- Tho'
A Pensioner In A Monastry, And Very Closely Observed, By The Help Of A
Confidant She Frequently Got Out,
And many nights we passed
together; - till some business relating to my estate at length calling me
away, we were
Obliged to part, which we could not do without testifying
a great deal of concern on both sides: - mine was truly sincere at that
time, and I have reason to believe her's was no less so; but absence
easily wears out the impressions of youth: as I never expected to see
her any more, I endeavoured not to preserve a remembrance which would
only have given me disquiet, and, to confess the truth, soon forgot both
the pleasure and the pain I had experienced in this, as well as some
other little sallies of my unthinking youth.
Many years passed over without my ever hearing any thing of her; and it
was some months after I received your letter from Aix-la-Chappelle, that
the post brought me one from Ireland: having no correspondence in that
country, I was a little surprized, but much more when I opened it and
found it contained these words:
To DORILAUS.
SIR,
"This comes to make a request, which I
know not if the acquaintance we had
together in the early part of both our lives,
would be sufficient to apologize for the trouble
you must take in complying with it: - permit
me therefore to acquaint you, that I have long
laboured under an indisposition which my physicians
assure me is incurable, and under which
I must inevitably sink in a short time; but
whatever they say, I know it is impossible
for me to leave the world without imparting
to you a secret wholly improper to be entrusted
in a letter, but is of the utmost importance
to those concerned in it, of whom yourself
is the principal:
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