‘Indeed,’ said the father, ’I know not whether all the efforts I made for that purpose, would have been effectual, if fortune had not seconded my design:—­she withstood all the temptations I laid in her way, rejected the sum I offered, and only laughed at the menaces I made, when I found she was not to be won by gentle means; and I began to despair of success, so much as to give over all attempts that way, when I was told she was in custody of an officer of the compter, on account of some debts she had contracted:—­on this your uncle put it into my head to charge her with several actions in fictitious names; so that being incapable of procuring bail, and going to be carried to prison, when I sent a person to her with an offer to discharge her from all her present incumbrances, on condition she gave up the contract, which I assured her, at the same time, she would not be the better for, it being my intention you should settle abroad for life.’

‘This,’ continued he, ’in the exigence she then was, she thought it best to accept of, and I got clear of the matter, with much less expence than I had expected; her real debts not amounting to above half what I had once proposed to give her.’

Natura was charmed to find himself delivered from all the scandal, and other vexations, with which he might otherwise have been persecuted his whole life long, both by herself and the emissaries she had always at hand, might have employed against him:  nor was he much less delighted to hear that she had also received some part of the punishment her crimes deserved, in the disappointment of all her impudent and high-raised expectations.

Having nothing now to disturb him in the prosecution of his purpose, he set about it with the utmost diligence; and as he had a considerable quantity of ready money by him to offer either by way of praemium, or purchase, there was not, indeed, any great danger of his continuing long without employment, nor that, so qualified, he might not also be able to chuse out of many, one which should be most agreeable to his inclinations.

Accordingly he in a little time hearing of a genteel post under the government that was to be disposed on, he laid out part of his money in the purchase of it, and with the remainder set up the exempt’s wife in a milliner’s shop, in which, being a woman of a gay polite behaviour, she soon acquired great business, especially as she pretended to have left France on the score of religion, and went constantly every day to prayers, after having formally renounced the errors of the church of Rome:  Natura visited her very often out of gratitude, and perhaps some sparks of a more warm passion; and they had many happy hours together, which the talk of their past adventures contributed to heighten, as afflictions once overcome, serve to enhance present happiness.