Maria made a cadence fo me lancholy, fo tender and querulous, that I fprung out of the chaise to help her, and found myself fitting betwixt her and her goat before I relapsed from my enthusiasm. Maria looked wifhfully for fome time at me, and then at her goat-and then at me-and then at her goat again, and fo on, alternately -Well, Maria, faid I foftly-What resemblance do you find? I do entreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the humbleft conviction of what a a beaft man is that I asked the queftion; and that I would not have let fallen an unfeasonable pleasantry in the venerable prefence of Mifery, to be entitled to all the wit that ever Rabelais fcattered. Adieu, Maria!adieu, poor haplefs damfel!-fome time, but not now, I may hear thy forrows from thy own lips-but I was deceived; for that moment fhe took her pipe and told me fuch a tale of woe with it, that I rofe up, and with broken and irregular fteps walked foftly to the chaife. When we had got within half a a league of Moulines, at a little opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria fitting under a poplarfhe was fitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one fide within her hand-a fmall brook ran at the foot of the tree. I bade the poftillion go on with the chaife to Moulines-and La Fleur to befpeak my supper and that I would walk after him. She was dreffed in white, and much as my friend defcribed her, except that her hair hung loose, which before was twifted within a a filk net. She had, fuperadded likewife to her jacket, a pale green ribband which fell across - her fhoulder to the waift; at the end of which hung her pipe.Her goat had been as faithlefs as her lover; and fhe had got a little dog in lieu of him, which fhe had kept tied by a string to her girdle; as I looked at her dog, fhe drew him towards her with the ftring-Thou shalt not leave me Sylvio,' faid the. I looked in Maria's eyes, and faw fhe was thinking more of her father than of her lover or her little goat; for as fhe uttered them, the tears trickled down her cheeks. I fat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they fell, with my handkerchief. I then steeped it in my ownand then in hers-and then in mine-and then I wiped hers again and as I did it, I felt fuch undefcribable emotions within me, as I am fure could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter and motion. I am pofitive I have a foul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pestered the world, ever convince me to the contrary. When Maria had come a little to herself, I afked her if she remembered |