a foldier; not doubting but that, by his military merit and the fortune of war, he should return a general officer, to the confusion of those who would have buried him in the obscurity of a compting-houfe. He found means effectually to elude the inquiries of his friends, and it was of the utmost importance to prevent their officious endeavours to ruin his project and obstruct his advancement. He was fent with other recruits to London, and foon after quartered with the reft of his company in a part of the country, which was fo remote from all with whom he had any connection, that he no longer dreaded a difcovery. . It happened that he went one day to the house of a neighbouring gentleman with his comrade, who was become acquainted with the chambermaid, and by her interest admitted into the kitchen. This gentleman, whose age was fomething more than fixty, had been about two years married to a fecond wife, a young woman who had been well educated, and lived in the polite world, but had no fortune. By his first wife, who had been dead about ten years, he had feveral children; the youngest was a daughter, who had just entered her feventeenth year; fhe was very tall for her age, had a fine complexion, good features, and was well fhaped; but her father, whofe affection for her was mere inftinct, as much as that of a brute for its young, utterly neglected her education. It was impoffible for him, he faid, to live without her; and as he could not afford to have her attended by a governess and proper masters in a place fo remote from London, fhe was fuffered to continue illiterate and unpolished; the knew no entertainment higher than a game at romps with the fervants; fhe became their confidant, and trusted them in return, nor did the think herself happy any where but in the kitchen. As the capricious fondness of her father had never conciliated her affection, the perceived it abate upon his marriage without regret. She fuffered no new re ftraint ftraint from her new mother, who observed, with a fecret fatisfaction, that Mifs had been used to hide herfelf from vifitors, as neither knowing how to behave nor being fit to be seen, and chose rather to conceal her defects by excluding her from company, than to fupply them by putting her to a boarding-school. Mifs, who had been told by Betty that fhe expected her fweetheart, and that they were to be merry, ftole down stairs, and, without any fcruple, made one in a party at blindman's buff. The foldier of fortune was ftruck with her perfon, and difcovered, or thought he difcovered, in the fimplicity of nature, fome graces which are polished away by the labour of art. How ever, nothing that had the appearance of an adventure could be indifferent to him; and his vanity was flattered by the hope of carrying off a young lady under the disguise of a common foldier, without revealing his birth, or boasting of his expectations. In this attempt he became very affiduous, and fucceeded. The company being ordered to another place, Betty and her young miftrefs departed early in the morning with their gallants; and there being a privileged chapel in the next town, they were married. The old gentleman, as foon as he was informed that his daughter was miffing, made fo diligent and fcrupulous an inquiry after her, that he learned with whom and which way fhe was gone: he mounted his horse, and pursued her, not without curfes and imprecations; difcovering rather the transports of rage than the emotions of tenderness, and resenting her offence rather as the rebellion of a flave than the difobedience of a child. He did not, however, overtake them till the marriage. had been confummated; of which, when he was informed by the husband, he turned from him with expreffions of brutality and indignation, fwearing never to forgive a fault which he had taken no care to prevent. The young couple, notwithstanding their union frequently doubled their distress, ftill continued fond of each other. The fpirit of enterprize and the hope of prefumption R 2 prefumption were not yet quelled in the young foldier; and he received orders to attend King William, when he went to the fiege of Namur, with exultation and tranfport, believing his elevation to independence and diftinction as certain as if he had been going to take poffeffion of a title and eftate.-His wife, who had been fome months pregnant, as she had no means of fubfistence in his abfence, procured a paffage with him. When fhe came on fhore and mingled with the crowd that followed the camp, (wretches who, without com punction, wade in human blood to ftrip the dying and the dead, to whom horror is become familiar and compaffion impoffible) fhe was terrified; the difcourfe of the women, rude and unpolifhed as fhe was, covered her with confufion; and the brutal familiarity of the men filled her with indignation and difguft; her maid Betty, who had alfo attended her husband, was the only perfon with whom fhe could converfe, and from whom the could hope the affiftance of which she was so foon to ftand in need. In the mean time the found it difficult to fubfift; but accidentally hearing the name of an officer, whom fhe remembered to have vifited her mother foon after her marriage, the applied to him, told him her name, and requested that he would afford her his protection, and permit her to take care of his linen. With this request the captain complied; her circumftances became lefs diftreffed, and her mind more eafy: but new calamity fuddenly overtook her; fhe faw her husband march to an engagement in the morning, and faw him brought back defperately wounded at night.