 affection long prevented her from expressing even a murmur at my too apparent neglect; although I could not but perceive that her spirits were visibly affected by it: and she always received me, after a fortnight's solitary absence, with the most lively expressions of joy.
It was not immediately however that this unhappy change took place: and your birth, my Hermione, which happened not till three years after our marriage,

supplied your mother with a pleasing source of amusement, sufficiently interesting I hope to prevent her thoughts from brooding over the mortifying and painful alteration in my behaviour.
At this period I became acquainted with a set of companions of the most dissipated character. My particular friends were two young men of agreeable and insinuating, but of profligate manners. In their company I led the most irregular life: and soon began to consider the hours I spent occasionally with my wife as a point of duty rather than of inclination, and with regard to the discharge of duties which interfered with my pleasures, I grew every day less solicitous: this therefore, among the rest, became extremely neglected; and I heartily regretted the indissoluble knot which had placed your mother in a situation that rendered my attentions absolutely necessary to her happiness: the seclusion of her life affected, but it

also chagrined me; and her dependance, once so pleasing, seemed now a burthen that I endeavoured to shake off, flattering myself that her child would amply compensate for the loss of my society.
Twelve or fourteen months passed on in this manner; till my wife, at length wounded to the soul, began to adopt the worst of all methods for recovering a lost attachment, by complaining of my coldness. This she did with her accustomed softness, and by tears rather than reproaches; but it was a subject which embittered so extremely the short intervals I spent with her, that they grew less frequent than ever, although the birth of her second child (you, my dear Fanny) ought to have proved an additional tie towards cementing my affection.
My father, who regarded himself as exceedingly unfortunate in my brother's marriage, often proposed to me to marry, and had at different periods pointed out

several advantageous connexions, among whom he wished me to choose; but as my heart was not interested, though the subject embarrassed, it did not wound me, and I evaded it with little difficulty.
My sister, one evening at her house, introduced to me a young lady with whom she had been on a footing of the strictest intimacy whilst I was on my travels, but whom, till now, I had
