good fortune to inherit, and all the inclination natural to youth to enjoy. Though always sumptuous, however, and sometimes profuse, he was observed never to be ridiculous in his expences; and though he was now and then talked of as a man of pleasure and dissipation, he always left behind him more instances of beneficence than of irregularity. For that respect and esteem in which his character amidst all his little errors, was generally held, he was supposed a good deal indebted to the society of a gentleman, who had been his companion at the university, and now attended him rather as a friend than a tutor. This gentleman was, unfortunately, seized at Marseilles with a lingering disorder, for which he was under the necessity of taking a seavoyage, leaving Sir Edward to prosecute the remaining part of his intended tour alone. Descending into one of the valleys of Piedmont, where, notwithstanding the ruggedness of the road, Sir Edward, with a prejudice natural to his country, preferred the conveyance of an English hunter to that of an Italian mule, his horse unluckily made a false step, and fell with his rider to the ground, from which Sir Edward was lifted by his servants with scarce any signs of life. They conveyed him on a litter to the nearest house, which happened to be the dwelling of a peasant rather above the common rank, before whose door some of his neighbours were assembled at a scene of rural merriment, when the train of Sir Edward brought up their master in the condition I have described. The compassion natural to his situation was excited in all; but the owner of the mansion, whose name was Venoni, was particularly moved with it. He applied himself immediately to the care of the stranger, and, with the assistance of his daughter, who had left the dance she was cngaged in, with great marks of agitation, soon restored Sir Edward to sense and life. Venoni possessed some little skill in surgery, and his daughter produced a book of receipts in medicine. Sir Edward, after being blooded, was put to bed, and tended with every Possible care by his host and his family. A considerable degree of fever was the consequence of his accident; but after some days it abated, and, in little more than a week, he was able to join in the society of Venoni and his daughter. He could not help expressing some surprize at the appearance of refinement in the conversation of the latter, much beyond what her situation seemed likely to confer. Her father accounted for it. She had received her education in the house of a lady, who happened to pass through the valley, and to take shelter in Venoni's cottage (for his house was but a better sort of cottage) the night of her birth. "When her mother died," said he, "the Signora, "whose name, at her desire, we had given the child "took her home to her own house; there she was "taught many things, of which there is no need "here; yet she is not so proud of her learning as "to wish to leave her father in his old age; and "I hope soon to have her settled near me for "life." But Sir Edward had now an opportunity of knowing Louisa better than from the description of her father. Music and painting, in both of which arts she was a tolerable proficient, Sir Edward had studied with success. Louisa felt a sort of pleasure from her drawings, which they had never given her before, when they were praised by Sir Edward; and the family-concerts of Venoni were very different from what they had formerly been, when once his guest was so far recovered as to be able to join in them. The flute of Venoni excelled all the other music of the valley; his daughter's lute was much beyond it; Sir Edward's violin was finer than P h th |