It was not with dry eyes that Jones heard this narrative: when it was ended, he took Mrs. Miller apart with him into another room, and, delivering her his purse, in which was the sum of fifty pounds, desired her to send as much of it as she thought proper to these poor people. The look which Mrs. Miller gave Jones, on this occasion, is not easy to be described. She burst into a kind of agony of transport, and cried out-Good Heavens! is there such a man in the world? But, recollecting herself, she said, Indeed, I know one such; but can there be another?—I hope, madam, cries Jones, there are many who have common hu manity for to relieve such distresses in our fellowcreatures can hardly be called more.—Mrs. Miller then took ten guineas, which were the utmost he could prevail with her to accept, and said, She would find some means of conveying them early the next morning; adding, that she had herself done some little matter for the poor people, and had not left them in quite so much misery as she found them.

They then returned to the parlour, where Nightingale expressed much concern at the dreadful situation of these wretches, whom indeed he knew; for he had seen them more than once at Mrs. Miller's. He inveighed against the folly of making one's self liable for the debts of others; vented many bitter execrations against the brother; and concluded with wishing something could be done for the unfortunate family. Suppose, madam, said he, you should recommend them to Mr. Allworthy? Or what think you of a collection? I will give them a guinea with all my heart.

Mrs. Miller made no answer; and Nancy, to whom her mother had whispered the generosity of Jones, turned pale upon the occasion; though, if either of them was angry with Nightingale, it

was surely without reason. For the liberality of Jones, if he had known it, was not an example of which he had any obligation to follow; and there are thousands who would not have contributed a single halfpenny, as indeed he did not in effect, for he made no tender of any thing; and therefore, as the others thought proper to make no demand, he kept his money in his pocket.

I have in truth observed, and shall never have a better opportunity than at present to communicate my observation, that the world are in general divided into two opinions concerning charity, which are the very reverse of each other. One party seems to hold, that all acts of this kind are to be esteemed as voluntary gifts; and however little you give (if indeed no more than your good wishes), you acquire a great degree of merit in so doing. Others, on the contrary, appear to be as firmly persuaded, that beneficence is a positive duty, and that whenever the rich fall greatly short of their ability in relieving the distresses of the poor, their pitiful largesses are so far from being meritorious, that they have only performed their duty by halves, and are in some sense more contemptible than those who have entirely neglected it.

To reconcile these different opinions is not in my power. I shall only add, that the givers are generally of the former sentiment, and the receivers are almost universally inclined to the latter.

CHAPTER IX.

Which treats of matters of a very different kind from those in the preceding chapter.

IN the evening Jones met his lady again, and a long conversation again ensued between them; but, as it consisted only of the same ordinary occurrences as before, we shall avoid mentioning particulars, which we despair of rendering agreeable to the reader; unless he is one whose devotion to the fair sex, like that of the papists to their saints, wants to be raised by the aid of pictures. But I am so far from desiring to exhibit such pictures to the public, that I would wish to draw a curtain over those that have been lately set forth in certain French novels; very bungling copies of which have been presented us here, under the name of translations.

Jones grew still more and more impatient to see Sophia; and finding, after repeated interviews with Lady Bellaston, no likelihood of obtaining this by her means (for, on the contrary, the lady began to treat even the mention of the name of Sophia with resentment), he resolved to try some other method. He made no doubt but that Lady Bellaston knew where his angel was; so he thought it most likely that some of her servants should be acquainted with the same secret. Partridge, therefore, was employed to get acquainted with those servants, in order to fish this secret out of them.

Few situations can be imagined more uneasy than that to which his poor master was at present reduced; for, besides the difficulties he met with in discovering Sophia, besides the fears he had of having disobliged her, and the assurance he had re-ceived from Lady Bellaston, of the resolution which

Sophia had taken against him, and of her having purposely concealed herself from him, which he had sufficient reason to believe might be true; he had still a difficulty to combat, which it was not in the power of his mistress to remove, however kind her inclination might have been. This was, the exposing of her to be disinherited of all her father's estate, the almost inevitable consequence of their coming together without a consent, which he had no hopes of ever obtaining.

Add to all these, the many obligations which Lady Bellaston, whose violent fondness we can no longer conceal, had heaped upon him; so that, by her means, he was now become one of the best dressed men about town; and was not only relieved from those ridiculous distresses we have before mentioned, but was actually raised to a state of affluence beyond what he had ever known.

Now, though there are many gentlemen who very well reconcile it to their consciences to possess themselves of the whole fortune of a woman, without making her any kind of return; yet, to a mind, the proprietor of which doth not deserve to be hanged, nothing is, I believe, more irksome than to support love with gratitude only; especially where inclination pulls the heart a contrary way. Such was the unhappy case of Jones; for though the virtuous love he bore to Sophia, and which left very little affection for any other woman, had been entirely out of the question, he could never have been able to have made an adequate return to the generous passion of this lady, who had, indeed. been once an object of desire, but was now entered at least into the autumn of life; though she wore all the gaiety of youth, both in her dress and manner; nay, she contrived still to maintain the roses in her cheeks; but these, like flowers forced out of

season by art, had none of that lively blooming freshness with which nature, at the proper time, bedecks her own productions. She had, besides, a certain imperfection, which renders some flowers, though very beautiful to the eye, very improper to be placed in a wilderness of sweets, and what above all others is most disagreeable to the breath of love.

Though Jones saw all these discouragements on the one side, he felt his obligations full as strongly on the other; nor did he less plainly discern the ardent passion whence those obligations proceeded; the extreme violence of which, if he failed to equal, he well knew the lady would think him ungrateful; and, what is worse, he would have thought himself so. He knew the tacit consideration upon which all her favours were conferred; and as his necessity obliged him to accept them, so his honour, he concluded, forced him to pay the price. This, therefore, he resolved to do, whatever misery it cost him, and to devote himself to her, from that great principle of justice, by which the laws of some countries oblige a debtor, who is no otherwise capable of discharging his debt, to become the slave of his creditor.

While he was meditating on these matters, he received the following note from the lady :

"A very foolish, but a very perverse accident hath happened since our last meeting, which makes it improper I should see you any more at the usual place. I will, if possible, contrive some other place by to-morrow. In the mean time, adieu."

This disappointment, perhaps, the reader may conclude was not very great; but if it was, he was quickly relieved; for in less than an hour after