covered herself enough to satisfy the high-raised curiosity of Miramillia; and being again desired by her, prepared to give her the account she was so impatient of, and seating herself by her, began in these or the like terms.
The HISTORY of STENOCLEA, and the Signiors ARMUTHI and BARNIBAR.
TO make you acquainted, said she, with the means to which has brought the sad catastrophe of my fate about, as also to let you a little into the nature and dispositions of the persons concerned in it, I must enlarge my story, by going back into those years which may properly enough be called my childish ones; many things happening at that time, though long since past, which have drawn on the misery of the present.
Know then, dear Miramillia, that I was bred the darling of my doating parents, my only brother being many years elder, and then abroad on his travels; I was looked on as the comfort of their age, their marriage having never produced any other offspring than us two. I need not tell you how careful they were of my education; the little understanding I still retain in poetry, mathematics, music, dancing, and those other accomplishments proper for a person of my sex, will sufficiently inform you; they desired I should be mistress, in as high a degree as my capacity would permit, of every thing desirable in a woman. The reputation of improvement, however, which those who had the care of instructing me favoured me with, joined to a tolerable share of beauty, gained me, before I reached the age of fourteen, a great number of visitors, who pretended themselves devoted to my charms; how much the gene-
