SIR,
MISELLA now sits down to continue her
narrative. I am convinced that nothing would
more powerfully preserve youth from irregularity,
or guard inexperience from seduction, than a just
description of the condition into which the wanton
plunges herself; and therefore hope that my letter
may be a sufficient antidote to my example.
After the distraction, hesitation, and delays which
the timidity of guilt naturally produces, I was
removed to lodgings in a distant part of the town,
under one of the characters commonly assumed upon
such occasions. Here being by my circumstances
condemned to solitude, I passed most of my hours
in bitterness and anguish. The conversation of the
people with whom I was placed was not at all capable
of engaging my attention, or dispossessing the
reigning ideas. The books which I carried to my
retreat were such as heightened my abhorrence of
myself; for I was not so far abandoned as to sink
voluntarily into corruption, or endeavour to conceal
from my own mind the enormity of my crime.
My relation remitted none of his fondness, but
visited me so often, that I was sometimes afraid
lest his assiduity should expose him to suspicion.
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