"Oh! my Grenville," said she, raising me, "how have I been ungenerous? Is the renunciation of my country, relations, and even sex, a proof of want of generosity? Will you never know, or, knowing, understand me? I believe you have suffered, greatly suffered; your pallid countenance too plainly evinces it; but we shall now, with the blessing of heaven, soon see an end to them.--A few months will make me mistress of my fortune. In the mean time, I will live with my faithful Hannah retired; only now and then let me have the consolation of seeing you, and hearing from your lips a confirmation that I have not forfeited your affection." I said all that my heart dictated, to reassure my lovely heroic Maria, and calm her griefs. I made her take some refreshment; and, as the night was now far spent, and we yet had much to say, we agreed to pass it in the tent. My dear Maria began to make me a little detail of all that had passed. She painted out the persecutions of her father in the liveliest colours; the many artifices he used to weaken her attachment to me; the feigning me inconstant; and, when he found her opinion of my faith too firmly rooted, he procured a certificate of my death. As she was then released from her engagement, he more strongly urged her to marry; but she as resolutely refused. On his being one day more than commonly urgent, she knelt down, and said, in the most solemn manner; "Thou knowest, O God! had it pleased thee to have continued him I doated on in this life, that I was bound, by the most powerful asseverations, to be his, and only his:--hear me now, O God! while I swear still to be wedded to his memory. In thy eye, I was his wife; I attest thee to witness, that I will never be any other. In his grave shall all my tenderness be buried, and with him shall it rise to heaven." Her father became outrageous; and swore, if she would not give him a son, he would give her a mother; and, in consequence married the housekeeper--a woman sordid as himself, and whose principles and sentiments were as low as her birth.