’s side, and after many complaints of his father’s parsimony, told him, that having been drawn into some expences, which, though not extravagant, were more than his little purse could supply, he had broke into some money given him to pay his taylor, whom he feared would demand it of his father, and he knew not how far the ill-will of his mother-in-law might exaggerate the matter; concluding with an humble petition for twenty guineas, which he told him he would faithfully return by degrees.