* The introduction of Darnford as the deliverer of Maria
in a former instance, appears to have been an after-thought
of the author. This has occasioned the omission of any
allusion to that circumstance in the preceding narration.
EDITOR. [Godwin's note]
CHAPTER 4
PITY, and the forlorn seriousness of adversity, have both been
considered as dispositions favourable to love, while satirical
writers have attributed the propensity to the relaxing effect of
idleness; what chance then had Maria of escaping, when pity, sorrow,
and solitude all conspired to soften her mind, and nourish romantic
wishes, and, from a natural progress, romantic expectations?
Maria was six-and-twenty. But, such was the native soundness
of her constitution, that time had only given to her countenance
the character of her mind. Revolving thought, and exercised
affections had banished some of the playful graces of innocence,
producing insensibly that irregularity of features which the
struggles of the understanding to trace or govern the strong emotions
of the heart, are wont to imprint on the yielding mass.
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