Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 2).djvu/137

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gret; but the first call of pleasure drove them from my heart, and I resumed my former courses. A continuance in them soon dissipated the little property I possessed. I then resolved to abandon my native country, and seek subsistence in another part of the world. This resolution I imparted to a particular friend, a youth about my own age, and, like me, an orphan. Our attachment had commenced at the first dawning of reason, and a kind of infatuation seemed to bind him to me; he was ever ready to join me in my schemes, and often, latterly, assisted my declining purse. Through my means, his fortune had been considerably injured; but though his fortune was not wrecked like mine, he now declared he would accompany me to any part of the world I should like to go to; a declaration I rejoiced to hear, as he had the means of keeping me from hardships I otherwise, from the low state of my finances, expected to undergo. He accordingly gathered the remains of his wealth together, and we set out on foot (the better to