Puslapio vaizdai
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"or to complain of fuffering. In repentance is all my hope.

"I will enumerate the offences which "claim my constant tears. You will "then fee what portion of guilt falls to your share. Your artful adulation 'pleased my vanity, and while I fuppofed myself merely amufed by your "converfation, you excited a growing "intereft in my regard. To you, by

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imperceptible degrees I transferred

"the esteem of which I thought my "lord undeferving; and I foothed my "reproving confcience by fuppofing, "that in admiring you, I honoured virtue. Blindly pertinacious, I perfifted in rejecting the counfels of my more difcerning friends, and purfued my own "fallacious judgment which taught me, "that immoral actions were not the "natural confequence of relaxed prin

"ciple. You know that you concealed "the full tendency of thofe principles "from me. You know that I always "ftarted at what I thought feemed to "militate against religion and virtue. "You often affailed me, but I was your "admirer and apologift, not your con

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"Thus far I have contributed to my

undoing; and may my story be an "awful memento to all who, trusting "in the fuppofed fecurity of their own "virtue, neglect the fuggeftions of "prudence; and under the perverted "name of friendship, admit a finifter

gueft to difpute the poffeflion of their "affections with the lawful claims of " connubial duty! May it alfo warn "thofe wives, who availing themselves "of the indulgence of fashion, permit "the marked attentions of an agree“able man of unknown or fufpicious "cha

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character, however they may think "themselves fanctioned by cuftom, pro"tected by the rules of decorum, or fecured, as you taught me to think, by "the bond of pre-attachment. I shall "not then die in vain.

"Let me, though fhame and horror "alike agitate my trembling frame, "this once allude to thofe particulars "of my misfortunes which you alone "can illustrate. You feem to allow, "that it was to your artifices that I "owed the fatal abfence of my friend "and my husband on the day I left "Monteith. You know the arguments

by which you influenced my elope"ment; may your repentance enable you to escape the terrible malediction "with which you closed them. You "know how I hoped to overtake my "lord at every ftage; but your heart, "rendered callous by guilt, cannot con

"ceive the agonies of mine when I first

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fufpect ed your nefarious purpose. My << confused recollection can trace no ❝ more. I only know that returning " reason taught me, that I was a wretch " for ever.

"And can you, who know that your "life is in my hands, who are conscious "that, by telling my fad tale in a court "of justice, I could convit you of a "crime more foul than murder, suppose "me capable of plighting my faith to "a monfter! No! Fitzofborne ; en་ joy the fecurity which my own feel"ings, and not compaffion for you, "allow you to poffefs; but infult me "no more. Know, that the moment " which revealed your baseness tore from

my heart every veftige of esteem, and " taught me, by my deteftation of the offence, to hate and to defpife the

"offender.

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"From

"From a wish of roufing in your "breaft the torpid feelings of compunc ❝tion, I honour your letter with a copi"ous reply. The compliments you pay to beauty are ill addreffed to the "faded form which pens this epistle; "and the praife of fuperior talents are "equally inapplicable to her whom you " have proved guilty of the weakest va"nity, and the blindeft credulity.

"I have forfeited the name with " which lord Monteith once honoured "me, and I will not difgrace the un"fullied purity of my father's.

"GERALDINE.”

An interefting converfation took place between my Heroine and her friend upon the fubject of thefe letters. The counters had fhewn them to Miss Evans, and requested her opinion of the ten

dency

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