-The next day he was removed in a waggon with many others who were in the fame condition, to a place of greater fafety, where proper care might be taken of their wounds. She intreated the captain to let her go in the waggon with him; but to this he could not confent, because the waggon would be filled with those who neither were able to walk, nor could be left behind. He promised, however, that if she would stay till the next day, he would endeavour to procure her a paffage; but the chofe rather to follow the waggon on foot, than to be abfent from her husband. She could not, however, keep pace with it, and she reached the hospital but just time enough to kneel down by him upon fome clean ftraw, to fee him fink under the last agony, and hear the groan that is repeated no more. The fatigue of the journey, and the perturbation of her mind, immediately threw her into labour, and fhe lived but to be delivered of Meliffa, who was thus, in the most helpless state, left without father, mother, or friend, in a foreign country, in circumstances which could afford no hope of reward to the tenderness that should attempt the prefervation of her life, and among persons who were become obdurate and infenfible, by having been long used to see every species of diftrefs. It happened that, among thofe whom accident or distress had brought together at the birth of Meliffa, there was a young woman, whofe husband had fallen in the late engagement, and who a few days before had loft a little boy that the fuckled. This perfon, rather perhaps to relieve herself from an inconveniency, than in compaffion to the orphan, put it to her breast: but whatever was her motive, fhe believed that the affording fustenance to the living conferred a right to the apparel of the dead, of which the therefore took poffeffion; but in fearching her pocket fhe found only a thimble, the remains of a pocket looking-glafs, about the value of a penny in Dutch money, and the certificate of her marriage. The paper, which he could not read, fhe afterwards gave to the captain, who was touched with pity at the relation which an inquiry after his laundress produced. He commended the woman who had preferved the infant, and put her into the place of its mother. This encouraged her to continue her care of it till the captain returned to England, with whom the alfo returned, and became his fervant. This gentleman, as foon as he had fettled his immediate concerns, fent Meliffa, under the care of her R 3 nurse, nurfe, to her grandfather; and inclofed the certificate of her mother's marriage in a letter containing an ac count of her death, and the means by which the infant had been preserved. He knew that those who had been once dear to us, by whatever offence they may have alienated our affection when living, are generally remembered with tendernefs when dead; and that after the grave has sheltered them from our refentment, and rendered reconciliation impoffible, we often regret as fevere that conduct which before we approved as just; he, therefore, hoped, that the parental fondness which an old man had once felt for his daughter, would revive at the fight of her offspring; that the memory of her fault would be loft in the fense of her misfortunes; and that he would endeavour to atone for that inexorable refentment which produced them, by cherifhing a life to which she had, as it were, transferred her own. But in these expectations, however reasonable, he was miftaken. The old man, when he was informed by the messenger that the child the held in her arms was his grand-daughter, whom he was come to put under his protection, refufed to examine the contents of the letter, and difmiffed her with menaces and infult. The knowledge of every uncommon event foon becomes general in a country town. An uncle of Meliffa's, who had been rejected by his father for having married his maid, heard this fresh inftance of his brutality with grief and indignation; he fent immediately for the child and the letter, and affured the fervant that his niece fhould want nothing which he could bestow; to bestow much, indeed, was not in his power, for his father having obftinately perfifted in his refentment, his whole fupport was a little farm which he rented of the fquire; but as he was a good economift, and had no children of his own, he lived decently; nor did he throw away content, because his father had denied him affluence. Meliffa, who was compaffionated for her mother's misfortunes, of which her uncle had been particularly informed by her maid Betty, who had returned a wi dow |