Plessis, which she endeavoured, as much as she could, to disguise, under
the names of gratitude for the obligations he had conferred upon her,
and admiration of his virtue, so different from what she had found in
others who had addressed her.

Dorilaus, however, easily perceived the tenderness with which she was
agitated on the account of that young gentleman, but he would not excite
her blushes by taking any notice of it, especially as he found nothing
to condemn in it, and had observed, throughout the course of her whole
narrative, she had behaved on other occasions with a discretion far
above her years, he was far from wronging her, by suspecting she had
swerved from it in this.

But when he heard the vast journey she had come on foot, he was in the
utmost amazement at her fortitude, and told her he was resolved to keep
her pilgrim's habit as a relique, to preserve to after-ages the memory
of an adventure, which had really something more marvellous in it than
many set down as miracles.

And now having fully gratified his own curiosity in all he wanted to be
informed of, he thought proper to case the impatience she was in to know
the history of her birth, and on what occasion it had been so long
concealed, which he did in these or the like words:



CHAP. XXIV.

_The history of Dorilaus and Matilda, with other circumstances very
important to Louisa_.