“Yes, sir,” returned Moses, “and I know but of two such markets for wives in Europe—Ranelagh in England, and Fontarabia in Spain. The Spanish market is open once a year, but our English wives are saleable every night.”

“You are right, my boy,” cried his mother, “Old England is the only place in the world for husbands to get wives”—“And for wives to manage their husbands,” interrupted I. “It is a proverb abroad, that if a bridge were built across the sea, all the ladies of the Continent would come over to take pattern from ours; for there are no such wives in Europe as our own. But let us have one bottle more, Deborah, my life, and Moses give us a good song. What thanks do we not owe to Heaven for thus bestowing tranquillity, health, and competence. I think myself happier now than the greatest monarch upon earth. He has no such fireside, nor such pleasant faces about it. Yes, Deborah, we are now growing old; but the evening of our life is likely to be happy. We are descended from ancestors that knew no stain, and we shall leave a good and virtuous race of children behind us. While we live they will be our support and our pleasure here, and when we die they will transmit our honour untainted to posterity. Come, my son, we wait for a song: let us have a chorus. But where is my darling Olivia? That little cherub’s voice is always sweetest in the concert.”

Just as I spoke Dick came running in, “O papa, papa, she is gone from us, she is gone from us, my sister Livy is gone from us for ever!”—“Gone, child!” “Yes, she is gone off with two gentlemen in a post- chaise, and one of them kissed her, and said he would die for her; and she cried very much, and was for coming back; but he persuaded her again, and she went into the chaise, and said, ‘O what will my poor papa do when he knows I am undone!”’—“Now then,” cried I, “my children, go and be miserable; for we shall never enjoy one hour more. And O may Heaven’s everlasting fury light upon him and his! Thus to rob me of my child! And sure it will, for taking back my sweet innocent that I was leading up to heaven. Such sincerity as my child was possessed of! But all our earthly happiness is now over! Go, my children, go, and be miserable and infamous; for my heart is broken within me!”—“Father,” cried my son, “is this your fortitude?” “Fortitude, child! Yes, he shall see I have fortitude! Bring me my pistols. I’ll pursue the traitor. While he is on earth I’ll pursue him. Old as I am, he shall find I can sting him yet. The villain! The perfidious villain!”

I had by this time reached down my pistols, when my poor wife, whose passions were not so strong as mine, caught me in her arms. “My dearest, dearest husband,” cried she, “the Bible is the only weapon that is fit for your old hands now. Open that, my love, and read our anguish into patience, for she has vilely deceived us.” —“Indeed, sir,” resumed my son, after a pause, “your rage is too violent and unbecoming. You should be my mother’s comforter, and you increase her pain. It ill suited you and your reverend character, thus to curse your greatest enemy: you should not have curst him, villain as he is.”—“I did not curse him, child, did I?” —“Indeed, sir, you did; you curst him twice.”—“Then may Heaven forgive me and him if I did. And now, my son, I see it was more than human benevolence that first taught us to bless our enemies! Blest be His holy name for all the good He hath given, and for all that He hath taken away. But it is not, it is not a small distress that can wring tears from these old eyes, that have not wept for so many years. My child!—To undo my darling! May confusion seize—Heaven forgive me, what am I about to say! You may remember, my love, how good she was, and how charming; till this vile moment all her care was to make us happy. Had she but died! But she is gone, the honour of our family contaminated, and I must look out for happiness in other worlds than here. But my child, you saw them go off: perhaps he forced her away? If he forced her, she may yet be innocent.”—“Ah no, sir!” cried the child; “he only kissed her, and called her his angel, and she wept very much, and leaned upon his arm, and they drove off very fast.”—“She’s an ungrateful creature,” cried my wife, who could scarcely speak for weeping, “to use us thus. She never had the least constraint put upon her affections. The vile strumpet has basely deserted her parents without any provocation, thus to bring your grey hairs to the grave, and I must shortly follow.”

In this manner that night, the first of our real misfortunes, was spent in the bitterness of complaint, and ill-supported sallies of enthusiasm. I determined, however, to find out her betrayer, wherever he was, and reproached his baseness. The next morning we missed our wretched child at breakfast, where she