from having any inclination to enter into that state, that she entreated me with the utmost earnestness to permit her to remain as she was. I loved her too well to press her to any thing she disliked, and assured her I would never exert my authority in that point, unless I should see her agitated with a blind passion for one unworthy of her; she protested, she would never entertain the least emotions of that kind, without first knowing if I was willing she should indulge them; and I observed in her so much discretion in other things, that I made no scruple of believing her. I depended entirely on her conduct, and was free from those corroding cares which so much perplex the generality of fathers. But the greater my imagined security, the greater my disappointment, when I had reason to believe myself deceived. One morning, surprized that she came not to pay her usual testimonies of obedience, I sent to her chamber to enquire her health, and was informed that she went early into the fields, accompanied by a young man called Ferronese, the son of a person who had formerly been a servant to me. I was not pleased to hear she was gone out so attended; not that I thought she could be inspired with any affection for a man so much beneath her; but that having heard a bad character of him, I suspected he might be employed as an emissary from some other, whom I was certain I should not approve, thus recommended. I was just sending to order she should return, when a poor man, who happened to be at work in the grounds, came running almost out of breath to inform me, he had seen Ferronese on horseback with Felicia before him, who shrieking and crying out for help, plainly testified she had no hand in her own rape. I demanded which way they went, and having been informed, made my servants immediately mount in their pursuit. They obeyed with diligence, and were so successful in their search, that in the forest of Adorno, behind your castle, they found my daughter rending the air with cries, and standing between two persons who
