Full of this determination, he sought his father, declared his resolution, and was commanded never more to appear in his presence. Temple bowed; his heart was too full to permit him to speak; he left the house precipitately, and hastened to relate the cause of his sorrows to his good old friend and his amiable daughter.
In the meantime, the earl, vexed to the soul that such a fortune should be lost, determined to offer himself a candidate for Miss Weatherby’s favor.
What wonderful changes are wrought by that reigning power, ambition! The lovesick girl, when first she heard of Temple’s refusal, wept, raved, tore her hair, and vowed to found a Protestant nunnery with her fortune; and by commencing abbess, shut herself up from the sight of cruel ungrateful man forever.
Her father was a man of the world: he suffered this first transport to subside, and then very deliberately unfolded to her the offers of the old earl, expatiated on the many benefits arising from an elevated title, painted in glowing colors the surprise and vexation of Temple when he should see her figuring as a countess and his stepmother, and begged her to consider well before she made any rash vows.
The distressed fair one dried her tears, listened patiently, and at length declared she believed the surest method to revenge the slight put on her by the son, would be to accept the father: so said so done, and in a few days she became the Countess D⸺.
Temple heard the news with emotion: he had lost his father’s favor by avowing his passion for Lucy, and he saw now there was no hope of regaining it. “But he shall not make me miserable,” said he. “Lucy and I have no ambitious notions; we can live on three hundred a year for some little time, till the mortgage is paid off, and then we shall have sufficient not only for the comforts, but many of the little elegancies of life. We will purchase a little cottage, my Lucy,” said he, “and thither with your reverend father, we will retire; we will forget there are such things as splendor, profusion, and dissipation: we will have some cows, and you shall be queen of the dairy; in the morning, while I look after my garden, you shall take a basket on your arm, and sally forth to feed your poultry; and as they flutter round you in token of humble gratitude, your father shall smoke his pipe in a woodbine alcove, and viewing the serenity of your countenance, feel such real pleasure dilate his own heart as shall make him forget he had ever been unhappy.”
Lucy smiled, and Temple saw it was a smile of approbation. He sought and found a cottage suited to his taste; thither, attended by Love and Hymen, the happy trio retired; where, during many years of uninterrupted felicity, they cast not a wish beyond the little boundaries of their own tenement. Plenty, and her handmaid, Prudence, presided at their board; Hospitality stood at their gate; Peace smiled on each face, Content reigned in each heart, and Love and Health strewed roses on their pillows.
Such were the parents of Charlotte Temple, who was the only pledge of their mutual love, and who, at the earnest entreaty of a particular friend, was permitted to finish the education her mother had begun, at Madame Du Pont’s school, where we first introduced her to the acquaintance of the reader.
VI
An Intriguing Teacher
Madame Du Pont was a woman every way calculated to take the care of young ladies, had that care entirely devolved on herself; but it was impossible to attend the education of a numerous school without proper assistants; and those assistants were not always the kind of people whose conversation and morals were exactly such as parents of delicacy and refinement would wish a daughter to copy.
Among the teachers at Madame Du Pont’s school was Mademoiselle La Rue, who added to a pleasing person and insinuating address, a liberal education and the manners of a gentlewoman. She was recommended to the school by a lady whose humanity overstepped the bounds of discretion; for though she knew Miss La Rue had eloped from a convent with a young officer, and on coming to England had lived with several different men in open defiance of all moral and religious duties; yet, finding her reduced to the most abject want, and believing the penitence which she professed to be sincere, she took her into her own family, and from thence recommended her to Madame Du Pont, as thinking the situation more suitable for a woman of her abilities.
But mademoiselle possessed too much of the spirit of intrigue to remain long without adventures. At church, where she constantly appeared, her person attracted the attention of a young man who was upon a visit at a gentleman’s seat in the neighborhood: she had met him several times clandestinely; and being invited to come out that evening and eat some fruit and pastry in a summerhouse belonging to the gentleman he was visiting, and requested to bring some of the ladies with her, Charlotte being her favorite, was fixed on to accompany her.
The mind of youth eagerly catches at promised pleasure: pure and innocent by nature, it thinks not of the dangers lurking beneath those pleasures till too late to avoid them: when mademoiselle asked Charlotte to go with her, she mentioned the gentleman as a relation, and spoke in such high terms of the elegance of his gardens, the sprightliness of his conversation, and the liberality with which
