would wish to recover from the surprise and vexation that visibly affected you during the relation Fatima gave of herself; her subsequent choice of attaching herself to Heli, I think ought not to afflict you; for perhaps had she given him up, you would have found it a very unpleasant task to regulate a young woman like her, accustomed to a gay desultory kind of life."
"Your observation is undoubtedly just," replied he.—"I am convinced she is a stranger to all principles of decorum, and would ill brook that regularity I should naturally have expected. I am mortified, I confess, to find a person who owes her existence to my father, under such reprehensible circumstances; but that is not the only cause of the surprise and concern you remarked; I am still more nearly concerned in her story." He then acquainted the Count with every particular relative to Claudina, and severely condemned his own impetuous passion, which wildly pursued its object, regardless of such information as is generally found es-
