or disgraced,
society. Her name was Meribah Lorrington. She was the most
extensively accomplished female that I ever remember to have met
with; her mental powers were no less capable of cultivation than
superiorly cultivated. Her father, whose name was Hull, had from her
infancy been master of an academy at Earl's Court, near Fulham; and
early after his marriage, losing his wife, he resolved on giving this
daughter a masculine education. Meribah was early instructed in all
the modern accomplishments, as well as in classical knowledge. She
was mistress of the Latin, French, and Italian languages; she was
said to be a perfect arithmetician and astronomer, and possessed the
art of painting on silk to a degree of exquisite perfection. But,
alas! with all these advantages, she was addicted to one vice, which
at times so completely absorbed her faculties as to deprive her of
every power, either mental or corporeal. Thus, daily and hourly, her
superior acquirements, her enlightened understanding, yielded to the
intemperance of her ruling infatuation, and every power of reflection
seemed absorbed in the unfeminine propensity.

"All that I ever learned," adds Mrs. Robinson, "I acquired from this
extraordinary woman. In those hours when her senses were not
intoxicated, she would delight in the task of instructing me. She
had only five or six pupils, and it was my lot to be her particular
favourite. She always, out of school, called me her little friend,
and made no scruple of conversing with me (sometimes half the night,
for I slept in her chamber) on domestic and confidential affairs. I
felt for her very sincere affection, and I listened with peculiar
attention to all the lessons she inculcated. Once I recollect her
mentioning the particular failing which disgraced so intelligent a
being. She pleaded, in excuse of it, the unmitigable regret of a
widowed heart, and with compunction declared that she flew to
intoxication as the only refuge from the pang of prevailing sorrow."

Mrs. Robinson remained more than twelve months under the care of Mrs.
Lorrington,

"When pecuniary derangements obliged her to give up her school. Her
father's manners were singularly disgusting, as was his appearance,
for he wore a silvery beard, which reached to his breast, and a kind
of Persian robe, whic