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than all their Encyclopedia had said against itI was lifted directly into Madame de V***'s Coterie, and she put off the epocha of deism for two years.

I remember it was in this Coterie, in the middle of a discourse, in which I was shewing the necessity of a first cause, that the young Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the furthest corner of the room, to tell me my solitaire was pinn'd too strait about my neck-It should be plus badinant, said the Count, looking down upon his own-But a word, Mons. Yorick, to the wise

-And from the wise, Mons. le Count, replied I, making him a bow-is enough.

The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I was embraced by mortal

man.

For three weeks together, I was of every man's opinion I met.-Pardi! ce Mons. Yorick a autant d'esprit que nous autres. Il raisonne bien, said another. C'est un bon enfant, said a third. And at this price I could have eaten and drank and been merry all the days of my life at Paris; but 'twas a dishonest reckoning-I grew ashamed of it-it was the gain of a slave-every sentiment of honour revolted against it-the higher I got, the more was I forced upon my beggarly system-the better the Coterie-the more children of Art-I languish'd for those of Nature: and one night, after a most vile prostitution of myself to half a dozen different people, I grew sick-went to bed-order'd La Fleur to get me horses in the morning to set out for Italy.

MARIA.

MOULINES.

NEVER felt what the distress of

IINE

plenty was

in any one shape till now-to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of Francein the hey-day of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her abundance into every one's lap, and every eye is lifted up a journey through each step of which music beats time to Labour, and all her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters to pass through this with my affections flying out, and kindling at every group before me and every one of 'em was pregnant with adventures.

Just heaven!-it would fill up twenty volumes -and alas! I have but a few small pages left of this to croud it into and half of these must be taken up with the poor Maria my friend, Mr. Shandy, met with near Moulines.

The story he had told of that disorder'd maid affect'd me not a little in the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood where she lived, it returned so strong into my mind, that I could not resist an impulse which prompted me to go half a league out of the road to the village where her parents dwelt to enquire after her.

'Tis going, Iown, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance, in quest of melancholy adventures -but I know not how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me, as when I am entangled in them.

The old mother came to the door, her looks told me the story before she open'd her mouth -She had lost her husband; he had died, she said, of anguish, for the loss of Maria's sense about a month before. --She had feared at first, she added, that it would have plunder'd her poor; girl of what little understanding was left-but, on the contrary, it had brought her more to herself-still she could not rest-her poor daughter, she said, crying, was wandering somewhere about the road

-Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made La Fleur, whose heart seem'd only to be tuned to joy, to pass the back of his hand twice across his eyes, as the

woman stood and told it? I beckon'd to the postilion to turn back into the road.

When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under a poplar-she was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand-a small brook ran at the foot of the tree.

I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines and La Fleur to bespeak my supper -and that I would walk after him.

She was dress'd in white, and much as my friend described her, except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a silk net. She had, superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green ribband which fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe. -Her goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string to her girdle; as I look'd at her dog, she drew him towards her with the string.--"Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio," said she. I look'd in Maria's eyes, and

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