IF children could be sensible of parental tenderness, or knew what racking cares attend every misdoing of an off ending offspring, the heart of Natura would have been so much touched with what his father endured on his account, as to have enabled him to have got the better of that guilty shame, which alone hindered him from submitting to him; but conscious of deserving only the severest reproofs, he could not flatter himself there was a hope of ever being reinstated in that aff ection he had once possessed, and was too proud to content himself with less.

That afflicted parent being informed of his son's plight, spared no cost or pains to find out the place of his retreat; but all his enquiries were in vain, and he was wholly in the dark, till it came into his head to search a little escritoire which stood in his chamber, and of which he had taken away the key: on breaking it open, he found the counterpart of his contract with Harriot, and by that discovery was no longer at a loss for the motives which had obliged his son to raise money, not doubting but the woman was either extremely indigent, or a jilt: but to think the heir of his estate had been so weak as to enter into so solemn and irretrievable an engagement, with a person of either of these characters, gave him an inexpressible disquiet. All his endeavours were now bent on finding her out, not in the least questioning but his son was with her: the task was pretty difficult, the contract discovering no more of her than her name, and the parish in which she lived; yet did the emissaries he employed at last surmount it: they brought him word not only of the exact place where she lodged, but also of her character, as they learned it from the neighbours; they heard also that a young gentleman, whose description answered that of Natura, had been often seen with her, and that she had given out she was married to him.