THE STORY OF MARIANN E..

S I devoted most of my after

AS

noons to CLERMONT, and his family,-on calling in, this evening, I found AMELIA had fent MARIANNE to the rooms, with fome young people of her acquaintance.. I have almost been compelled, fays. fhe, to force her out-fhe loves retirement much more than I wifh her to do I think her fpirits, though commonly very good, require fometimes the relaxation of public fcenes, to divert them from the recollection of domeftic events, which are every now and then painful to her. And yet, if it is not to accompany me, it is with the utmoft difficulty I can. prevail on her. to mix in the world.

-I be

-I believe, in general, faid I, Ma dam, that young and ingenuous minds,. whofe expectations of it have been fomewhat deceived, are not eafily brought to be on good terms with it again the hope of youth is ardent, and its fenfibility proportionably

acute.

I fear, indeed, returned AMELIA, that fuch have been her impreffions; and as fhe has a heart fashioned for all the virtues of fociety, I most earneftly wish to see them effaced.-I know she entertains the highest opinion of you, and is much flattered by the attention you have fhewn her;-a few hints therefore from you, when opportunity offers, would,. I am per fuaded, have great weight with her ;and as we are now alone, if my brother will take up the news-paper,

and

and fufpend his party for half an Hour,. I will add a few particulars to the general idea I have given you before, of her fituation; and fhe fhall. know from me, that you are apprized: of the whole.

dren,

-When my much-loved friend, her mother, died, she left only two chilMARIANNE, who had then. just compleated her fixteenth year,. and her brother EDMUND, who was three-and-twenty;- but fo oppofite were their characters, that no one who knew them intimately, could have supposed they sprang from the fame. parents. She, all tenderness and undifguifed nature;-he, a compound of artifice, and meannefs, guiding every action by avarice and intereft, but varnishing his deportment with fo much

times, when he found opportunities that were favourable, he would put on a dejected air,-lament the concern he felt to part with the family eftate, -which he acquainted her he must be under the neceffity of doing, from his inability to keep it up, with fuch a heavy charge as her fortune was, on it; which infinitely exceeded in proportion, the ufual difpofitions made to daughters, that he had befides contracted feveral large debts in his father's life-time, which would overfhadow all his future purfuits,-and in conclufion, that he faw no method. by which he could be extricated from the many difficulties that preffed him, unless MARIANNE would, from her affection to him, relinquish part of her claim. He added, that no one was so

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near to her, as himself,-nor did his

modefty

modefty fcruple to hint, that half the fum his father had bequeathed her, would command whatever a reasonable woman could require.

MARIANNE, who knew that the exact parfimony which directed EdMUND'S conduct, by no means tallied with the declaration he had made concerning his private incumbrances, often felt the awkwardness of her fituation-it ftartled-it embarraffed her; and her benevolence, ever more awake than her caution, prompted her one day, when he had renewed the fame fubject, to fay, in general terms, that a brother's happiness could not but influence her's-that the generofity of her father had been his own free act, and till the production of his will, totally unknown to her, -and that, fhould any event in life arife,

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