some, who little imagined how nearly I was interested in the news, that Lorenzo was absconded none knew where, I was not without feeling some jealous pangs: it entered into my head, that my woman had subverted me in his esteem; and the remonstrances she had daily given me, not to indulge too far the tenderness I had for him, confirmed me in that opinion. The girl was young, well bred, had a great deal of wit, and a more than ordinary share of beauty; and to have them both missing at the same time, gave a kind of reason for this conjecture. The letter she had wrote to me, took from me all suspicion of the truth; and it never once came into my thoughts, that what had passed between us, had reached either my father or my husband; but if it had, the letters which I received from them every post, would have dispelled such an imagination; both writing to me with a tenderness which I could not have expected from them, had I believed they had been sensible of my conduct. It was, it seems, the advice of count Caprera, that they should dissemble with me in this manner, till the time of my delivery, which now drew near, was arrived. At their return to Venice, nothing could I read in either of their countenances, which could give me cause to think they were displeased with me; and the indulgence they shewed me, with the supposed infidelity of Lorenzo, by degrees abating the passion I had for him, I grew perfectly tranquil and easy in my mind. Oh! had I never been undeceived, I had been happy; but the hour which was to make me a mother being come, how prodigiously was I alarmed, when I saw my husband and my father enter the chamber, leading between them a priest, who had formerly been my confessor, but had of late been absent on a foreign visitation: the women being desired to withdraw into another room, he began to talk to me of the duties of confession, and the little hope there was of finding mercy at the eternal judgment-feat, for any person who left this world without
