He had enquired into her family and fortune, and finding there was nothing of disparity between them, he declared his passion to her, and declared it in terms which seemed not to savour of any great fears of being rejected.--He was in his prime of life, had an agreeable person, and a good estate, the consciousness of which, together with his being accustomed to plead with success at the bar, made him not much doubt, but his eloquence and assurance would have the same effect on his mistress, as it frequently had on the judges: but the good opinion he had of himself, greatly deceived him in this point; he met with a rebuff from Charlotte, which might have deterred some men from prosecuting a courtship she seemed determined never to encourage: but though he was a little alarmed at it, he could not bring himself to think she was enough in earnest to make him desist: in every visit he paid her, he interlarded his discourse on business with professions of love, which at length so much teized her, that she told him plainly, she would sooner suffer her cause to be lost, than suffer herself to be continually persecuted with sollicitations, which she had ever avoided since her widowhood, and ever should do so. Natura came in one day just as the counsellor was going out of her apartment; he observed a great confusion in his face, and some emotions in her's, which shewed her mind a little ruffled from that happy composure he was accustomed to find it in. On his testifying the notice he took of this change in her countenance, 'It is strange thing,' said she, 'that people will believe nothing in their own disfavour!--I have told this man twenty times, that if I were disposed to think of a second marriage, which I do not believe I ever shall, the present sentiments I am possessed of, would never be reversed by any offer he could make me; yet will he still persist in his impertinent declarations.' There needed no more to convince Natura he had a rival; nor, as he knew Charlotte had nothing of coquetry in her humour, to make him also know she was not pleased with having attracted the affections of this new admirer: this gave him an inexpressible satisfaction; for tho', as yet, he had never once thought of making any addresses to her on the score of love, death was not half so terrible to him, as the idea of her encouraging them from any other man. 'Then, madam,' cried he, looking on her in a manner she had never seen him do before, 'the councellor has declared a passion for you, and you have rejected him?'--'is it possible?'--'Possible!' interrupted she, 'can you believe it possible I should not do so, knowing, as you do, the fixed aversion I have to entering into any second engagement!'--'but were it less so,' continued she, after a pause, 'his sollicitations would be never the more agreeable to me.'