Natura did not fail to answer this gallantry in a proper manner, and departed highly satisfied with his adventure; tho' probably could find less reasons for being so, than those with whom he thought it the greatest happiness of his life to have become acquainted.
Wonderful are the workings of love on a young heart: pleasure has the same effect as pain, and permits as little rest: it was not in the power of Natura to close his eyes for a long time after he went to bed. — He recollected every thing the dear creature had said; — in what manner she looked, when speaking such or such a thing; — how inchanting she sang, and what a genteelness accompanied all she did: — when he fell into a slumber, it was only to bring her more perfectly into his mind; whatever had past in the few hours he had been with her, returned, with additional graces on her part, and her idea had in sleep all the effect her real presence could have had in waking.
With what care did he dress himself the next day: — what fears was he not possessed of, lest all about him should not be exact: — never yet had he consulted the great glass with such assiduity; — never till now examined how far he had been indebted to nature for personal endowments.
His impatience would have carried him to pay a morning visit, but he feared that would be too great a freedom, and therefore restrained himself till after dinner, though what he eat could scarce be called so; the food his mind languished for, being wanting, the body was too complaisant to indulge itself. — After rising from table, not a minute passed without looking on his watch, and at the same time cursing the tedious seconds, which seemed to him increased from sixty to six hundred. — The hour of five at length put an end to his suspence, and he took his way to the dear, well-remembered mansion of his adorable.
He found her at home, and in a careless, but most becoming dishabillee; the other lady was still with her; and told him she had tarried thus long with Miss Harriot, for so she called her, meerly to participate of the pleasure of his good company. Harriot, in a gay manner, accused her of envy, and both having a good share of wit, the conversation might have been pleasing enough to a man less prepossessed than Natura.
The tea equipage was set, and the ceremony of that being over, cards were proposed; as they were three, Ombre was the game, at which they played some hours, and Natura was asked to sup. — After what I have said, I believe the reader has no occasion to be told that he complied with a pleasure which was but too visible in his eyes. — The time passed insensibly on, or at least seemed to do so to the friend of Harriot, till the watchman reminding her it was past eleven, she started up, and pretending a surprize, that the night was so far advanced, told Natura that she must exact a second proof of that gallantry he had shewn the night before, for she had not courage to go either in a chair or a coach alone at that late hour: — this doubtless was what he would have offered, had she been silent on the occasion; and a coach being ordered to the door, he took leave of miss Harriot, though not till he had obtained leave to testify his respects in some future visits.
Had Natura appeared to have more experience of the town, the lady he gallanted home would certainly not have entertained him with the discourse she did; but his extreme youth, and the modest manner of his behaviour on the first sight of him, convinced them he was a person such as they wished to have in their power, and to that end had concerted measures between themselves, to perfect the conquest which, it was easy to perceive, one of them had begun to make over him.
Harriot being the person with whom they found he was enamoured, it was the business of the other to do for her what, it may be supposed, she would have done for her on the like occasion. — Natura was no sooner in the coach with her, than she began to magnify the charms of her fair friend, but above all extolled her virtue, her prudence, and good humour: — then, as if only to give a proof of her patience and fortitude, that her parents dying when she was an infant, had left her with a vast fortune in the hands of a guardian, who attempting to defraud her of the greatest part, she was now at law with him, “and is obliged to live, till the affair is decided,” said this artful woman, “in the narrow manner you see, — without a coach, — without any equipage; and yet she bears it all with chearfulness: — she has a multiplicity of admirers,” added she, “but she assures all of them, that she will never marry, till she knows what present she shall be able to give with herself to the man she shall make choice of.”
Till now Natura had never asked himself the question how far his passion for Harriot extended, or with what view he should address her; but when he heard she was a woman of condition, and would have a fortune answerable to her birth, he began to think it would be happy for him if he could obtain her love on the most honourable terms.
It would be too tedious to relate all the particulars of his courtship; so I shall only say, that humble and timid as the first emotions of a sincere passion are, he was emboldened, by the extraordinary complaisance of Harriot, to declare it to her in a few days. — The art with which she managed on this occasion, might have deceived the most knowing in the sex; it is not, therefore, surprizing, that he should be caught in a snare, which, though ruinous as it had like to have been, had in it allurements scarce possible to be withstood at his time of life.