combined with a certain portion of
information and good sense, sufficed to render amusing companions. She
had lately extended the circle of her acquaintance in this respect; and
her mind, trembling between the opposite impressions of past anguish and
renovating tranquillity, found ease in this species of recreation.
Wherever Mary appeared, admiration attended upon her. She had always
displayed talents for conversation; but maturity of understanding, her
travels, her long residence in France, the discipline of affliction, and
the smiling, new-born peace which awaked a corresponding smile in her
animated countenance, inexpressibly increased them. The way in which the
story of Mr. Imlay was treated in these polite circles, was probably
the result of the partiality she excited. These elegant personages were
divided between their cautious adherence to forms, and the desire to
seek their own gratification. Mary made no secret of the nature of her
connection with Mr. Imlay; and in one instance, I well know, she put
herself to the trouble of explaining it to a person totally indifferent
to her, because he never failed to publish every thing he knew, and, she
was sure, would repeat her explanation to his numerous acquaintance. She
was of too proud and generous a spirit to stoop to hypocrisy. These
persons however, in spite of all that could be said, persisted in
shutting their eyes, and pretending they took her for a married woman.

Observe the consequence of this! While she was, and constantly
professed to be, an unmarried mother; she was fit society for the
squeamish and the formal. The moment she acknowledged herself a wife,
and that by a marriage perhaps unexceptionable, the case was altered.
Mary and myself, ignorant as we were of these elevated refinements,
supposed that our marriage would place her upon a surer footing in the
calendar of polished society, than ever. But it forced these people to
see the truth, and to confess their belief of what they had carefully
been told; and this they could not forgive. Be it remarked, that the
date of our marriage had nothing to do with this, that question being
never once mentioned during this period. Mary indeed had, till now,
retained the name of Imlay which had first been assumed from necessity
in France; but its being retained thus long, was purely from the
aukwardness that attends the introduction of a change, and not from an
apprehension of consequences of this sort. Her scrup