at marriage;--I have heard him declare it, and I am deviating into a vanity I never before was guilty of.' She was debating in this fashion within herself, when Natura came to pay his morning visit: she blushed at his approach, conscious of the meditations she had been in on his account.--He, full of the sentiments I have described, saluted her with an air more grave and timid than he had been accustomed, and which all who are judges of the tender passion, know to be the surest symptom of it.--They sat down, and on his beginning to renew some discourse concerning the counsellor's pretensions, she desired him to forbear so disagreeable a topic, telling him at the same time, he could say nothing else she would not listen to with satisfaction.--'How, madam,' cried he, 'are you sure of that?--Alas, you little know what passes in my heart, or you would not permit me this toleration.' This might have been sufficient to make some women convinced of the truth; but Charlotte either fearful of being deceived by her own vanity, or willing he should be more explicit, answered, 'I have too high an opinion of your good sense, and too flattering an idea of your friendship to me, to imagine your heart will ever suggest any thing which would be offensive to me from your tongue.' 'Suppose, madam,' said he, 'it should not be in my power to restrain my wishes in those bounds prescribed by you, to all who have the happiness of conversing with you; and that I were encroaching enough not to be content with the marks of friendship you are pleased to honour me':--'in fine,' continued he, 'suppose I were guilty of the very same presumption, you have so severely censured in the councellor!' 'That is impossible,' replied she, 'since you are a foe professed to marriage, as well as myself';--she was about to add something more, but was prevented by emotions, which she attempted, but in vain, to conceal; and Natura saw enough to keep him from despairing he had forfeited her _esteem_ by aiming at her _love_. Having thus made a beginning, it was easy for him to prosecute a suit, which he soon discovered he had a friend in her bosom to plead in favour of:--in a word, he left her not, till he had obtained her permission to entertain her on the same theme, and to use his endeavours to prevail on her to exchange the friendship she confessed for him into a warmer passion.