As their families and fortunes were pretty equivalent, and Maria, besides her being an heiress, had beauty enough to expect to marry, even above her rank, Natura could not keep himself from being a little astonished at the extravagance of pleasure they testified at the offer he had made:  parents generally take some time to consider, before they give their assent to a proposal of this sort; and as he knew they were very well acquainted with the occasion of his leaving England this second time, and were of a party the most opposite that could be to that he was suspected to have favoured, their extreme readiness to dispose of their only daughter, and with her their whole estate, to him seemed the more strange, as he had been, ever since he conceived a passion for Maria, in the most terrible apprehension of meeting with a different reception from them, meerly on the account of his supposed principles.

The transport, however, that so unexpected a condescension gave him, prevented him from examining too deeply what might be the motives that induced them to it, and he gave himself wholly up to love, gratitude, and the delightful thoughts of being in a short time possessed of all he at present wished, or imagined he ever should ask of Heaven.

But how were all these rapturous expectations dashed, when soon after going to visit Maria, he found her lovely eyes half drowned in tears, and her whole frame in the utmost disorder:—­’What, madam,’ cried he, with a voice which denoted both grief and surprize, ’can have happened, to give you any cause of the disquiet I see in you!’—­’You,’ replied she, snatching away her hand, which he had taken, ’you alone are the cause;—­what encouragement did I ever give you,’ continued she, ’that should make you imagine the offers you have made my parents would be agreeable to me?—­Did I ever authorize you to ask a consent from them, which I was determined never to grant myself, and which, I will suffer a thousand deaths rather than ratify.’

The confusion Natura was in at these words was so great, that it prevented him from making any answer; but he looked on her in such a manner as made her ashamed of what she had said, and perhaps too of the passion that had so far transported her; and perceiving he still continued silent, ’I own myself obliged for the affection you express for me,’ resumed she, with more mildness, ’though it is at present the greatest misfortune could have happened to me.  Could I have thought you would have declared yourself in the manner you have done to my father and mother, I would have convinced you how impossible it would be for you to reap any advantage from it, and that by so doing you would only make me the most wretched creature in the world; but all is now too late, and I foresee the cruel consequence.’—­Here her tears interrupted the passage of her words, and Natura having recollected himself, began to complain of the severity of his destiny, which compelled him