To Captain Fitzgerald.
Three o'clock.
We are returned, and have met with an adventure, which I must tell
you.
About six miles from home, at the entrance of a small village, as I
was riding very fast, a little before the chaise, a boy about four
years old, beautiful as a Cupid, came out of a cottage on the
right-hand, and, running cross the road, fell almost under my horse's
feet.
I threw myself off in a moment; and snatching up the child, who was,
however, unhurt, carried him to the house.
I was met at the door by a young woman, plainly drest; but of a form
uncommonly elegant: she had seen the child fall, and her terror for him
was plainly marked in her countenance; she received him from me,
pressed him to her bosom, and, without speaking, melted into tears.
My mother and Emily had by this time reached the cottage; the
humanity of both was too much interested to let them pass: they
alighted, came into the house, and enquired about the child, with an
air of tenderness which was not lost on the young person, whom we
supposed his mother.
She appeared about two and twenty, was handsome, with an air of the
world, which the plainness of her dress could not hide; her countenance
was pensive, with a mixture of sensibility which instantly prejudiced
us all in her favor; her look seemed to say, she was unhappy, and that
she deserved to be otherwise.
Her manner was respectful, but easy and unconstrained; polite,
without being servile; and she acknowledged the interest we all seemed
to take in what related to her, in a manner that convinced us she
deserved it.
Though every thing about us, the extreme neatness, the elegant
simplicity of her house and little garden, her own person, that of the
child, both perfectly genteel, her politeness, her air of the world, in
a cottage like that of the meanest laborer, tended to excite the most
lively curiosity; neither good-breeding, humanity, nor the respect due
to those who appear unfortunate, would allow us to make any enquiries:
we left the place full of this adventure, convinced of the merit, as
well as unhappiness, of its fair inhabitant, and resolved to find out,
if possible, whether her misfortunes were of a kind to be alleviated,
and within our little power to alleviate.
I will own to you, my dear Fitzgerald, I at that moment felt the
smallness of my fortune: and I believe Emily had the same sensations,
though her delicacy prevented her naming them to me, who have made her
poor.
We can talk of nothing but the stranger; and Emily is determined to
call on her again to-morrow, on pretence of enquiring after the health
of the child.
I tremble lest her story, for she certainly has one, should be such
as, however it may entitle her to compassion, may make it impossible
for Emily to shew it in the manner she seems to wish.
Adieu!
Your faithful
Ed. Rivers.