PAUL AND VIRGINIA. 53 



their prefent ftate, like a Grecian plain, they only 

 prefent to view, ruins, and heart- affeding infcrip- 

 tions. 



Of the whole enclofure, however, no fpot was 

 more agreeable than that which went by the name of 

 Virginia's Rest. At the foot of the rock, named. 

 The Discovery of Friendship, is a hollow 

 place, whence iffues a fountain, which forms, from 

 it's fource, a little lake, in the middle of a mea- 

 dow of fine grafs. When Margaret had brought 

 Paid into the World, I made her a prefent of an 

 Indian cocoa-nut, which had been given me. She 

 planted this fruit on the borders of the lake, in- 

 tending that the tree which it fhould produce, 

 might ferve, one day, as an epocha of her fon's 

 birth. Madame de la Tour, after her example, 

 planted another there likcwife, with a fimilar inten- 

 tion, as foon as (he was delivered of Virginia. From 

 thefe nuts grew two cocoa-trees, which formed the 

 whole archives of the two families ; one was called 

 the tree of Paul, the other that of Virginia. They 

 both grew in the fame proportion as their young 

 mafter and miftrefs, of a height rather unequal, 

 but which furpaffed, at the end of twelve years, 

 that of the cottages. Already they interwove their 

 branches, and dropped their young clutters of co- 

 coas, over the bafon of the fountain, 



E 3 This 



