ent she has neither eyes nor ears for
any other object.

Now, my dear sober matron, (if a sober matron should deign to turn over
these pages, before she trusts them to the eye of a darling daughter,)
let me intreat you not to put on a grave face, and throw down the book
in a passion and declare 'tis enough to turn the heads of half the girls
in England; I do solemnly protest, my dear madam, I mean no more by
what I have here advanced, than to ridicule those romantic girls, who
foolishly imagine a red coat and silver epaulet constitute the fine
gentleman; and should that fine gentleman make half a dozen fine
speeches to them, they will imagine themselves so much in love as
to fancy it a meritorious action to jump out of a two pair of stairs
window, abandon their friends, and trust entirely to the honour of a
man, who perhaps hardly knows the meaning of the word, and if he does,
will be too much the modern man of refinement, to practice it in their
favour.

Gracious heaven! when I think on the miseries that must rend the heart
of a doating parent, when he sees the darling of his age at first
seduced from his protection, and afterwards abandoned, by the very
wretch whose promises of love decoyed her from the paternal roof--when
he sees her poor and wretched, her bosom tom between remorse for her
crime and love for her vile betrayer--when fancy paints to me the good
old man stooping to raise the weeping penitent, while every tear from
her eye is numbered by drops from his bleeding heart, my bosom glows
with honest indignation, and I wish for power to extirpate those
monsters of seduction from the earth.

Oh my dear girls--for to such only am I writing--listen not to the voice
of love, unless sanctioned by paternal approbation: be assured, it is
now past the days of romance: no woman can be run away with contrary
to her own inclination: then kneel down each morning, and request kind
heaven to keep you free from temptation, or, should it please to suffer
you to be tried, pray for fortitude to resist the impulse of inclination
when it runs counter to the precepts of religion and virtue.

CHAPTER VII.

NATURAL SENSE OF PROPRIETY INHERENT IN THE FEMALE BOSOM.

"I CANNOT think we have done exactly right in going out this evening,
Mademoiselle," said Charlotte, seating herself when she entered her
apartment: "nay, I am sure it was not right; for I expected to be very
happy, but was sadly disappointed."

"It was your