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244 HISTORY TELLISINDA.

HOUGH, perhaps, said she, never any persons, linked in the bonds of Hymen, loved with a more true affection than myself and the chevalier; yet having been married four years without any child, he grew so excessively discontented, that I had reason to fear a decrease of his tenderness: I endeavoured to console him for the want of a blessing, which, indeed, I then thought I never should afford him, by arguments such as these: I told him, that if we were not permitted to enjoy the comforts of children, we were also free from the troubles and cares which necessarily attend a paternal state; that if Heaven had thought fit to make us parents, we should have been so; and that we ought not to repine at the decrees of him, who knew better what was good for us than we did for ourselves. In fine, I omitted nothing that my little reading, both in divinity and philosophy, enabled me to say; yet still he was uneasy; and though he said nothing in contradiction to what I offered, yet did a sullen peevishness sit on his brow while listening to me, and sometimes he would fling from me, leaving the room while I was in the middle of my discourse. This distemper grew every day more upon him; and I began at last to fear I should entirely lose his affections: the apprehensions of so terrible a misfortune threw me into a deep melancholy; I became oppressed with it, and could not forbear imparting it to a friend, in whom I had great confidence; by her I was persuaded, contrary to my reason, my religion, and that aversion I was bred to have to every thing which bordered on a deceit, to feign myself with child. But as there appeared no other way of regaining the affections of my husband, I was prevailed on to follow her advice. I did so; and the joy which from that time appeared in the countenance of the chevalier, made me well enough satisfied