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 Nevertheless, she moved on; seeking to guide herself by the recollection of the spot which she had transiently seen; till she was startled by a murmuring of human voices.

But for the alarm left upon her mind, by the adventure of the hut, and the pursuit of the wood-cutters, this would have been a sound in which her ears would have rejoiced, as the fore-runner of succour and of safety; for, till then, she had always connected the idea of rusticity with innocence, and of rural life with felicity. But now, she had fatally learnt, that no class, and no station, appropriatively merit trust; and that the poor, like the rich, the humble, like the proud, can only by principle be worthy of confidence: whether that principle be the happy inherent growth of favouring Providence; or the fruit of religion, and cultivated virtue.

But fear and incertitude, though they slackened, did not long stop her progress: the terrour of her lonely situation