powerful, that she found she dared not hazard a reproof from
him even in the person of his father, whose rigour she had already more
than once experienced, in the frequent harsh messages conveyed to her
with the poor stipend for her boy.

Awed by the rigid and pious character of the new bishop, the growing
reputation, and rising honours of his son, she mistook the appearance of
moral excellence for moral excellence itself, and felt her own
unworthiness even to become the supplicant of those great men.

Day after day she watched those parts of the town through which William's
chariot was accustomed to drive; but to see the _carriage_ was all to
which she aspired; a feeling, not to be described, forced her to cast her
eyes upon the earth as it drew near to her; and when it had passed, she
beat her breast, and wept that she had not seen _him_.

Impressed with the superiority of others, and her own abject and
disgustful state, she cried, "Let me herd with those who won't despise
me; let me only see faces whereon I can look without confusion and
terror; let me associate with wretches like myself, rather than force my
shame before those who are so good they can but scorn and hate me."

With a mind thus languishing for sympathy in disgrace, she entered a
servant in the house just now described. There disregarding the fatal
proverb against "_evil communications_," she had not the firmness to be
an exception to the general rule. That pliant disposition, which had
yielded to the licentious love of William, stooped to still baser
prostitution in company still more depraved.

At first she shuddered at those practices she saw, at those conversations
she heard, and blest herself that poverty, not inclination, had caused
her to be a witness of such profligacy, and had condemned her in this
vile abode to be a servant, rather than in the lower rank of mistress.
Use softened those horrors every day; at length self-defence, the fear of
ridicule, and the hope of favour, induced her to adopt that very conduct
from which her heart revolted.

In her sorrowful countenance and fading charms there yet remained
attraction for many visitors; and she now submitted to the mercenary
profanations of love, more odious, as her mind had been subdued by its
most captivating, most endearing joys.

While incessant regret whispered to her "that she ought to have endured
every calamity rather than this," she thus questioned her nice sense of
wrong,