Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/313

 ¬whom I had never seen but on the crowded staircases, the only situations in which she could be looked at with safety. — I shall not attempt to describe her. — It was now indeed beyond conjecture that Milton must have been ship- wrecked here, before he had his blindness to lament. — In no other region could the image of female beauty have suggested the description of our first woman, whose likeness, indeed, shone every where around me in Armata; and, with- out meaning any affront to Adam, seemed to be improved by some crossing in the breed. ¬Morvina had been taught our language by her grandfather and father, and spoke it in per- fection j but though, from the first moment I saw her, I was overpowered by the charms of her person, yet I little feared any lasting im- pression, from a being so vain and so frivolous as of course I expected to find her. — How much I was deceived in her w r ill appear hereafter. ¬ g 3 CHAP- ¬