He assumed a new mode of attack, and
I was, for a while, the dupe of his pretended friendship.

"I had, merely in the style of _badinage_, boasted of my conquest, and
repeated his lover-like compliments to my husband. But he begged me, for
God's sake, not to affront his friend, or I should destroy all his
projects, and be his ruin. Had I had more affection for my husband, I
should have expressed my contempt of this time-serving politeness: now I
imagined that I only felt pity; yet it would have puzzled a casuist to
point out in what the exact difference consisted.

"This friend began now, in confidence, to discover to me the real state
of my husband's affairs. 'Necessity,' said Mr. S----; why should I reveal
his name? for he affected to palliate the conduct he could not excuse,
'had led him to take such steps, by accommodation bills, buying goods on
credit, to sell them for ready money, and similar transactions, that his
character in the commercial world was gone. He was considered,' he added,
lowering his voice, 'on 'Change as a swindler.'

"I felt at that moment the first maternal pang. Aware of the evils my sex
have to struggle with, I still wished, for my own consolation, to be the
mother of a daughter; and I could not bear to think, that the _sins_ of
her father's entailed disgrace, should be added to the ills to which
woman is heir.

"So completely was I deceived by these shows of friendship (nay, I
believe, according to his interpretation, Mr. S--really was my friend)
that I began to consult him respecting the best mode of retrieving my
husband's character: it is the good name of a woman only that sets to
rise no more. I knew not that he had been drawn into a whirlpool, out of
which he had not the energy to attempt to escape. He seemed indeed
destitute of the power of employing his faculties in any regular
pursuit. His principles of action were so loose, and his mind so
uncultivated, that every thing like order appeared to him in the shape of
restraint; and, like men in the savage state, he required the strong
stimulus of hope or fear, produced by wild speculations, in which the
interests of others went for nothing, to keep his spirits awake. He one
time possessed patriotism, but he knew not what it was to feel honest
indignation; and pretended to be an advocate for liberty, when, with as
little affection for the human race as for individuals, he thought of
nothing but his own gratification. He was just such a