adventure could be indifferent to him; and his vanity was flattered by the hope of carrying off a young lady under the disguise of a common soldier, without revealing his birth or boasting of his expectations.

In this attempt he became very assiduous, and succeeded. The company being ordered to another place, Betty and her young mistress departed early in the morning with their gallants; and there being a privileged chapel in the next town, they were married.

The old gentleman, as soon as he was informed that his daughter was missing, made so diligent and scrupulous an inquiry after her, that he learned with whom and which way she was gone: he mounted his horse, and pursued her, not without curses and imprecation; discovering rather the transports of rage than the emotions of tenderness, and resenting her offence rather as the rebellion of a slave than the disobedience of a child. He did not however overtake them till the marriage had been consummated; of which when he was informed by the husband, he turned from him with expressions of brutality and indignation, swearing never to forgive a fault which he had taken no care to prevent.

The young couple, notwithstanding their union frequently doubled their distress, still continued fond of each other. The spirit of enterprise and the hope of presumption were not yet quelled in the young soldier; and he received orders to attend King William, when he went to the siege of Namur, with exultation and transport, believing his elevation to independence and distinction as certain as if he had been going to take possession of a title and estate. His wife, who had been some months pregnant, as she had no means of subsistence in his absence, procured a passage with him. When she came on shore, and mingled with the crowd that followed the camp, wretches who without compunction wade in human blood to strip the dying and the dead, to whom horror is become familiar and compassion impossible, she was terrified: the discourse of the women, rude and unpolished as she was, covered her with confusion; and the brutal familiarity of the men filled her with indignation and disgust; her maid, Betty, who had also attended her husband, was the only person with whom she could converse, and from whom she could hope the assistance of which she was so soon to stand in need.

In the meantime she found it difficult to subsist; but accidentally hearing the name of an officer, whom she remembered to have visited her mother soon after her marriage, she applied to him, told him her name, and requested that he would afford her his protection, and permit her to take care of his linen. With this request the captain complied; her circumstances became less distressed, and her mind more easy: but a new calamity suddenly overtook her; she saw her husband march to an engagement in the morning, and saw him brought back desperately wounded at night. The next day he was removed, in a waggon with many others who were in the same condition, to a place of greater safety, at the distance of about three leagues, where proper care might be taken of their wounds. She intreated the captain to let her go in the waggon with him; but to this he could not consent, because the waggon would be filled with those who were neither able to walk, nor could be left behind. He promised, however, that if she would stay till the next day, he would endeavour to procure her a passage; but she chose rather to follow the waggon on foot, than to be absent from her husband. She could not, however, keep pace with it, and she reached the hospital but just time enough to kneel down by him upon some clean straw, to see him sink under the last agony, and hear the groan that is repeated no more. The fatigue of the journey, and the perturbation of her mind, immediately threw her into labour, and she lived but to be delivered of Melissa, who was thus in the most helpless state left without father, mother, or friend, in a foreign country, in circumstances which could afford no hope of reward to the tenderness that should attempt the preservation of her life, and among persons who were become obdurate and insensible, by having been long used to see every species of distress.

It happened that, among those whom accident or distress had brought together at the birth of Melissa, there was a young woman, whose husband had fallen in the late engagement, and who a few days before had lost a little boy that she suckled. This person, rather perhaps to relieve herself from an inconveniency, than in compassion to the orphan, put it to her breast: but whatever was her motive, she believed that the affording sustenance to the living, conferred a right to the apparel of the dead, of which she therefore