 as a counsellor or tutor, and desired his company in
France with a view of promoting his interest, and not for any emolument he could
expect from his instruction. This being the case, he was at liberty to consult
his own inclinations with regard to going or staying; though he could not help
owning himself obliged by the concern he expressed for his safety, and would
endeavour, for his own sake, to avoid giving him any cause of disturbance in
time to come.
    No man was more capable of moralizing upon Peregrine's misconduct than
himself; his reflections were extremely just and sagacious, and attended with no
other disadvantage, but that of occurring too late. He projected a thousand
salutary schemes of deportment, but, like other projectors, he never had
interest enough with the ministry of his passions to bring any one of them to
bear. He had, in the hey-day of his gallantry, received a letter from his friend
Gauntlet, with a kind postscript from his charming Emilia; but it arrived at a
very unseasonable juncture, when his imagination was engrossed by conquests that
more agreeably flattered his ambition; so that he could not find leisure and
inclination, from that day, to honour the correspondence which he himself had
sollicited; and his vanity had, by this time, disapproved of the engagement he
had contracted in the rawness and inexperience of youth; suggesting, that he was
born to make such an important figure in life, as ought to raise his ideas above
the consideration of any such middling connections, and fix his attention upon
objects of the most sublime attraction. These dictates of ridiculous pride had
almost effaced the remembrance of his amiable mistress, or at least so far
warped his morals and integrity, that he actually began to conceive hopes of her
altogether unworthy of his own character and her deserts.
    Mean while, being destitute of a toy for the dalliance of his idle hours, he
employed several spies, and almost every day made a tour of the public places in
person, with a view of procuring intelligence of Mr. Hornbeck, with whose wife
he longed to have another interview; and in this course of expectation had he
exercised himself a whole fortnight, when chancing to be at the hospital of the
invalids with a gentleman lately arrived from England, he no sooner entered the
church than he perceived this lady, attended by her spouse, who at sight of our
hero changed colour, and looked another way, in order to discourage any
communication between them. But the young man, who was not so easily repulsed,
advanced with great assurance to his fellow-traveller
