both mother and child. Frances Blood, hitherto the chosen object of
Mary's attachment, died on the twenty-ninth of November 1785.

It is thus that she speaks of her in her Letters from Norway, written
ten years after her decease. "When a warm heart has received strong
impressions, they are not to be effaced. Emotions become sentiments; and
the imagination renders even transient sensations permanent, by fondly
retracing them. I cannot, without a thrill of delight, recollect views I
have seen, which are not to be forgotten, nor looks I have felt in every
nerve, which I shall never more meet. The grave has closed over a dear
friend, the friend of my youth; still she is present with me, and I hear
her soft voice warbling as I stray over the heath."




CHAP. IV.

1785-1787.


No doubt the voyage to Lisbon tended considerably to enlarge the
understanding of Mary. She was admitted into the best company the
English factory afforded. She made many profound observations on the
character of the natives, and the baleful effects of superstition. The
obsequies of Fanny, which it was necessary to perform by stealth and in
darkness, tended to invigorate these observations in her mind.

She sailed upon her voyage home about the twentieth of December. On this
occasion a circumstance occurred, that deserves to be recorded. While