Page:True humanity usefully exerted.pdf/11

(11) what more was in his power to ſerve them, having firſt privately taken an opportunity to ſlip a couple of guineas into the daughter’s hand, to avoid putting the delicacy of her father and mother to farther pain.

Fatigued in mind and body, from the height to which his tendereſt paſſions had been wound up by ſuch a moving ſcene, Benevolus went directly home, and throwing himſelf on a bed, ſlept till next morning, without diſturbance from pain or reflection.

As ſoon as he awoke the next day, he went to viſit his new family, where the happineſs, that gliſtened in every grateful eye, at his approach, made him happy. After ſome general chat, "It is my duty, Sir, (ſaid the father) to give you ſome account of myſelf, and of the cauſe of my falling into that depth of miſery, from which your beneficence relieved me, that you ſhould not think it has been laviſhed on objects altogether unworthy of it.

I am deſcended from a good family, the fortune of which my father diſſipated in ſupporting a parliamentary intereſt for the miniſtry; the only return he received for which, and for his voice upon all occaſions, was a ſmall penſion for himſelf, and a pair of colours in the Guards for me, his only ſon, with promiſes indeed of farther proviſion, which were all forgotten when he died, happily for himſelf, before the end of the