hear!) they will be the funeral lament of an afflicted mother.' "When I read this, Cnemon, I acknowledged and wondered at the dispensations of the deities. I felt both pleasure and pain by a new kind of sensation; I rejoiced and wept at the same time. I was glad to have discovered what I was before ignorant of, together with the meaning of the oracle: but I was apprehensive for the event of the design I was engaged in; and lamented the instability and uncertainty, the changes and the chances of human life, of which the fortunes of Chariclea afforded so remarkable an instance. I recollected that, with her high birth, heiress of the royal family of Ethiopia, she was now banished to a vast distance from her native country, and reputed as a bastard. I continued a considerable time in these contemplations, deploring her present situation, and hardly daring to flatter myself with better hopes for the future. At length I collected my scattered spirits, and determined that something must be done, and that quickly. I went, therefore, to Chariclea; I found her alone, almost overcome by what she suffered: her mind willing to bear up against her malady; but her body labouring, yielding, and unable to resist its attacks. When I had sent out her attendants, and given orders that no one should disturb us, on pretence that I had some prayers and invocations to make use of over her, I thus addressed her: "'It is now time, my dear Chariclea, to disclose to me (as you promised yesterday) the cause of your sufferings. Hide nothing, I beseech you, from a man who has the greatest regard for you; and whose art is besides able to discover whatever you may obstinately endeavour to conceal.'--She took my hand, kissed it and wept. 'Sage Calasiris,' said she, 'permit me, I beg of you, to suffer in silence; and do you, as you have it in your power, discover of yourself the cause of my disease. Spare me the ignominy of confessing that which it is shameful to feel, and still more shameful to avow. Whatever I undergo from my disorder, I suffer more from the thought of my own weakness, in permitting myself to be overcome by it, and not resisting it at the beginning. It was always odious to me; the very mention of it contaminates the chaste ears of a virgin.'