pleading in her modest bashful eyes, that even gave his the lie, who had seen her perfidy. Oh! what should he do to keep that fire from breaking forth with violence, which she had so thoroughly kindled in his heart? How should that excellent good nature assume an unwonted sullenness, only to appear what it could not by nature be? He was all soft and sweet, and if he had pride, he knew also how to make his pleasure; and his youth loved love above all the other little vanities that attend it, and was the most proper to it. Fain he would palliate her crime, and considers, in the condition she was, she could not but have some tenderness for _Philander_; that it was no more than what before passed; it was no new lover that came to kindle new passions, or approach her with a new flame; but a decliner, who came, and was received with the dregs of love, with all the cold indifference imaginable: this he would have persuaded himself, but dares not till he hears her speak; and yet fears she should not speak his sense; and this fear makes him sighing break silence, and he cried in a soft tone: ‘Ah! why, too lovely fair, why do you come to trouble the repose of my dying hours? Will you, cruel maid, pursue me to my grave? Shall I not have one lone hour to ask forgiveness of heaven for my sin of loving thee? The greatest that ever loaded my youth--and yet, alas!--the least repented yet. Be kind, and trouble not my solitude, depart with all the trophies of my ruin, and if they can add any glory to thy future life, boast them all over the universe, and tell what a deluded youth thou hast undone. Take, take, fair deceiver, all my industry, my right of my birth, my thriving parents have been so long a-getting to make me happy with; take the useless trifle, and lavish it on pleasure to make thee gay, and fit for luckier lovers: take that best part of me, and let this worst alone; it was that first won the dear confession from thee that drew my ruin on--for which I hate it--and wish myself born a poor cottage boor, where I might never have seen thy tempting beauty, but lived for ever blessed in ignorance.’ At this the tears ran from his eyes, with which the softened _Sylvia_ mixed her welcome stream, and as soon as she could speak, she replied (with half cunning and half love, for still there was too much of the first mingled with the last), ‘Oh, my _Octavio_, to what extremities are you resolved to drive a poor unfortunate, who, even in the height of youth, and some small stock of beauty, am reduced to all the miseries of the wretched? Far from my noble noble parents, lost to honour, and abandoned by my friends; a helpless wanderer in a strange land, exposed to want, and perishing, and had no sanctuary but thyself, thy dear, thy precious self, whom heaven had sent, in mercy, to my aid; and thou, at last, by a mistaken turn of miserable fate, hast taken that dear aid away.’ At this she fell weeping on his