parasite-plant," she was willing to encourage and foster the
luxuriancies of affection. Her confidence was entire; her love was
unbounded. Now, for the first time in her life she gave a loose to all
the sensibilities of her nature.

Soon after the time I am now speaking of, her attachment to Mr. Imlay
gained a new link, by finding reason to suppose herself with child.

Their establishment at Paris, was however broken up almost as soon as
formed, by the circumstance of Mr. Imlay's entering into business,
urged, as he said, by the prospect of a family, and this being a
favourable crisis in French affairs for commercial speculations. The
pursuits in which he was engaged, led him in the month of September to
Havre de Grace, then called Havre Marat, probably to superintend the
shipping of goods, in which he was jointly engaged with some other
person or persons. Mary remained in the capital.

The solitude in which she was now left, proved an unexpected trial.
Domestic affections constituted the object upon which her heart was
fixed; and she early felt, with an inward grief, that Mr. Imlay "did not
attach those tender emotions round the idea of home," which, every time
they recurred, dimmed her eyes with moisture. She had expected his
return from week to week, and from month to month, but a succession of
business still continued to detain him at Havre. At the same time the
sanguinary character which the government of France began every day more
decisively to assume, contributed to banish tranquillity from the first
months of her pregnancy. Before she left Neuilly, she happened one day
to enter Paris on foot (I believe, by the _Place de Louis Quinze_), when
an execution, attended with some peculiar aggravations, had just taken
place, and the blood of the guillotine appeared fresh upon the pavement.