ence and
hardness of heart, which made me insensible to the sufferings of others,
and regardless of the plainest dictates of justice. Self was my idol. The
love of admiration, which was natural to me, was increased by the
flatterers who surrounded me; and had the customs of our country suffered
royalty to descend in their unions to a grade in life below their own,
your uncle would have escaped the fangs of my baneful coquetry.

"Oh! Marian, my child, never descend so low as to practise those arts
which have degraded your unhappy mother. I would impress on you, as a
memorial of my parting affection, these simple truths--that coquetry
stands next to the want of chastity in the scale of female vices; it is in
fact a kind of mental prostitution; it is ruinous to all that delicacy of
feeling which gives added lustre to female charms; it is almost
destructive to modesty itself. A woman who has been addicted to its
practice, may strive long and in vain to regain that singleness of heart,
which can bind her up so closely in her husband and children as to make
her a good wife or a mother; and if it should have degenerated into habit,
it may lead to the awful result of infidelity to her marriage vows.

"It is vain for a coquette to pretend to religion; its practice involves
hypocrisy, falsehood, and deception--everything that is mean--everything
that is debasing. In short, as it is bottomed on selfishness and pride,
where it has once possessed the mind, it will only yield to the
truth-displaying banners of the cross. This, and this only, can remove the
evil; for without it she, whom the charms of youth and beauty have enabled
to act the coquette, will descend into the vale of life, altered, it is
true, but not amended. She will find the world, with its allurements,
clinging around her parting years, in vain regrets for days that are
flown, and in mercenary views for her descendants. Heaven bless you, my
children, console and esteem your inestimable father while he yet remains
with you; and place your reliance on that Heavenly Parent who will never
desert those who seek him in sincerity and love. Your dying mother,

"M. PENDENNYSS."

This letter, evidently written under the excitement of deep remorse, made
a great impression on both her children. In Lady Marian it was pity,
regret, and abhorrence of the fault which had been the principal cause of
the wreck of her mother's peace of mind; but in her brother, now Earl of
Pendennys