He was the more confirmed in this belief, when the father came to his lodgings the next morning; and without seeming to know any thing of what had passed between him, either with his wife, or Maria, asked, in a gay manner, how the latter had received his addresses?  To which Natura answered in the same manner as he had done to her mother; adding only, that he could not avoid believing her heart was already engaged to some more worthy man, and was sorry his own unhappy passion had occasioned any interruption.  The father left nothing unsaid that might dissipate such a conjecture, and affected to railly him on a jealousy which, he said, was common to lovers; and then told him a long story how himself had formerly suffered much by the same vain imagination.  But all this was so far from making Natura doubt the truth of his conjectures, that, seeing through the artifice, he was the more convinced they were intirely right.

He went, notwithstanding, in the afternoon, either because he had promised to do so, or because he could not all at once resolve to banish himself from a person he took so much pleasure in beholding, though now without hopes of ever being able to obtain:—­being left alone with Maria, both of them remained in a kind of sullen silence for some minutes, till at last the force of his passion in spite of himself made him utter some complaints on the cruelty of fortune, and his own insensibility, which had denied him the opportunity of discovering the thousand charms he now found in her, till too late to have his adoration of them acceptable to her.  ’I have not less reason,’ said she, ’to accuse the chance which at this time brought us together, than you can possibly have; since the love you profess for me, and which I once more assure you I can never return, has laid me under the severest displeasure of my parents’;—­’but I had hopes,’ continued she, ’after the declaration I made you yesterday, that you would have renounced all pretensions to me, and had generosity enough in your nature, not to have taken the advantage of my father and mother’s power over me, to force me into a compliance, which must be fatal to one or both of us.’

‘No, madam,’ answered he, much surprized, ’I am far from even a wish of becoming guilty of what you accuse me with;—­dear as I prize your person, I would not attempt to purchase it at the expence of your peace of mind; nor could I be truly blessed in the enjoyment of the one, without the other;—­it is only to Maria herself I would have been obliged, not to the authority of her parents.’

‘Will you then quit me,’ cried she hastily, ’and let the act appear wholly your own?’—­’I will,’ replied he, after a pause, ’difficult as it is to do so, and irresolute and inconstant as it will make me seem.’  ‘That,’ said she, ’will be an action truly deserving my esteem; and in return, know I am much more your friend in refusing your addresses, than either my parents in encouraging, or your own mistaken wishes in offering them’:—­’but,’ pursued she, ’I beg you will enquire no farther, but leave me, and break off with my parents in the best manner you can.’