of nature, and was it not a miracle worked in favour of Oswald, when he could flatter himself with interesting such a woman?  But her real name and condition were unknown to him.  What would be her future projects were he to avow his intention of uniting himself to her?  All was yet in obscurity; and although the enthusiasm with which Corinne had inspired Oswald made him desirous of espousing her, yet the idea that her life had not been wholly irreproachable, and that such an union would certainly have been condemned by his father, threw his soul into confusion, and racked him with the most painful anxiety.

He was not now so sunk in grief, as before his acquaintance with Corinne; but he no longer felt that sort of calm, which may even accompany repentance, when our whole life is devoted to the expiation of a crime.  Formerly, he was not afraid to abandon himself to his recollections, bitter as they were; but now he dreaded those long and profound reveries, which would have revealed to him what was passing at the bottom of his soul.  In the meantime he prepared to visit Corinne, in order to thank her for her letter, and obtain pardon for what he had written to her, when Mr Edgermond, a relation of young Lucilia, entered the room.

He was a worthy English gentleman, who had almost constantly resided in Wales, where he possessed an estate.  He cherished those principles and prejudices which, in every country, serve to maintain things as they are, and which have a most beneficial tendency, when things are as well as human reason will permit.  When that is the case, such men as Mr Edgermond, that is to say, the partizans of established order, though strongly and even obstinately attached to their customs and to their manner of thinking, ought to be considered as men of rational and enlightened minds.

Lord Nelville was startled when he heard Mr Edgermond announced; every recollection of the past rushed upon him at once; but as it immediately occurred to his mind that Lady Edgermond, the mother of Lucilia, had sent her relation to reproach him, and thus restrain his independence, this thought restored his firmness, and he received Mr Edgermond with great coldness.  However, he wronged his visitor by his suspicions, for he had not the least design in his head that regarded Nelville.  He visited Italy for the sake of his health alone; and ever since he had been in the country, he was constantly employed in hunting, and drinking to King George and Old England.  He was the most open-hearted of men, and possessed a much better informed mind than his habits would induce many to believe.  He was a downright Englishman, not only as he ought to be, but also as one might wish he were not:  following in every country the customs of his own, living only with Englishmen, and never discoursing with foreigners; not out of contempt to them, but from a sort of repugnance to foreign languages, and a timidity, which even at the age of fifty, rendered him very diffident in forming new acquaintances.