THE REMISE DOOR. WHEN CALAIS. HEN I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the Defobligeant, because I saw the monk in close conference with a lady juft arrived at the inn-I told him the whole truth; for I was full as much restrained by the appearance and figure of the lady he was talking to. Sufpicion croffed my brain, and said, he was telling her what had paffed, fomething jarred upon it within me— I wished him at his convent. When When the heart flies out before the understanding, it faves the judgment a world of pains-I was certain fhe was of a better order of beings-however, I thought no more of her, but went on and wrote my preface. The impreffion returned, upon my encounter with her in the street; a guarded franknefs with which the gave me her hand, fhewed, I thought, her good education and her good fenfe; and as I led her on, I felt a pleasurable ductility about her, which spread a calmnefs over all my fpirits. -Good Good God! how a man might lead fuch a creature as this round the world with him! I had not yet feen her face--'twas not material; for the drawing was instantly set about, and long before we had got to the door of the Remife, Fancy had finifh'd the whole head, and pleased herself as much with its fitting her goddess, as if fhe had dived into the TIBER for itbut thou art a feduced, and a feducing flut; and albeit thou cheatest us seven times a day with thy pictures and images, yet with fo many charms doft thou do it, and thou deckeft out thy pictures in the fhapes of fo many angels of light, 'tis a fhame to break with thee. When we had got to the door of the Remife, fhe withdrew her hand from across her forehead, and let me fee the original-it was a face of about fix-and-twenty-of a clear transparent brown, fimply fet off without rouge or powder-it was not critically handfome, but there was that in it, which, in the frame of mind I was in, attached me much more to it-it was interefting; I fancied it wore the characters of a widow'd look, and in that ftate of its declenfion, which had paffed the two first paroxyfms of forrow, and was quietly beginning to reconcile itself to its lofs-but a thousand other diftreffes might have traced the fame lines; I wish'd to know what to what they had been-and was ready enquire, (had the fame bon ton of converfation permitted, as in the days of Efdras)" What aileth thee? and why art thou difquieted? and why is thy understanding troubled?"-In a word, I felt benevolence for her; and refolv'd fome way or other to throw in my mite of courtesy-if not of fervice. Such were my temptations-and in this difpofition to give way to them, was I left alone with the lady with her hand in mine, and with our faces both turned closer to the door of the Remife than what was abfolutely neceffary. |