"Oh, sir! do not talk to me thus! Do with me any thing you will. Kill me
if you please."

"Kill you!" [Volumes could not describe the emotions with which this
echo of my words was given and received.]

"Sir, I could die to serve you! I love you more than I can express. I
worship you as a being of a superior nature. I am foolish, raw,
inexperienced,--worse than any of these;--but never did a thought of
disloyalty to your service enter into my heart."

Here our conversation ended; and the impression it made upon my youthful
mind it is impossible to describe. I thought with astonishment, even
with rapture, of the attention and kindness towards me I discovered in
Mr. Falkland, through all the roughness of his manner. I could never
enough wonder at finding myself, humble as I was by my birth, obscure as
I had hitherto been, thus suddenly become of so much importance to the
happiness of one of the most enlightened and accomplished men in
England. But this consciousness attached me to my patron more eagerly
than ever, and made me swear a thousand times, as I meditated upon my
situation, that I would never prove unworthy of so generous a protector.




CHAPTER IV.


Is it not unaccountable that, in the midst of all my increased