Her nephew seemed uneasy, and blamed her much; and I came back, but
trembled as I stood; and he set me down, and said, taking my hand, I have
been accused, my dear, as a dueller, and now as a profligate, in another
sense; and there was a time I should not have received these imputations
with so much concern as I now do, when I would wish, by degrees, by a
conformity of my manners to your virtue, to shew every one the force your
example has upon me. But this briefly is the case of the first.
I had a friend, who had been basely attempted to be assassinated by
bravoes, hired by a man of title in Italy, who, like many other persons
of title, had no honour; and, at Padua, I had the fortune to disarm one
of these bravoes in my friend's defence, and made him confess his
employer; and him, I own, I challenged. At Sienna we met, and he died in
a month after, of a fever; but, I hope, not occasioned by the slight
wounds he had received from me; though I was obliged to leave Italy upon
it, sooner than I intended, because of his numerous relations, who looked
upon me as the cause of his death; though I pacified them by a letter I
wrote them from Inspruck, acquainting them with the baseness of the
deceased: and they followed me not to Munich, as they intended.
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