and uncultivated Imogen. She, who had been used to one narrow round of
chearful, rustic scenes, was too much perplexed to be able to judge of
her situation. Her repeated faintings had weakened her spirits, and for
a time disordered her understanding. She had always lived among the
simple; she had scarcely ever been witness to any thing but sincerity
and innocence. Suspicion therefore was the farthest in the world from
being an inmate of her breast. Suspicion is the latest and most
difficult lesson of the honest and uncrooked mind. Imogen therefore
willingly retired to rest, in compliance with the soliciation of her
attendants. She beheld no longer her ravisher, whose eye beamed with
ungovernable desires, and whose crest swelled with pride. Every
countenance was marked with apparent carefulness and sympathy. She was
even pleased with their officious and friendly-seeming demeanour.

Tell me, ye vain cavillers, ye haughty adversaries of the omnipotence of
virtue, where could artful vice, where could invisible and hell-born
seduction, have found a fitter object for their triumph? Imogen was not
armed with the lessons of experience: Imogen was not accoutered with the
cautiousness of cultivation and refinement. She was all open to every
one that approached her. She carried her heart in her hand. Ye, I doubt
not, have already reckoned upon the triumph, and counted the advantages.
But, if I do not much mistake the divine lessons I am commissioned to
deliver, the muse shall tell a very different story.

[Illustration]