took possession; but in searching her pockets she found only a thimble, the remains of a pocket looking- glass, about the value of a penny in Dutch money, and the certificate of her marriage. The paper, which she could not read, she gave afterwards to the captain, who was touched with pity at the relation which an inquiry after his laundress produced. He commended the woman who had preserved the infant, and put her into the place of its mother. This encouraged her to continue her care of it till the captain returned to England, with whom she also returned, and became his servant.

This gentleman, as soon as he had settled his immediate concerns, sent Melissa, under the care of her nurse, to her grandfather; and inclosed the certificate of her mother’s marriage in a letter containing an account of her death, and the means by which the infant had been preserved. He knew that those who had been once dear to us, by whatever offence they may have alienated our affection when living, are generally remembered with tenderness when dead; and that after the grave has sheltered them from our resentment, and rendered reconciliation impossible, we often regret, as severe, that conduct which before we approved as just; he, therefore, hoped that the parental fondness which an old man had once felt for his daughter, would revive at the sight of her offspring; that the memory of her fault would be lost in the sense of her misfortunes; and that he would endeavour to atone for that inexorable resentment which produced them, by cherishing a life, to which she had, as it were, transferred her own. But in these expectations, however reasonable, he was mistaken. The old man, when he was informed by the messenger that the child she held in her arms was his grand-daughter, whom she was come to put under his protection, refused to examine the contents of the letter, and dismissed her with menaces and insult. The knowledge of every uncommon event soon becomes general in a country town. An uncle of Melissa’s, who had been rejected by his father for having married, his maid, heard this fresh instance of his brutality with grief and indignation; he sent immediately for the child and the letter, and assured the servant that his niece should want nothing which he could bestow; to bestow much, indeed, was not in his power, for his father having obstinately persisted in his resentment, his whole support was a little farm which he rented of the ’squire: but as he was a good economist and had no children of his own, he lived decently; nor did he throw away content, because his father had denied him affluence.

Melissa, who was compassionated for her mother’s misfortunes, of which her uncle had been particularly informed by her maid Betty, who had returned a widow to her friends in the country, was not less beloved for her good qualities; she was taught to read and write, and work at her needle, as soon as she was able to learn; and she was taken notice of by all the gentry as the prettiest girl in the place; but her aunt died when she was about eleven years old, and before she was thirteen she lost her uncle.

She was now again thrown back upon the world, still helpless, though her wants were increased, and wretched in proportion as she had known happiness: she looked back with anguish, and forward with distraction; a fit of crying had just afforded a momentary relief, when the ’squire, who had been informed of the death of his tenant, sent for her to his house.

This gentleman had heard her story from her uncle, and was unwilling that a life which had been preserved almost by miracle, should at last be abandoned to misery; he therefore determined to receive her into his family, not as a servant but as a companion to his daughter, a young lady finely accomplished, and now about fifteen. The old gentleman was touched with her distress, and miss received her with great tenderness and complacency: she wiped away her tears; and of the intolerable anguish of her mind, nothing remained but a tender remembrance of her uncle, whom she loved and reverenced as a parent. She had now courage to examine the contents of a little box which he had put into her hand just before he expired; she found in it only the certificate of her mother’s marriage, enclosed in the captain’s letter, and an account of the events that have been before related, which her uncle had put down as they came to his knowledge: the train of mournful ideas that now rushed upon her mind, raised emotions which, if they could not be suppressed by reason, were soon destroyed by their own violence.

In this family, which in a few weeks after returned to London, Melissa soon became a favourite: the good ’squire seemed to consider her as his child, and miss as her sister; she was taught dancing and music, introduced to the best company, elegantly dressed, and allowed such sums as were necessary for trivial